Kundura Sahne‘s interdisciplinary and international concept and practice development program in the field of performance, held for the first time this year, PerformLab, is bringing together artists from Türkiye and the Netherlands at Beykoz Kundura from May 29 to June 6. The second of the artists we are hosting in Ten-Question Conversations is educator, theater maker, director and performance artist Samara Hersch

Interview: Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel

Art Unlimited – 10-Question Conversations

***To read the full interview in Art Unlimited Magazine, CLICK HERE

SAMARA HERSCH

Kundura Sahne‘s interdisciplinary and international concept and practice development program in the field of performance, held for the first time this year, PerformLab, is bringing together artists from Türkiye and the Netherlands at Beykoz Kundura from May 29 to June 6. Realized by Kundura Sahne in partnership with Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam and with the support of Dutch Performing Arts, the PerformLab program will give artists from Türkiye at different stages of their careers, selected through an open call – Barış Arman, Dilan Onay, Doğan Can Serinkaya, Filiz İzem Yaşın, Halil İbrahim Aygün, Nadir Sönmez, Nursev Irmak, Onur Karaoğlu and Selen Gürmen – the opportunity to share and develop their work over the course of a week, together with the artists from the Netherlands. PerformLab will also be accompanied by artist İlyas Odman as its Art Fermenter, bringing a new perspective to artistic processes through the concept of fermentation. This approach, which proposes using fermentation as a tool for looking at artistic processes from a new perspective, will form the backbone of PerformLab.

The artists joining from the Netherlands are dancer and choreographer Benjamin Kahn, Amsterdam Fringe Award–winning dancer and performance artist Cherish Menzo, actor and performance artist Khadija El Kharraz Alami, and Green Room Award–winning educator, artist, theater maker and director Samara Hersch. Next in Ten-Question Conversations, we are hosting educator, theater maker, director and performance artist Samara Hersch. Placing the intersections of contemporary performance and participatory art practices at the heart of her creative process, Samara Hersch is an artist interested in non-hierarchical forms of sharing discourse and knowledge across generations. In her performances, into which she boldly incorporates the new forms that current conditions offer, and at times impose, Hersch invites her audiences, as participants in the process, to reflect on critical issues affecting future generations, to engage in a reciprocal intergenerational and intercontinental conversation, and to realize that they are part of a larger community, while at the same time aiming to craft an intimate experience for them.

What do you think is the essence of performance? How would you define performance today?

For me, contemporary performance is an encounter: with the other, with a stranger, with oneself… I am curious about what might happen in this space between us, and which possibilities that everyday life deprives us of can be brought to light, rehearsed and taken apart.

What new perspectives do you think interdisciplinary production in the arts offers artists?

At its best, it creates a sense of community and offers new ways to care for others, to resist, to show up and to listen.

What specifically (performance, process, etc.) will you share with the PerformLab participants?

I will be sharing my curiosity about distance and intimacy. Since I will be participating remotely, I hope to explore the potential of distance as a vehicle for desire, longing and closeness.

After taking part in PerformLab, what do you imagine you will take with you from your experience in Istanbul?

I hope my artistic community will expand as a result of new encounters; I see this as just the beginning of a conversation that will continue….

***To read the full interview in Art Unlimited Magazine, CLICK HERE