Being Moved and Moving, Non-Metaphorically: The Case of the Protest Movement in Serbia
Being Moved and Moving, Non-Metaphorically: The Case of the Protest Movement in Serbia

Summary/Abstract: Within the past year, the ongoing student-led protest movement in Serbia has been deeply reshaping the landscape we live and move in. We ask ourselves, as artists and cultural workers, how may we offer our expertise? More specifically, beyond the affective and reflective framework that we operate in, what are the practices and know-hows that could be used to strategize and change the course of social and political movements? By addressing different notions of performativity, and the relationship between kinetic and ideological movement, we reflect on what it takes for a body to move politically and freely. We look into what dynamics come into play when bodies gather, move, and chant, and explore the choreographic and dramaturgical implications of a protest, suggesting how they can be situated outside the predetermined and consensual spaces of artistic expression. Ultimately, we argue for artistic tools, knowledge and the stage offered by public space to be seen not as metaphors, but effective operational strategies that can be integrated in the protest movement and offer a new kind of understanding of the mechanisms needed for enacting change.

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