Practicing Empathy #3

For several years the Yasmeen Godder Company has been developing various performances, programs and approaches to build more direct connections with the community they are working in, as well as the audiences they encounter while touring and working abroad. Since 2019 they have framed that interest inside of a research project titled Practicing Empathy, of which three distinct performative encounters have been created. Each of those performances question what allows us to connect more deeply with ourselves and others, as well as what opens up our ability to take in complexities and process what challenges us. The project focuses  on the act of practicing empathy in a performative context, which exists outside our daily habits, to discover new ways to better open and connect with those around us.

Practicing Empathy #3 is the first solo Yasmeen Godder has made for herself in her 25 year career. The solo is highly physical with an intimate narrative as she traces the journey of the Practicing Empathy project during the challenges of the pandemic, leading her to question what role self-empathy can play when confronted by so many limitations and restrictions. The solo unfolds as a real-time document of pandemic induced isolation and loss of control, as well as profound internal discovery. While generating continuous mechanisms of survival, her dancing spirals and unravels in dizzying qualities, eventually finding a place of comfort and connectedness. Throughout, Godder guides us to question and feel what role self-empathy can play in our current landscape, reminding us of our own bodily resources. 

There were numerous reasons Yasmeen Godder created the Practicing Empathy project, ranging from the personal to the political. One reason came from a personal need Godder had to more directly respond to the conflictual atmosphere in Israel, as well as the polarization and disconnect experienced globally. The project is a response to that discord and apparent loss of people’s capacity to feel for another’s experience, especially if another’s worldview appears far from their own. Another reason for the project came via audience feedback received from previous Godder works that dealt with various forms of participation (Climax - 2014, Common Emotions - 2016, Simple Action - 2016). Following several performances of those works, people used the word empathy to describe their experiences, inspiring Godder to further engage with dance and performative encounters to spark alternative ways of being together in society. Another reason and resource for the project exists in Moving Communities, a project of the Yasmeen Godder studio, which hosts ongoing dance classes for people living with Parkinson’s Disease since 2016, as well as workshops for Arab and Jewish women to meet and dance together in the studio.

A production by Yasmeen Godder Company and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm. A work commissioned by the festival Frankfurter Positionen 2021, an initiative of the BHFBank Foundation. Supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

The production was supported by the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, the general consulate of Germany, and Japan.