URBAN POETICS _ UM~A

UM~A | pu
blic space, urban poetics

performers
An Spoza
Simon Truong
tis aly

sound technology
Farzaneh Nouri



In collaboration with ID LAB
Filmed in part on location at EYE Film Museum, Amsterdam Noord
Kindly supported by Aart Janszen Fund



Open Rehearsal at ATD in Amsterdam - February  - 2026


booklet -DAS Choreography Master Program 2026



The first session took place at DAS - in JanuaryOeDe2026, during my research praxis, I invited Anthony Heidweller, as a voice trainer, and 3 musicians joined the session, Clara, HIske and Vincenzo- more than 12 people attended the session. Peers from DAS theatre and other guests

The second session was the series of 6 sessions developed between MIME Fabriek a community space in Amsterdam West, 2 at ATD and 2 at DAS.

The process was open for participation from people outside of the niche of the school.

Most participants were people with some background in art of dance making

At the time I write this text, the project is not yet finished and I hope it won’t be finished in the frame of this Master’s programme, and I believe it can be lost as long as there is the wish for dancing, singing and listening.


We have also been working with gibberish, so every made-up lyric made during the sessions is not made out of meaning but context. We let ourselves be contaminated by the unknown, the ungraspable but seeking for points where we can meet each other and depart from each other - Where the individual meets the collective.


There is no intent for outcomes but for in comes - what feeds the process, awakens creativity and let the body pulse, the voice tremble and the community to lift and let it die in peace, ideas and expectations.

We establish peace within our creative bodies and the idea of non-production of meaning -

We are situating - Hence the concept - palpable territory of intangible - manifest in the invisible thou sensorial territory of belonging - Belonging to the cosmos - to the ones that preceded us or will succeed


Choreography serves the purposes or the quest of transcendence - not searching to depict but to embody the manifesto - in an attempt to create a palpable territory where all and everyone can take part of it.

The Open Rehearsal is thought to be mobile and mobilizer - re-introducing the city to the arts and the art into the city  - not pretentious - not pretending to know  - not knowing to know

as a refusal - refusal to the market - to the logics of reproduction - to comply with the system of meritocratization.


Open Rehearsal - doesn’t produce - it repurposes - energies - doesn’t finish - and  never will - a cycle that looks alike - it calls the responsibility of the spectator -to listen - invites without constraints _we hope _it’s awkward - can heal and hurt - without harming -  not physically - but spiritually - because most spirits have been dormant - and we shall not expect they will all awake in their best moods - it creates spells and evokes the unknown



Open Call:

is a series of creative dance processes that invites artists and anyone who has a relation to body movement, somatic practices, community building, shared knowledge, and practices of regeneration to join. These sessions happen in the frame of Tis Aly's artistic research at DAS Choreography MA programme between February and April 2026.

e aim is to create together, to meet the alterity, to find ways of organizing and creating territories of commonality through dance, voice, and music.

In each session, a professional musician and/or voice trainer will join to facilitate paths of togetherness, joy, shared experiences, and awakened senses, along with body movement sessions.

Each session is 6 hours long, so that we take time to relax, enjoy and move. There is time to share a meal, perhaps cook together, to engage with creative writing, to listen and to be heard. We ask you to sign up before coming. Drop a line to say hello, and what is your interest in the Open Rehearsal

text for the Open Call - inviting people to join the sessions of O.R.


A process to dive in - The

The subversion of spectartoship

A process of blended subjectivities and manifested voices.


The idea of contamination - we have been looking upon procedures and modes of contamination - languages that surpass the spoken languages to integrate diversity without looking for meaning, signs or symbols -

The use of the voice is to channel to enhance and to awaken the feelings that live within - the emotions that want to go out  - to find community in places where we don’t know each other - to be without having to represent. For that, Open Rehearsal stands as a transcendence process where we can alter the subjectivity to be and the spectator to dive into a process of not having to grasp meaning, rather lying in the fields of creation as a primordial and necessary process like breathing, digesting, and decomposing.

So, the contamination comes from a process of free will - open access - porous environment made from organic matter - intangible and graspable like human flesh.

We don’t want the passive - white gaze - we invite the ones present to join in the vulnerability and beauty of their own path -


Open Rehearsal at DAS - Master Presentation - a Social Experiment  - April 2026    




UM~A | open rehearsal, social gathering

performers
Alla Kravchenko
nisha ha
Kim Baraka
tis aly
and guests

voice advisors
Anthony Heildweiler
Maria Magdalena Kozłowska

musicians
Hiske Hupperets
Vin
Clara Grimes
Ivan Seller


Kindly supported by Aart Janszen Fund


UM~A
                              booklet DAS chorehography Master Program
2026




is a process developed within the frame of DAS ARTS - master program in Amsterdam - 2024-2026 
The project spreads from Social Gathering ongoing process - like the Open Rehearsal - as the installation in the facilites of DAS building, a video installation - and a performance in public space with sensors and approaching a universe of rubber production between the city of Amsterdam and florests - the labor and the soul of the humans and the more than human 

two events
two installation 
a process of thousands participations
a cho co co co reograhy of co creations


During Master Presentation - April 2026 - the Open Rehearsal- a gathering which has happening since February in Amsterdam had it’s eruption at the Master Presentation event 
bringing a great number of people to gather in movement and sonic improvisations - A ritual of togetherness 
an Ecology of Senses to awaken the possibility of walking  in hands that connects 
a ritual to call the spirits of regeneration 

text by Anajara Laisa Amarante






Urban Poetics-
The research around rubber come as a situated performance connecting the city and the forests 






UM~A is a tranversal project with medias that tell stories crossing paths between ancestrality and futurity  a tribute to the living ancestors 
installation at DAS building 

 
video installations at DAS building - 




UM~A | installation
credits video
Diana Gilardenghi
Estranho
Lu Afonso
Lui Perfumera
Heloisa Guetti Silva
Manoela Guetti Silva
Sarah Pusch
editing - camera
Marc Philipp Gabriel


Kindly supported by Aart Janszen Fund



studio showing at DAS_ September 2026



collaborators in the research
Mavi Veloso
Frederico Raposo
Lyon

atopic artistic support
Sheila Ribeiro

credits research
Pedra Costa - mentor 1st year
Dwayne Toemere, mentor 2nd year
Dr. da Borracha - Brazil - environmentalist - small family business in Acre
Aldeia Varinawa - Brazil - and everyone who hosted one during the journey and research in Brazil
to all the intangible matters that have contributed to this research


how to host the ghost 



How to Host the Ghost or H.T.M.S.W.P - a solo dance performed by many - investigates the

relation between the past and the future - finding in the ghost the figure of questioning: 

Is this a figure to cover the past, or is it an opportunity to reflect upon the future?

Weren't they all spirits - how did they turn into ghosts? Did Whiteness invent it as some sort of strategy to hide a hideous past or/as a way to silence the future!?

Searching for dynamics between portals and passages, invitations to stay or leave - nuances

between hospitality or hostility - exorcism or possession.

Should some bodies embody it or let them find their way out? The movements between shadows and lights - the intangible sensitivity - the shape-shifting. - Shall I make a performance or open a seance? Ritualizing the performance or performing the ritual? Can one invite the ghosts to speak - What would they say?


research at
Impulstanz - Vienna 2024
Atlas Program
mentorship 
Angelique Willkie 




Decolonize it - YEs or NO? 



I have joined a couple of discussions in the frame of Berlin’s art scene about decolonization and it’s a response to those who have been programming it 
Quite a few have taken it seriously as it’s - Mostly
use it for the image - what make them hypocrites 
Take what serves you and forward it to someone you think might need it. 


and many many more