Vivian Crespo Zurita – NOSOTRAS por NOSOTRAS

Full of spiritual magic, NOSOTRAS por NOSOTRAS tackles issues like faith, strength, and empowerment through dance, music, and painting. The space for the performance is interspersed with elements of nature. The performance NOSOTRAS por NOSOTRAS, Spanish for ‘we for us’, may show a rather glorifying image of the original culture of Vivian Crespo Zurita’s native Cuba. At the same time, it takes a clear stance against all those who oppress, exploit, and commit systematic racism. Joined by Brazilian-born Alessandra dos Santos Silva, Crespo Zurita creates new characters moving through mythical worlds. The performers reference traditions, but subject them to contemporary observation. Here, art is a shield, a voice against physical and psychological violence.

Vivian Crespo Zurita, born and raised in Cuba, lives in Vienna and studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. She has already been involved in international art festivals and projects. Her main focus in her art is feminist activism. 

Alessandra dos Santos Silva, born and raised in Brazil, lives in Vienna and studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. Her topics of interest include sculpture, painting, dance, and performance.

Defne Uluer – Goodbye Moonmen

Inspirations drawn from daily life, relationships, and bizarre street scenes meet clownery, dance, music, and theatre. Those are the ingredients for Defne Uluer, a young performer with Turkish origins, and her solo piece Goodbye Moonmen.

Defne Uluer describes herself as a ghost who loves movement and reality equally. In her artistic practice, she creates spaces using devices from dance, clownery, acting, voice, musical instruments, and improvisation. For her solo piece Goodbye Moonmen, rather than adjusting to each respective performance space, Uluer turns it into her very private cave, where she confronts her inner voice and various aspects of acceptance and expectations she’s uncomfortable with. In doing so, she doesn’t even try to create a grandiose masterpiece. Instead, she throws everything together to make a big whole. Just so.

Defne Uluer is originally from Turkey, she now lives and works in Vienna. She studied contemporary dance at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul and came to do an Erasmus year at the Music and Arts University of Vienna.

The artists were selected by brut’s audience club BEATE and supported with a research grant. BEATE is an initiative born in the context of Be SpectACTive! Be SpectACTive! is a comprehensive European co-operation project co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. It is active in the performing arts as it presents art productions and participatory practices with the aim of involving citizens and spectators in creative and organisational processes. Members include European festivals, theatres, cultural organisations, universities and one research centre.

www.bespectactive.eu