Merpersoning & Co-Speculation:

a Dance and vocal workshop

by Justin F. Kennedy

@Chicken Coop Contemporary`s

Outdoor Stage

12400 SE Knapp St

Portland, Oregon

Mon 9.25 – Wed 4.10.2023

from 10am-1pm / Sliding scale

Merpersoning & Co-Speculation is a workshop facilitated by community dance and vocal artist: Justin F. Kennedy at CCC’s newly-built outdoor stage. The class comprises of an extensive warm-up including guided meditation, a 3-part activation warm-up and some vocal exercises followed by a durational dance practice, where participants take 

turns witnessing and improvising open scores for longer durations in various states framed by movement-, vocal- and imagination-based tasks. Physical coordinations will include, but are not limited to merpersoning/podding/schooling(like fish), zombie animatrons and an improvised mode of singing/lyric-making called operatic co-speculation. No previous experience necessary. Be aware that the class will take place outdoors, so please bring the appropriate attire, including layers and comfortable shoes.

Justin F. Kennedy is a Berlin-based community dance & vocal artist, teacher, DJ and dramaturg from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Justin’s research pursues transformation and sophisticated amalgamation, and emerges from a durational dance and singing practice, and its further transference into cyphers, workshops, science fiction operas, installations, street interventions, happenings, music and film. Notable projects of late include: Apocalypso (2024); MINT (2024) by Sheena McGrandles; It`s OK. Commoning Uncertainties (2023) in collaboration with Joy Mariama Smith; A Plot/A Scandal (2022) by Ligia Lewis; Sun unseT (2022), SNDO; experimental dance film: Cannibalizing the Conductor (2022) in collaboration with filmmaker Derek Howard and artist Emma Howes; Skars without the Rs/Recap of an Alien Garden, Movement Research Across, Galerie Wedding, Berlin & Seminar: Disrupting Colonial Monu/mentality, Art Hub Copenhagen (2023/2022); A(un) Necessary World, Lifes, Hammer Museum, LA (2022); Vorglühen, OUT NOW, Uferhallen, Berlin (2021); UNFURL the jukebox musical: a shareable cypher, Montag Modus, Radialsystem, Berlin (2021), Phase Shifting Index (2020) By Jeremy Shaw (choreography).