​"HAPPINESS CLINIC"
An interactive online project: workshops + public performance

IN ONE SENTENCE

We propose to you “Happiness Clinic”, an online ephemeral clinic, which will offer “artistic treatments”, cures, cares and therapies, in form of participatory Zoom performances ("séances") to celebrate joy, happiness, and spread positivity in today's uncertain world.

​Context

COVID crisis takes heavy toll on our mental health. Public health actions, such as social distancing, can make people feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety. Misuse of substances, particularly alcohol, is rising. And as with many other features of this pandemic, not all people have been affected equally. Yet, the world is woefully unprepared to deal with the mental health impact of this pandemic, and we believe that dance has a significant role to play.

The main purpose of “Happiness Clinic” is to react to this context by improving both participants' and the audience's mental health and wellbeing through their engagement in an online art project combining workshop and final public showing.

HAPPINESS CLINIC

During 3 hours, the “Happiness Clinic” will open its virtual doors on the web, and encourage the public to participate in 5-minutes-long interactive one-on-one artistic healing sessions ("séances"). Imagined, created and performed by Latvian artists, these “séances” will be curated alongside three topics (“Care”, “Creation”, “Connection”). All of them will cope with a variety of mental health and psychological problems, such as stress, anxiety, insomnia, denial and fear, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. All of them will mix a performance art form (eg. dance, ceremony, ritual, care, celebration..) with a wellbeing, healing or therapeutic practice (eg. naturopathy, aromatherapy, relaxation, dietetics, massage, reflexology, meditation, hair care, body care, ayurvedic care, stretching, pilates, tai chi chuan...). And all of them will be interactive, and engage actively the audience.

workshop participants' BENEFITS

Happiness Clinic offers a series of online, 5-minutes-long interactive one-on-one artistic healing sessions ("séances"). These "séances" are created and performed by Latvian artists, art-lovers and creatives, who develop these performances during a series of workshops. Their benefits are:​​

• Participate in an online performance project, learn about care, healing and empathic practices in contemporary arts.
• Explore how rituals embody and activate myths through dramatic and choreographic transformative devices, and how contemporary artists appropriate and traverse traditional boundaries between performance art, rites, ceremonies, therapeutic-, healing- and transcendental-experiences.
• Experiment the potentiality of online performing, create a one-on-one séance, develop 360° thinking (setting, prop, makeup, character building, costume design, lights, music, performance, text...).
• Learn about online social sustainability combining design of the virtual realm with design of the social world. 
• Participate in the co-construction of a hybrid space to support artistic and cultural exchange, promote community building and engagement, co-build a creative platform for projects to develop and people to interact and evolve.
• Build sustainable online communities through the practice of performance and dance, and therefore improve both your and peoples’ mental health and wellbeing.
• ​Cope with the mental and psychological consequences of the pandemic.
• Promote contemporary dance and performance through simple, humble and generous interactive actions, understandable and appreciable by everyone.​

ORGANIZATION

STEP 1.

• OPEN CALL for participants: Artists, amateurs, art-lovers, creatives from Latvia.
• Selection of maximum 9 applications.

STEP 2.
WORKSHOP FOR THE WHOLE GROUP: 1 x 3h

• Project presentation
• Care, healing and rituals in performance art (concepts and exemples)
• One-one-One performances (concepts and exemples)

​
STEP 3.
SMALL GROUP WORKSHOPS: 2 x 2h / groups

• Creating personal "séances" (tasks, brainstorming, exercises...)
• Presentation, feedback, discussion

​​
STEP 4.
PUBLIC OPENING OF HAPPINESS CLINIC

• ​An afternoon of online one-on-one séances​

PARTICIPANTS' Proposals

Following a series of online workshops, every participant will be accompanied and encouraged to create a 5-minutes-long one-on-one online "séance".

