The Liberated Planet Studio (LPS) is a free Saturday workshop series for artists and activists interested in ecological and movement research at the intersections of social and environmental justice. Fourteen local and visiting artists, activists and academics will lead workshops. The project’s many collaborators will come together to experiment with socio-ecological concepts and collective movement practices. The LPS seeks to mobilize discourse about the intersections of environmental and social exploitation, human and animal experience and intercultural planetary struggles for liberation from the extractive logics of colonial capitalism. A guiding question is: “What would a liberated planet look like? And how might we achieve this together?”
All bodies are welcome. You do not have to be a professional dancer to participate. The LPS will be a place to practice ethics of global revolutionary solidarity, based in care-politics. This means acclimating to new habits and modes of social relation and agreeing to a communal set of practices that center accessibility, consent and communal care. The studio is accessible to chair-users and COVID-safety measures will be taken to protect the immuno-compromised.
While activities will be open to all, the studio has a capacity of 20 people and a majority of workshop spots will be held for BIPoC, gender-queer (trans, two-spirit) and disabled self-identifying participants. This will ensure that those who have been historically excluded from dance spaces due to discrimination, access issues and unaffordability are given the opportunity to explore somatic work together. Non-BIPoC, gender queer and disabled self-identifying participants will join a waitlist and be issued tickets on a first-come-first-served basis.
Starting January 17, for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays the studio will also be open for drop-in collaborations and open movement, where texts, music, maps and ecological studies shared as collective prompts.
The LPS is founded by Ayasha Guerin, an interdisciplinary artist, curator and professor of Black Diaspora Studies at the University of British Columbia.
Supported by UBC Community Engagement.
The Dance Centre’s 2022-23 Artist-in-Residence and DanceLab programs are supported in part by PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.