Tania El Khoury Chorégraphie d'État

Choreography of State extends my ongoing interest in exploring the political potential of performance as a practice of knowledge production. The work approaches choreography as a form of analytical writing capable of generating evidence of abuses of state power. My research focuses on the global policing industry, particularly policing practices in public space. The international “counterterrorism” efforts have resulted in extensive training exchange programs between law enforcement agencies around the world. This global effort to suppress protests—particularly those led by historically marginalized communities of color—aims at treating dissent and protest as a security threat and protestors as enemy combatants.This cyclical exchange demonstrates the mutual reinforcement of racialized policing paradigms. Choreography of State analyzes these training systems and translates them into choreographic scores, exposing state violence as a form of racialized dominance. It also calls for a reciprocal exchange of self-defense and resistance practices.

Tania El Khoury
 

Tania El Khoury is a live artist who creates interactive installations and performances that generate knowledge and alternative narratives, while reflecting on the production of collective memory and the cultivation of solidarity. Her practice is activated through tactile, auditory, and visual materials collected and curated by the artist and her collaborators, and ultimately transformed through audience interaction. Her work has been translated to multiple languages and shown in 35 countries across six continents in spaces ranging from national museums to the Mediterranean Sea. She is the recipient of the Creative Capital Award, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Soros Art Fellowship, the Bessie Outstanding Production Award, the International Live Art Prize, the Total Theatre Innovation Award, and the Arches Brick Award. Tania is Distinguished Artist in Residence and Associate Professor of Theater & Performance at Bard College in New York where she is also the founding director of the Center for Human Rights & the Arts. She is a founding member of the urban research and live art collective in Lebanon, Dictaphone Group.