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Concept: Diana De Fex

Choreographers-facilitators: Diana De Fex, Olga Popova, Felipe Dos Santos, Bárbara Galego

Participants co-creators: Dajana Kubat, Debo Seabra, Sol Crespo, Khabeer Singh, Walter Castillo, Bergie

Dramaturgy research phase: Alice Nogueira

Dramaturgy production phase: Maria Tsitroudi

A cooperation with Studio Naxos, supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK - STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR Assistance Program for Dance, Frankfurt Kulturamt, Amt für multikulturelle Angelegenheiten (AMKA), Hessische Theaterakademie (HTA), Giessener Hochschulgesellschaft (GHG) and ID_Tanzhaus FRM

Daydreaming the Archive was a research process of the affective cartography of the city of Frankfurt am Main, as experienced by a group of four artists-facilitators and six community participants with migration backgrounds; and an (audio-and-live performance) walking tour that resulted from that process.

Being a migrant/post_migrant, inhabiting a liminal space, neither fully belonging nor entirely an outsider, leads to a constant sense of dislocation. This research explored the impact of dislocation on our perception of public spaces and the desires and fears that move us in the city. From an understanding of place and body as living archives, we conceived daydreaming as the practice that connects us to those archives, as an intertwining of memory and imagination. Could public spaces become intimate, home-like spaces where we could daydream?

In this project, the term post_migrants was used in the open call for community participants, to encompass not only foreigners living in Germany but also German-born people with a migration background. It turned out to be a term reflective of the diverse conditions (some more privileged, others less so) in which they/we currently live and under which these migrations were undertaken.

Daydreaming the Archive was also an (im)possible collaboration, since the group was fragmented by the COVID-19 pandemic and individual working conditions. We often walked in pairs or small groups of three or four. Sometimes we walked in silence, sometimes we talked and told stories. We tried out scores as we walked. We also met in the studio to do other scores involving drawing and playing with objects. Furthermore, we interviewed each other and wrote scores for others to try out.

Ultimately, we planned a walking tour for the public to conclude the project. The audio-walk featured recordings made during the process, including texts written by participants reflecting on their memory archives in dialogue with the city's landscape. It included a train ride on the U-Bahn, live performance segments with singing and storytelling by the participants, and at one point, the audience was blindfolded for an immersive sound experience. The tour included narratives such as childhood memories of the war in Bosnia at a Frankfurt doll clinic, conjuring Buenos Aires through opera singing in the streets of Bornheim, a performative re-enactment at Frankfurt’s main cemetery and a nearby park, of steps taken many times in different latitudes, and soundscapes evoking lost, remembered, or dreamed photographs from family archives.

Additionally, some short films were created by participants within the frame of this project.