CONSTANT BECOMING

A transdisciplinary exploration, Constant Becoming will take the participants to a personal journey of architectural choreography, exploring the way we engage, perceive, and create space by moving. It is an invitation to open up a fresh perspective to relate anew to the world around us; to the emotions of objects and materiality; to the childhood memories that the space conjures up; to the story of someone quietly sitting over there; to the speed of the streets where we walk every day; to the environment we breathe in; and to the quality of light where we have yet been in our imagination... And perhaps to question what makes us move, and to start asking new questions about the construct of the city, architecture and the life that contains. All through our thinking body and moving mind because the world is ever changing and never static.

We will listen to the voices and desires of the space and the place through the choreography of our moving bodies. Invigorating movement sessions will awaken our spatial awareness, while playful activities experiment with architectural ideas. With individual inner motivations and senses, participants will learn to express embodied ideas through the physicality of the body and choreography - an alternative creative process of architecture. We will uncover and express the intangible relationalities and layered constellations of intentions of the city of Porto, a terrain of the oblique. By translating our spatial engagement and felt senses into movement vocabularies, Constant Becoming will culminate in a collective performance as an experimental architectural dialogue.

Nestled within the heart of the city, our field of operation is studio spaces of INSTITUTO and Balleteatro - our partners in Porto.

The urban streets and public spaces rich with culture and culinary delight will also be our playgrounds. The direct explorations will inspire our creation of choreographic objects with which we will articulate the project sites with our moving bodies. There will be a day of excursion to visit wonderful architectures that Porto has to offer including Alvaro Siza’s Tidal Swimming Pool where we will also engage with movement.

Movement lets us unlearn what we habitually know and learn towards more relational understanding of the world around us, while also help cultivating trust and togetherness – vital for our collective future when we face global crises where holistic human approaches are fundamental towards an alternative worldmaking. With questions and curiosities, we will move, talk, think, draw, watch, listen, write, and make, in conversation with the city and each other. We will eat and drink together; wonder and wander; to dance and to perform; and to create. Expect the infectious happiness of moving together!

Open to all for those who work and study in architecture and spatial practice, as well as social and cultural practice in wider context, Constant Becoming hopes that the participants encounter and challenge something unfamiliar or even strange. Because it is these moments of fresh encounters when our creative intuition works at its best and discover something of lasting importance. Choreography as an agency for architecture encourages something a little autobiographical that reflects who we are through moving, and moving together towards creating collective experience.

No prior experience in dance and choreography necessary, only your curious self to participate!