Ophelia Young

10.01.2021

Ophelia Young is an African American dancer, performer and creative living and working in NRW. She studied contemporary dance at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and worked full time with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch for over seven years. At the moment she is devoting herself entirely to her career as a freelance dancer, performer and artist in the performing arts. In her most recent research, she has devoted herself to the phenomenon of anger. She focuses on the experience(s) of women and takes them as the starting point for her work.

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Residencies

Ein Eiswürfelform gefüllt mit Erde aus der Kabel in verschiedenen Farben ragen und die Fächer der Eiswürfelform miteinander verbinden

#ResidencyInsights bacilli

»bacilli (Shotaro Yoshino, Yoshitaka Nanjo & James Jack; based in the archipelago of Japan) listen closely to the energy of microorganisms inside the soil in Zollverein—what do these bacteria inside of land say to us? In this residency we layered geological research on coal memories, oral histories with residents in Ruhr on what gives them energy today and connecting power circuits with imaginative thinking.«

Residencies

Ein Gruppenfoto mit vier Personen mit Theaterstrahlern leicht von unten angeleuchtet, Bemalungen im Gesicht, in einem Raum mit weißen Vorhängen an den Wänden, Äste und Gestrüpp hinter der Gruppe arrangiert

#ResidencyInsights Kukily Colectivo

»Our residency at PACT was an exciting and intense period of work on our new project XTRÆNCESTRAL, set to premiere at the Lagos Biennial in February 2024. It was also a time to come together and work on our body-based performance practice, after several years of long-distance artistic processes.«

Residencies

Raz Slavarito mit bunter Projektion auf dem Gesicht

Retrospektive: Residency Café Plants & Memories

Changing memories of weather phenomena or plants as sources of food and reservoirs of knowledge: the open Residency Café ›Plants & Memories‹ offered insights into the work of resident artists Razcel Jan Salvarita and aniara rodado.

Residencies

En Skater spring mit seinem Skateboard über eine liegende Person im Flur von PACT Zollverein

#ResidencyInsights Márcio Kerber Canabarro

»When I grasp an environment is acknowledging me, I feel a strong sense of continuation, (and extension) of belonging. It might be a mutual process, where my focus gets curious to notice where I am, the place, the situation, the density of a particular room, the feelings that rise and the sensations that leave...«

Residencies

Sahar sitzt auf einem grünen Samtsofa und schaut mit dem Kopf auf die Hand gestützt in die Kamera.

#ResidencyInsights Sahar Damoni

Sahar Damoni’s new work is a multi-disciplinary solo performance installation which continues her research around reproductive and sexual freedom, bodily autonomy, and the impact of abortion for Arab women. The work will combine movement, photography and video projection and textiles that serve as a visual art element.

Residencies

Emmanuel Ndefo hockt vor einer Leinwand mit einer Fotografie von einem performenden Mann

#ResidencyInsights Emmanuel Ndefo

»Adamma- ›The Passage‹ is a solo performance based on the 'Adamma' maiden spirit ritual, touching on forms of transgression and of shape shifting through embodiment and African ancestral spirituality. In this work, I will explore Igbo maiden spirit rituals of crossdressing, transsexualism and transvestism as subversive places, where the notion of subjectivity is challenged, where gender norms are questioned, and where identity is always perceived as capable of construction, invention and change.«

Residencies

Koloto Siraji in einem weißen Anzug auf einer schwarzen Bühne im Lichtkegel

#ResidencyInsights Koloto Siraji

»During my residency at PACT, I was questioning the nature of a living body from the perspective of an African. This involved reflecting on my own childhood traumas and transgenerational conflicts as well as looking at an African body as an archive of transgenerational history. How do I contain the energies that were passed on to me by my ancestors? How do I live with past traumas in the present?«

Residencies

Die Performer:innen sitzen mit bedeckten Gesichtern auf einer roten Samtcouch

#ResidencyInsights María Mercedes Flores Mujica, Constanza Javiera Ruiz, Brigitte Huezo & Hendrik Eichler

Our residency in PACT was the second rehearsal period for the production ›What, Where, When are we?!‹ a work that sets out to explore the question of whether identity is rooted in one space and time. It is a rhythmical approach to transnational and multidimensional embodied experiences. Four performers on stage, live drums, and radio stations create sound layers that interweave with body memories.

Residencies

Val Souza während des Showings bei PACT Zollverein

#ResidencyInsights Val Souza & Guego Anunciação

Continuing the investigation and convening different and varied sources of archives of iconographies of black women, Venus articulates the extensive selection of gestures present in the images and representations of black women of different origins and times, as well as Val Souza's own self-portrait, that she has been collecting in what she has been calling the Venus archive about 5,000 thousand images, 2,000 self-portraits that can be a source of analysis about possible similarities in the way black women are portrayed and represented.

Residencies

caner teker during their residency at PACT Zollverein

#ResidencyInsights caner teker

»After ›KIRKPINAR‹ & ›karadeniz‹, my new research on queer androgynous belly dancers called ›köçek‹ will conclude in a trilogy about the trans-individualist self beyond identity politics. Death, mourning and its affects continue my motivation in inviting witnesses to a shared experience of a temporary community in the black box.«

Residencies

Wezile Harmans perfroming in front a red light

#ResidencyInsights Wezile Harmans

»›The Body. The Voice.‹ is a series performance work that studies the development of a human body. The work focuses on the body's relationship with familiar and unfamiliar spaces. The work is divided into 3 scenes using video, live performance and installation. These scenes take us through to lived experiences and tragic events that occurred/occurring across the world, how the body finds itself to adopt, evolve and immense itself through these uncomfortable and difficult trials.«

Residencies

Die Künstlerin sitzt mit Farbe beschmiert auf einem Haufen Erde.

#ResidencyInsights Idylla Silmarovi

»The dream manifests itself in the present, action attentive to the world around. I smell memories in the territory of others in the midst of a theater that dances in ruins, a choreography of the body – territory, barking at the border in a situation of war. Submerged in a creative studio and open to the city and the outside, sometimes I step firmly on the ground to make sure I'm here. Living? I don't know anymore.«

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Ophelia Young

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