240526 SE MM3 Cultures of Movement: (Im)Mobility, Affect and the Tango Laboratory (2026S)

Course Content, Methods & Aims
How we move essentally constitutes our world and how we relate to and perceive others and ourselves as social, cultural and gendered beings. Movement is also a core medium of learning and embodied knowledge and certain forms of movement have become cultural
practices and heritage and are highly revealing of gender, class, ethnicity and other dimensions of identity and power relations. On a societal scale the ability to move (mobility) is an unevenly distributed resource and thus represents an important aspect of inequality. While for some mobility (physical, social, bodily etc.) and crossing borders represents a taken for granted aspect of life (travel, leisure, dance etc.), for others (the majority of the world’s population) it is either a necessity (e.g. work or forced migration, excessive labor related mobility) or impossibility (inability to move and migrate; being stuck in a place, social status etc.). All these complex and interseting aspects of movement and mobility have a pronounced affective dimension. Frustration of being stuck and trapped, having to move to much or having difficulties learning a specific kind of movement; or the feeling of joy and freedom related to certain forms of movement (sports, dance, travel) or the feeling that one is “going somewhere” in one’s life (existential mobility) etc.; are not merely individual and private sentiments, but are effects of societal and political configurations which manifest in and can also be resisted through movement.
This transdisciplinary course aims at exploring these complex and interrelated dimensions of movement and mobility by combining different forms of experiential and creative learning, mainly in two ways: explorative research (in groups) and movement itself. Students will have the opportunity to explore particular forms and cultures of movement they are interested in (e.g. sports, dance, religious practices, mobile work forms, everyday forms of mobility etc.); and to engage in experiential and embodied learning through basic elements of Tango Rioplatense, in the Tango "laboratory". The latter will use the history and theory of Tango as well as dancing exercises to explore how images of identity, class, gender frame how we move and learn new ways of moving (together). The laboratory enables learning basic steps in tango, and focuses on exploring the interdependency of not only bodily movement, thereby questioning everyday, conceptual and also academic body/mind/splits. Additionally, researching theory through and with the body allows to shim perspectives regarding communities and the needs of the individuals within - thereby the students create new perspectives in relation to societal mobility.
Course Structure & Method: In the introductory day of the block course will introduce models for exploring movement and mobility based on different strands of theory (Anthropology of Migration and Mobility, Feminist & Queer Studies, Affect Studies, Dance Theory etc.). The work/presentation groups will be formed around forms of movement and mobility they want to explore further (e.g.dance, sports, martial arts, movement and activism, migration, work-related mobility etc.). The second part of the block course (3 days) alternates between: the “Tango Laboratory” and student Presentations. The “Tango Laboratory” (not graded) will consist of exploring ideas and concepts through movement via the medium of Tango Rioplatense. The Presentations will discuss the results of the working groups. The ʺTango Laboratoryʺ and the Presentations will alternate to ensure a balance between discussions embodied learning through movement.
Course aims:The students will: -) develop an enhanced ability to critically assess, compare and link different bodies of literature -) develop new and creative ways of learning and acquire new embodied knowledge through movement enhancing their ability to link own embodied experience with socio-cultural analysis and critique.