Project Description
As part of the creative development of Klapping, Ahil and Feras took part in a residency in Antwerp through Monty Kultuurfaktorij which led to a public showing of the work as part of the Nuit Blanche Festival on 6 October 2018. Nuit blanche is a free cultural event that is open to all, presenting contemporary performance in public spaces. In particular, performances take place in spaces that are usually closed or abandoned, outlying areas, prestigious locations or places that form part of the city’s cultural heritage, allowing them to be revisited in unusual ways by artists.
Ahil and Feras developed the movement language and conceptual framework of the piece, which combines soccer moves and hip hop dance moves in a new urban movement form called Klapping. At the festival, this movement was offered as a participatory experience for 50-60 people, on a cement football court. This outcome has proved formative in the development of the work as it moves towards presentation in Campbelltown in March 2019.
Education/ Community Engagement
Ahil and Feras ran a series of ‘classes’ during their residency through which they recruited ‘reserves’ for the final ‘initiation’. At Nuit Blanche, they engaged approximately 60 participants and approximately 500 festival-goers encountered the work as audience.