WHAT DOES THE SPACE KNOW
by Farah Saleh & Mirjam Sögner
Gallery 1, Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)
Royal Exchange Square | Glasgow | G1 3AH
Sunday 2 October 2022 | 3pm
Tickets FREE via Eventbrite

Spaces are temporal. And a potential for a shared moment.

In this interactive dance performance/installation they unfold, come to life, and then transform. We wonder how their resonance remains with us? How does the knowledge they have produced inform the places we are creating now?

In this dance duet we investigate how spaces turn into places through connecting the past, present and future of the individual and the collective. Memories and imagination guide us through the creation of temporary embodied ways of relating.

Between dance, theatre, and installation art, dance artists Farah Saleh (Palestine/UK) and Mirjam Sögner (DE/AT) explore how creatively being in/with vanished places can become a new form of meeting and being with others.

First performed in Dance Base Edinburgh, WHAT DOES THE SPACE KNOW has been reimagined for the opulent main gallery space at GoMA as part of a programme of performance creating new encounters within the museum.

Farah Saleh is an award-winning Palestinian dancer and choreographer based in Scotland, who is active in Palestine, Europe and the USA. She has studied Linguistic and Cultural Mediation in Italy and in parallel continued her studies in Contemporary Dance. Alongside dancing and teaching nationally and internationally, she was an Associate Artist at Dance Base from Edinburgh 2017-2021 and is currently finishing her practice-based PhD at Edinburgh College of Art.

Since 2010 she has taken part in local and international projects with companies including: Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK).

Since 2010, Saleh has been teaching dance, coordinating and curating artistic projects with the Palestinian Circus School, Sareyyet Ramallah and the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. In 2016 she co-founded Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Summer School, which runs on a yearly basis.

In 2014 Saleh won the third prize of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) organised by A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine for her installation A Fidayee Son in Moscow and in 2016 she won the dance prize of Palest’In and Out Festival in Paris for the duet La Même.

Mirjam Sögner works as a choreographer and coach between Berlin and Vienna. She studied contemporary dance, artistic research and choreography at MUK Vienna and ArtEZ Arn-hem in the Netherlands. Trainings in design thinking, systemic organisational development and coaching followed.

Her pieces tour internationally and have been presented at venues such as Frascati Amsterdam, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Dancehouse Melbourne, Circuit-Est Montreal, Goethe Institut Ramallah, Austrian Cultural Center Istanbul, Brut Vienna, Dansens Hus Oslo, Rote Fabrik Zurich, Sophiensäle Berlin.

Sögner is the recipient of numerous scholarships including the DanceWeb Scholarship/ Impulstanz, the Research Residency at the Goethe Institute Montreal, the Berlin Senate Dance Scholarship and was part of the Aerowaves Touring Network in 2016. She regularly teaches at the BA Dance program ArtEZ Arnhem as well as at the FU Berlin.

Credits:
Choreography and performance:       Farah Saleh and Mirjam Sögner
Composition:                                       Samuel Hertz
Dramaturgy support:                           Luke Pell
Set and costumes:                              Zephyr Liddell
Videographer:                                     Lucas Chih-Peng Kao 
PR and marketing:                              Joy Parkinson

Supporters:
A production from and by Farah Saleh & Mirjam Sögner in co-production with Goethe Institute Glasgow. The project is funded by Goethe-Institute International Co-production Fund and this performance at GoMA is supported by Art Fund through their Respond and Reimagine Fund. Originally premiered in Dance Base Edinburgh (May 2022) where it was also supported by the MORE THAN THIS dance network, Kanuti Gildi Saal Tallinn, Naves Matadero Madrid and Dance Base Edinburgh.

Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA): Situated in the heart of the City Centre, GoMA is Scotland’s most visited modern and contemporary art gallery displaying work that highlights the interests, influences and working methods of artists from around the world. This performance is part of the GoMA at 25 programme devised during lockdown to expand opportunities for artists and audiences to mark the museum’s 25^th anniversary in 2021.