C A R M E N    L A F R A N
Butoh Artist

 

Carmen Lafran is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary performance artist, butoh dancer, choreographer, movement and philosophy researcher, investigating art in its relationship with philosophical discourses and the body.

Currently teaching Performativity at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Berlin, Lafran is also a core member of Das Gegenteil butoh ensemble, giving workshops and co-curating Butohspielplatz and performances with international artists.

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During the last years she has been creating her own works, as a soloist and in collaboration with artists from different artistic fields, featured among others at Venice International Performance Art Week, Project ID The Hague, Istanbul Performance Art and Carbon Residency Kiev.

Lafran’s fields of work span from grotesque performative acts and butoh dance-theatre to rituals, poetry, painting and installations. Her works combine visionary perspectives with the critical reflection and denunciation of socio-political realities: the artist has the ethical responsibility of standing up for changes.

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Since her master graduation in philosophy her main topic of investigation has been the relationship between philosophical discourse and the body as indefinable force, irreducible to the logos. Investigating the assembled and manipulable nature of identity, body's reminiscences and ways to subvert the constraining normative logic, her research aims to decolonize the body from political and social control and abuse, celebrating the erosion of patriarchal power relations and repressive subjectivation.