This proposal must be, in terms of form:

• A mixture between a performance art form (eg. dance, ceremony, ritual, care, celebration..) and a wellbeing, healing or therapeutic practice (eg. naturopathy, aromatherapy, relaxation, dietetics, massage, reflexology, meditation, hair care, body care, ayurvedic care, stretching, pilates, tai chi chuan...)
• Be one-on-one, participatory, and engage actively the audience member
• Last 5 minutes and can be repeated several times in row

In terms of concept, the proposal must develop one of the three axes:

• Axe 1 – Care of the body, development of self-confidence and encouragement of self-care and self-love through the use of sport, dance and movement exercises.
• Axe 2 – Creation and co-creation through alternative, experimental and horizontal learning and unlearning processes.
• Axe 3 – Connection with others and community-building activities are seen as simply human experiences which go beyond relational aesthetics by introducing the production of knowledge and the sharing of skills and tools in addition to the creation of friendly and safe spaces.

TIMING

• 1,5 months before the event

- Open call for Latvia-based artists, art-lovers, amateurs, creatives...
- Selection of the participants

• 1 month before the event

- 1 class workshop
- 2 small group workshops / group

• 2 weeks before the event

- Registration opens to the public: participants can register for one-on-one "séances".
​- Operational digital communication
- Rehearsals

• 1 week before the event

- Registration closes. Sending out confirmation emails for the public (which "séance" / when / Zoom link).

• Opening of the “Happiness Clinic”: 3 hours of free participatory one-on-one "séances" providing positivity, happiness, joy, wellbeing, self-care and self-love against the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. ​​

​Ethics and values

“Happiness Clinic” is an online community art project which aims to be responsible, ethically engaged and socially impactful through its concept and form by:

• Coping with the mental and psychological consequences of the pandemic
• Building human connections, interactions after a long period of social distancing and isolation
• Go online: open the project to a wider public
• Promoting contemporary dance and performance through simple, humble and generous interactive actions, understandable and appreciable by everyone
• Putting the emphasis on emotions, joy, happiness and human relations​

​A bit about us

Anna Ádám is a Franco-Hungarian performance maker and visual artist whose work blurs the boundaries between choreography, image, and object, with emphasis on the body and on the movement as the central forms of expression. She studied performance and fashion before obtaining her Master of Arts from the ENSAPC Art School in Cergy, France. Since 2016 she presents regularly her work in both theaters (E-Werk Kulturzentrum (DE), Theater MU (HU), National Theater (HU), Piccolo Tea- tro (DE)...) and exhibition spaces (Ludwig Museum (HU), Museum of Modern Art Yerevan (AM), National Museum of History Paris (FR)...), and holds workshops in universities across Europe (Austria, France, Hungary, Serbia, Armenia...). In 2019 she gave seminars at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (AT) and at the University of Artois (FR). In 2020 she is resident artist at the Mediterranean Dance Center (HT) and at ZFinMalta (MT). In 2021 she will collaborate with Dance City Theater (UK), Abbaye de Maubuisson (FR) and teach with the ZeroPlus Dance School (HU) and Dansarium (FR).
University teaching experience (selection): University of Artois, Béthune, FR, 2019/2020, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Vienna, AT, Winter semester – 2019, Hungarian University of Fine Arts (MKE) / 0. UBIK, Budapest, HU, Feb – 2018, Novi Sad University, SRB, Oct – 2017, Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem (MOME), Budapest, HU, Dec – 2016, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, HU, Dec – 2015, University of Kaposvár - Photography Department / TYPO JAM, Bodrogkisfalud, HU, Sept – 2015...
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​Gray Box: Created as a collective in 2014, and founded as a company in 2018, Gray Box’s work takes interest in going beyond the boundaries between "white cube" and "black box": choreography, image and object, by emphasizing the body and movement as central forms of expression. Based on trans-disciplinary research and collective experimentation, our company creates, curates and produces, in all horizontality, a body of work with a strong political, ecological and social dimension. We consider the moving body together with its immaterial aspects - such as perception, empathy, emotions, intuitions - as a political tool to forge emancipated communities, create social connections and human interactions.
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FEE

If you are interested by this proposition, do not hesitate to get in touch with us, and discuss the conditions of our collaboration.