A truly remarkable combination of the theoretical and immediately practical, Carmen’s mind runs deep into the philosophy of performance. But don’t let that deceive you. She’s no dry, armchair academic. Her stage appearances are as visually and physically powerful as they are intellectually underpinned. She is a perfect participant in SLOGANS‘s teasing out of meanings not obviously stated!
Carmen Lafran (IT/GER) is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary performance artist, butoh dancer and choreographer, with a MA in philosophy. Their work investigates the assembled nature of identity and how socio-political discourses of containment and control have made the body a contested terrain where power is negotiated. In this regard the practice of butoh is intended to be a dance in which each step is in contradiction to itself, a „miss-step“ into a possible dance to come, being butoh not only the medium but also the aim to achieve, an irreducible otherness, which makes possible for the performer´s body to become manifested, as a never-ending movement and philosophical research.
Lafran works as a soloist and in collaboration with artists from different artistic fields, performing on theatre stages, and galleries, as well as in Europe’s underground art scene venues. As a soloist her performances have been presented among others at Paradoxal Festival (France), Venice International Performance Art Week, Project ID The Hague, Istanbul Performance Art, Carbon Residency Kiev. Past major collective projects include RopeBerry, (Mahalla, Berlin), Like a Virgin (Societaetstheater Dresden), To Canvass for Utopia (Acud Berlin), Off Time Values (Db Studio Berlin). Currently teaching Performativity for MA Photography students at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Berlin, Lafran combines performance studies and philosophy of photography with performative practices inviting the students to engage with multiple aesthetic dimensions.
SLOGANS Theater 