The First PhD in Dance defence in Flanders: ARKADI ZAIDES

Artistic presentation and PhD defence Arkadi Zaides

Towards Documentary ChoreographyIntermedial Approaches When Working with Extra-Aesthetic Materials

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Timmy De Laet (University of Antwerp); Dr. Jelena Jureša (KASK & Conservatorium, HOGENT - Howest); Annouk Van Moorsel (Royal Conservatoire Antwerp); Prof. Dr. Christel Stalpaert (Ghent University)

PROGRAMME

Arkadi Zaides’ doctoral research project 'Towards Documentary Choreography – Intermedial Approaches when Working with Extra-Aesthetic Materials' explored how choreography might respond to today’s societal urgencies and topical issues. It developed a documentary approach to dance and embodied practices, where, unlike in theatre, film, or the visual arts, the use of historical facts and documentary sources is only now beginning to emerge. More specifically, it examined how, through various formats, documents can be reimagined choreographically to reveal divergent, and at times conflicting, ways of engaging with society and the arts—particularly in times of crisis.

The research unfolds through three major projects: 'Necropolis', 'Necropolis-United' (later updated to Shu-Ha-Da), and 'The Cloud', each exemplifying distinct strategies of societal engagement and intermedial experimentation. Necropolis confronts the deadly consequences of migration through choreographic and cartographic protocols that trace grave locations of people dying on migration routes while cooperating with communities and institutions to bring dignity to these dead. This work extends into 'Necropolis-United: Integrated Data-Platform of Dead and Missing Migrants in Europe' (I005522N, 2022–2026), an interdisciplinary project supported by the Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO). Under its updated title 'Shu-Ha-Da', this project convenes artists, scholars, technologists, and activists in the collaborative construction of commemorative information systems honoring dead migrant people and questioning the dissemination of sensitive data in an ethical and sustainable way. 'The Cloud' expands the migration topic to environmental terrains, investigating the pervasive algorithmic “cloud” of Artificial Intelligence within the context of ecological crisis, focusing specifically on the Chernobyl catastrophe, and exploring the entanglement of human and non-human actors as well as material and immaterial infrastructures.*****

On the occasion of his doctoral defence, Zaides invites external jury members Rabih Mroué and Yumna Masarwa to share with students and a wider audience their respective practices.

LECTURES BY RABIH MROUE AND YUMNA MASARWA 

Thursday, 18 December 2025, 10:00-13:00

Location: Studio laGeste, Bijlokesite, Bijlokekaai 7, B - 9000 Ghent*OL.

Free entrance

'Shot/Counter Shot: Rethinking the Reverse' by Rabih Mroué*

This lecture revisits the classical definition of the shot/counter shot technique, with a focus on instances where the reverse is internalized within a single frame. Rather than relying solely on traditional editing patterns, Rabih Mroué explores alternative strategies that challenge conventional cinematic grammar; by analyzing these variations, aiming to open up new ways of thinking about point of view, relational space, and narrative construction. He further reflects on the term shoot, examining the kinds of connections that can be drawn between acts of war-making and image-taking. He shares documents and examples from both his own work and that of other artists and video-makers, expanding this inquiry through concrete case studies that expose the political and aesthetic implications of these practices.

'Re(Making) Death in Gaza: The Dead Body as a Site of Agency and Sumūd (Steadfastness)' by Yumna Masarwa**

The recent war on Gaza has rendered impossible the enactment of funerary rites and the provision of dignified burial for the deceased, fundamentally disrupting the structure of death itself. This talk examines how Gazans respond to this annihilation of death’s structure, how they make sense of the brutal scenes of death and dismemberment that have become part of daily life, and how they grieve amid mass casualties and the absence of traditional funerary rituals. Foregrounding Gazan voices and centering the victim as both witness and paradoxical agent—whose dispossession paradoxically generates the power to speak—this study challenges Western theoretical frameworks that position death rituals as essential to social cohesion and predict social collapse in their absence (Hertz, 1960; Huntington & Metcalf, 1991; Turner, 1969; Van Gennep, 1960). Yumna Masarwa argues instead that in Gaza, the destruction of the structure of death has generated social cohesion through sumūd (steadfastness).  He also proposes the concept of shahāda (martyrdom) understood as an idea of agency and collective grief, which serves as a critical lens for interpreting the interrelation between mourning, resistance, and communal identity under conditions of systematic violence. Taken together, these two concepts found an argument for the necessity of an Indigenous theoretical framework in order to understand Gazan experiences of grief.

* Rabih Mroué, born in Beirut and based in Berlin, is a theatre director, actor, visual artist, and playwright. Rooted in theatre, his work extends to video and installation art, continuously exploring alternative and contemporary relationships among the different elements and languages of performance. He is a contributing editor for The Drama Review / TDR (New York) and a co-founder and board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC). He was a fellow at the International Research Center: Interweaving Performance Cultures / FU Berlin from 2013–2014 and served as a theatre director at Münchner Kammerspiele (Munich) from 2015–2019. Mroué has performed and exhibited internationally, including at dOCUMENTA (13) – Kassel, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo – Madrid, The ICP Triennial and MoMA – New York, Centre Pompidou – Paris, SALT – Istanbul, and Reina Sofía – Madrid, among others. His works include 'Four Walls and a Roof' (2024), 'Hartaqāt' (2023), 'Sunny Sunday' (2020), 'Borborygmus' (2019), 'So Little Time' (2016), 'Ode to Joy' (2015), 'Riding on a Cloud' (2013), '33 RPM and a Few Seconds' (2012), 'The Inhabitants of Images' (2008), 'Who’s Afraid of Representation' (2005), 'Looking for a Missing Employee' (2003), and others.

** Yumna Masarwa (PhD, Princeton University) is the Dean of the School of Art at the American College of the Mediterranean (ACM-IAU) in Aix-en-Provence (France), a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) at the University of Bath (UK), and a Project Team Member of the Thanatic Ethics research project on the Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces. Her art-historical research, which combines primary sources with material culture, focuses on artistic encounters in the Mediterranean and explores artistic exchanges between the Islamic World and Europe. Her work has been published in Antiquité Tardive, Al-Usur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists, Excavations and Surveys in Israel, and in edited volumes such as Housing the Holy: Shrines in Ritual Architecture and A Cultural History of the Middle East and North Africa in Late Antiquity (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Since 2018, she has been carrying out multi-sited ethnographic research in Marseille, focusing on burial and body repatriation among Algerians; the role of French Muslim women in organizing funerals and burials (feminizing funeral activities); and Muslim tombs in French cemeteries. In addition, she has been working on 'Death in Gaza' since the war started in October 2023. Some of her research has been published in Nouvelles Études Francophones, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME), Études sur la Mort, and Death Studies (forthcoming).

Image: The Cloud (2024) by Arkadi Zaides, (c) Giuseppe Follacchio, courtesy: Orbita | Spellbound