Cultural Program - CONVIVIAL CULTURES | XI Lisbon Summer School for the Study of Culture - Brian Jay de Lima Ambulo, Davide Tarragoni, Duarte Laranjo, Ilaria Sponda, Jacopo Stofler, Megha Shekhawat

HOMEOSTATIC. A COLLABORATIVE PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Homeostatic (2021) is a collaborative dance project by Brian Jay de Lima Ambulo and Megha Shekhawat which explores and inquires the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the personal and political body through control and surveillance enacted by states of emergency.

From the word homeostasis, rooting its origins from the Greek words homoios (similar) and stasis (standing still), it refers to “how the human body maintains steady levels of temperature and other vital conditions such as the water, salt, sugar, protein, fat, calcium and oxygen contents of the blood” (Rodolfo 2000). Initially introduced for biological sciences, it has found its way in social sciences as the “integration of impulse and reason, lower and higher desires and values” (Mukerjee 1966, 76). 

However, maintaining such a level of equilibrium and constancy is only achieved through control and surveillance—internally, within the body, and externally, within the body politic. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the individual and communal balance have been challenged, and modes of control have reached new levels of rigour and schema, acting to “produce a transparent body, stripped of its opaque singularity” (Gil 2020, 95). 

What happens when a body is governed to be at home—static? What happens to a commanded body when survival is only possible through maintaining distance? Furthermore, how are these incorporated into migrant bodies? 

Drawing inspiration from a reading and translations of a Hindi poem entitled Birth Pangs (2021) by Yashwant Shekhawat, the performance look at conflict and conviviality through movement and embodiment. It was conceived on the music production of Davide Tarragoni and Jacopo Stofler, and filmed and edited by Duarte Laranjo under the artistic direction of Ilaria Sponda. 

Cited Works 

Gil, Isabel Capeloa. "The Global Eye or Foucault Rewired: Security, Control, and Scholarship in the Twenty-first Century." Futures of the Study of Culture, 2020, 94-109. doi:10.1515/9783110669398-006. 

Mukerjee, Radhakamal. "Homeostasis, Society, and Values." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 27, no. 1 (1966): 74. doi:10.2307/2106140. 

Rodolfo, Kevin. "What Is Homeostasis?" Scientific American. January 03, 2000. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-homeostasis/

Biographies

Brian Jay de Lima Ambulo is currently a PhD student in Culture Studies under The Lisbon Consortium at the Catholic University of Portugal. He is an award-winning operations officer who worked for the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, managing portfolios on startups and the creative and cultural industries, and drafting cultural policy recommendations. He received his BA in History and Political Science from the University of the Philippines (2012); and his MA in Dance and Anthropology from Norway, France, Hungary, and the UK (2016) through the Erasmus+ programme. His PhD dissertation, currently entitled Our Future is Culture: A Manifesto Advancing Creative Placemaking in Post-Disaster Philippines continuously navigates the intersections of creativities, cultures, grassroots, governance, sustainable development, and policymaking. 

Davide Tarragoni is concluding his BA in Commercial Modern Music at BIMM Dublin. He is a songwriter, composer and music producer. He has been working on different projects between Ireland and Italy like Mac Rose and AIS among others. His interest spans from ambient to electronic music and he has performed in several prestigious Dublin-based venues like Button Factory, Whelan’s and Workman’s Club.

Duarte Laranjo is currently a Master’s student in Culture Studies under The Lisbon Consortium at the Catholic University of Portugal (Lisbon) and holds a BA in Media Studies (2019) from the same institution. He completed a professional course in Scriptwriting for Cinema and TV at the WorldAcademy School (2020). He works as freelance writer and filmmaker, collaborating with EmFim - Associação do Artista and other independent artists. He founded and is currently working on a comedy project as a screenwriter, actor and video editor. His research interests are creativity, contemporary philosophy, comedy and literature.

Ilaria Sponda is a Master’s student in Culture Studies under The Lisbon Consortium at the Catholic University of Portugal (Lisbon). She holds a BA in Arts, Performing Arts and Cultural Events at IULM (Milan). Her current research interests lie in visual arts, particularly contemporary photography, and their use and meaning in society and identity construction processes. Furthermore, she focuses on visual education and techniques of dialogue facilitation around photography, and emancipatory and dialogic practices within communities and disadvantaged areas. She is also interested in curatorship, and she is an artist herself actively participating in exhibitions and collaborations.

Jacopo Stofler is concluding his BA in Commercial Modern Music at BIMM Dublin. He works as a guitarist and music producer, collaborating with other independent artists based in Dublin. He founded and is part of the band Strawman and the Jackdaws, while currently starting up new music projects between Italy and Ireland. He has performed in several prestigious Dublin-based venues like Button Factory, Grand Social, Whelan’s and Workman’s Club. 

Megha Shekhawat is currently a Master’s student in Culture Studies under The Lisbon Consortium at the Catholic University of Portugal. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from the University of Mumbai (2018); and her MA in Bharatanatyam from Pune (2020). She was a teaching assistant in SIWS school and Nalanda Nritya Kala Mahavidyalaya for the subject Rhythmic Movement and Gesture (Bharatanatyam). She has published a paper as a co-writer for The Myth of Kirtimukha - Looking through the glass, at the International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture (Pune). Her research interest lies in studying the inter-relationship between art and cognition. She has also performed in several prestigious dance festivals like Times Sanskruti Arts Festival and Natyanjali Festival. She collaborated with a fashion designer Vaishali S, wherein she choreographed and performed at the Lakme Fashion Week 2020.