Danae Theodoridou is a performance maker and researcher based in Brussels. Her artistic research focuses on social imaginaries, the practice of democracy and the way that art contributes to the emergence of socio-political alternatives. She teaches in Fontys Academy of the Arts (NL), curates practice-led research projects, and presents and publishes her work internationally. She is the co-author of The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance (Valiz, 2017) and the author of Publicing: Practising Democracy Through Performance (Nissos, 2022). 

Danae’s residency is part of the ongoing research Il/legal Fictions. It is supported by the Flemish Ministry of Culture. Thanos Papadogiannis will act as a critical responder to the residency and provide written documentation for it.

Democratic politics as ‘publicing’ Sociologist Rudi Laermans and performance maker Danae Theodoridou in dialogue

Monday 19 February, 19.00-20.30

Drawing on her recent book publication Publicing – Practising Democracy Throug Performance (Nissos, 2022), performance maker and researcher Danae Theodoridou invites the sociologist Rudi Laermans in a live conversation where they elaborate on how art can construct public space and public time anew, contributing to the empowerment of democracy in a time where the first, constitutive part of the term, namely ‘demos’, is more and more absent from democratic processes. Starting point for this exchange will be the review that Laermans has written on Theodoridou’s book.

The review text can be found in Dutch here and as an english translation here

Rudi Laermans is Professor of Social Theory at the University of Leuven (BE). He is the author of several books and has published widely on social systems theory, (post)modernity, and the sociology of the arts. He also frequently writes about contemporary dance and other performing arts.