Free Interdisciplinary Performance Lab

With the first appointment of the outstanding performance artist Marina Abramović to the Pina Bausch Professorship at the Folkwang University of the Arts, the focus in the 2023-23 academic year was placed on transdisciplinarity, artistic daring and social awareness. The project supervised by Abramović, entitled "Free Interdisciplinary Performance Laboratory (FIPL)", was realised in a class put together by her, in which she brought together over 20 students from the fields of music (classical and jazz, instrumental, vocal and composition), dance, design, photography, (physical) theatre and directing. The students developed individual or collective concepts for performances and learnt how to develop a long-term performative work form in an experience-based process. In a workshop entitled "Cleaning the House", which was organised according to a method developed by Marina Abramović method developed by Marina Abramović, the students developed a sense of the presence required in performances, including the exploration of their individual physical and mental limits.The outstanding performance artist Marina Abramović was the first holder of the new Pina Bausch Professorship at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen in 2022/23. She focused on transdisciplinarity, artistic daring and social awareness. In her Free Interdisciplinary Performance Laboratory (FIPL), Abramović brought together over twenty students from the fields of music, dance, design, photography, (physical) theater and directing. Over two semesters, they realized artistic-performative projects that dealt with agency, resilience and body awareness and explored physical and mental boundaries.