Wild Card residency for Tamara Zsofia Vadas

Nominated by the network partner Workshop Foundation, Ultima Vez invited the artist Tamara Zsofia Vadas for a week participation in the context of the teachback research in the Ultima Vez studios in Brussels from May 14 till 18, 2018.

The Budapest-based dance maker, performer, and choreographer Tamara Zsofia Vadas studied choreography and pedagogy at the Budapest Contemporary Dance School, then graduated as a dance pedagogue at the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy. After finishing her studies, Tamara has worked with several Hungarian choreographers such as Márta Ladjánszki, Gyula Berger, Adrienn Hód and the Hodworks, and was the member of The Symptoms for three years. Currently she is a freelance artist, resident at SÍN Culture Centre. She worked as a dancer with Robert Steijn, Benoit Lachambre, Csaba Molnár,Imre Vass, STEREO ACT. She collaboreted with BLOOM! dance collective in their creation The End is Near (2012), then with the Hungarian artists of the collective Csaba Molnár and Viktória Dányi she co-created the piece SKIN ME (2013)which was awarded the Rudolf Lábán Prize in 2014 and was shortlisted within the 20 Priority Companies of the 2014 AerowavesSpring Forward Festival .Tamara often collaborates with other emerging artists, also in a multidisciplinary level, e.g. with musicians (Ábris Gryllus, Áron Porteleki) or visual artists (JánosBrückner, Márton Emil Tóth)Sleeping Beauty Project was created by her own initiative with visual artist in which they experiment in the borderland of dance, visual arts, theatre and music. She won the Viktor Fülöp state grant from the Ministry of Human Resources in Hunagry for 2017. She was the resident artist of the Research to the Unknown programme of Workshop Foundation in Hungary in 2009 and 2011. She was participating at the Wild Card programme of the Jardin d’Eruope project in 2010 at the iDANS Festival in Instanbul. In 2012 she received the danceWeb grant at the Impulstanz Festival in Vienna. In this year she collaborated with several Budapest based dancers-choreographer and created a common dance and visual pieces: Tatiana, DEEPER.

She is a regular teacher of a creative movement classes for children, and improvisation, composition classes for teenagers and adults. She was is a guest teacher at the physical theatre director faculty of the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. She is a participant of HODWORKS dance company pedagogical programm.

Her new concept under the working title Nibiru, with which she successfully applied for a tender “Staféta” for young artists at the beginning of their careers, organized by the Municipality of Budapest, will première at the end of 2018 at Trafó House of Contemporary Art. Her aim is to create a performance that diminishes the boundaries between artistic genres and to establish our own peculiar language concerning form, content and aesthetics, involving children participating in the play.

The work process for debuting the play starts in the summer 2018. She intends to organize a camp or workshop for children where she can utilize the methodology and the themes.

She is very interested in further explore, exchange and establish the foundations of her working method during the residency in the context of the teachback-programme in Brussels.

Feedback from Tamara Zsofia Vadas :

Generally, I am really happy to be part of the teachback program. These five days gave me an opportunity to look at the Atelier Quartier work. I find the method or the model very important and inspirational in which they work, and I am glad to be able to connect and join this very easily. I feel myself very close to Atelier Quartier’s educational attitudes.
For me the structure of the program worked well: guided conversation, group work, afternoon exercises.

These afternoon occasions were the strongest experiences for me. I was touched about the power of diversity.

What is the real level of communication between us? How can we help each other? What does it mean to help?

I have learned the most about attention. I have experienced the many qualities of attention and how we listen to each other in a different way.

I had a great experience in my afternoon class where i didn’t use any languages for instructions, just to show share the exercises and the group just followed us. There was some magic moment what happened in the studio between the group and the three teachers.

The experiences about art and education which was the topic of teachback became the part of my practice.

I hope there will be a possibility to continue teachback program in the future.

It would be deeper if the programm would be longer than five days and the participating teachers could follow the full time.