What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you?
Since his early 20’s Michael Kliën has been engaged in fundamentally deconstructing our civilization’s assumptions on choreography, dance and culture. He set out to develop choreography as an autonomous artistic discipline concerned with the workings and governance of patterns, dynamics and ecologies. In response to the urgency of our contemporary ecological situation, this expanded conception of choreography engages its social potential to pursue sustainable orders of human relations (Social Choreography). Choreography—as an Aesthetics of Change—assumes the creative practice of setting relations, or setting the conditions for new relations to emerge.
Over the years Michael Kliën’s artistic development has been guided by the ideas of Gregory Bateson, Alain Badiou, Joseph Beuys, William Forsythe, Gordon Lawrence, Sophia Lycouris and numerous close collaborators such as Steve Valk, Jeffrey Gormly, Vitoria Kotsalou, Christina Gangos, Volkmar Klien and Nicholas Mortimore amongst others.
Book of Recommendations, a manifesto on choreography with Steve Valk and Jeffrey Gormly (pdf)
What Do You Choreograph at the End of the World? with Steve Valk (pdf)
