Leo
Kees

Introduction

I want to take my career in a new direction and dedicate myself to the representation of learning as a performative act. I want to establish reading, practising, failing, not giving up, critical thinking and focusing as artistic practices in museums, on stages and in unconventional spaces.

The starting point is the conviction that, in an age shaped by social media, the public representation of learning processes—with all their complexity, duration and often demanding nature—is highly significant. Even creative processes in theatre and dance require weeks or months of rehearsal behind closed doors, while in the end only what has already been tested—the “finished” product—is presented.

After twenty years of experience as a director and choreographer, and more than ten years as a guest lecturer at Folkwang University of the Arts, I see the act of practising and experimenting as a lifelike metaphor for being human itself.

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Motivation & Starting Point

Every person whose appearance, age, wealth, health, country of origin, sexual orientation, level of education, beliefs or IQ does not correspond to a socially established norm undergoes a lifelong learning process in order to navigate a society that directly or indirectly categorises them as “not normal”. While we celebrate excellence in the Olympic Games, football, fashion shows, scientific debates or world-class concerts, other processes largely remain invisible: how much work, frustration, mistakes, sweat, time, perseverance and—above all—patience are required to learn something new. I find this representation of trying and testing highly inspiring and significant in terms of representation. I say this also as someone who has repeatedly not fitted into the construct of normality—and who has found strength, motivation and even a certain form of “normality” in not giving up.

Recovering a Lost Image

When I came to Germany from Latin America in 2000, trains, parks and waiting rooms seemed to be populated by books—something that fascinated me as a lover of books. Today, in many countries, screens, loud mobile-phone sounds and fleeting attention dominate.

“Learning as Performance” seeks to make this image visible again—not nostalgically, but as a contemporary, active gesture. People immerse themselves, alone or together: they train their concentration, share what they do not know, discuss insights and defend facts.

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Why Now?

Public attention is a scarce resource; knowledge is polarised, and complexity is often met with distrust. By staging learning processes publicly, the project makes doubt productive. It invites people to articulate what they do not know, ask questions and examine facts together.

At a time when disinformation and cycles of outrage shape public discourse, the project advocates for slow, visible work towards understanding—as an aesthetic practice and a civic attitude.

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Aesthetics of Mise-en-scène

Part of the research will involve experimenting with performance formats lasting between six and eight hours and extending over one or several days. With attention to detail, light, space, distance, lines of sight between readers and viewers, as well as materiality, will be composed and staged.

The content and modality of each performance (language-based or non-verbal, participatory or solo) will be developed in consultation with the respective organisers. Each performance will be documented to a high standard through photography, as well as through publications in the form of reflections, interviews or artist statements, published together with regional partners.

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Three Modalities

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Reading Performances

The Reading Performances take two forms:

– as a solo performance that places concentration, endurance and depth at the centre,

– and as a participatory performance that brings together people of different ages and with different levels of reading experience.

The starting question is: "What should I—or what should we—learn here and now, and why?”

Each performance responds to this question through a Reading Performance.

Each performance focuses on a specific topic or author, with one or more books being read around the respective theme.

It concludes with a public discussion, in which the engagement with the topic is shared through dialogue.

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Physical Learning Performances. 

In this language-independent format, learning processes become tangible as embodied practice—with visible repetitions and slow progress replacing demonstrable virtuosity. The result is a canon of images of an intergenerational, pluralistic society in which learning is not a pedagogical obligation, but an aesthetic practice and social attitude. Without creating space for shame, but with the courage to be willing to learn, each Practice Performance is carried out by a group accompanied by a teacher, whose members generally have no previous experience in the respective practice.

Examples range from senior citizens learning to play video games, to football fans reciting poetry, to heterogeneous groups encountering Kathak, tango or sign language for the first time. Each Practice Performance is dedicated to the exploration of new forms and perspectiv

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Experimental Learning Performances.

Under the title “Let’s Assume We Know Nothing”, different staged experimental formats are developed to explore how to face the unknown. 

Together with local actors, learning laboratories, think tanks, and interviews are staged as a public or semi-public —from ethics to global warming, from colonialism to artificial intelligence, the guiding questions will always be: “What should we learn now, how and why?”

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