IF I CAN’T DANCE, I DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION
21 May 2026
Dear Readers and Friends of If I Can’t Dance,
A first hello from Anik, Sara, and Annick. With this newsletter, we are sharing a seasonal overview of our activities and lines of research within our current Edition X: Body as Memory. But before delving into it, a small of how we got here.
In the last couple of years, If I Can’t Dance has been undergoing a series of significant shifts, dealing with the ripple effects of operating with a halved structural funding, a new space, and, as of recently, the transition to a new governance model. These internal changes are of course also permeated by the world outside of If I Can’t Dance. The acute interconnected crises of the present have entered, informed, and shaken us and what we do, prompting us to be more malleable, but also more grounded and embedded. Marking two decades of If I Can’t Dance, Edition X: Body as Memory emerges from within this moment of transformation, serving as a portal between past and possible futures.
Through this portal, the formats that have shaped If I Can’t Dance’s model of commissioning and presenting performance works are changing too. In this sense, Edition X operates not only as a thematic inquiry, but also as an institutional experiment through which we rehearse alternative rhythms, structures, and forms of co-presence.
While we will return to these developments in due course, we are delighted to share two upcoming commissions unfolding over the summer months. Developed over the last couple of years, these projects engage with intersecting questions of access, memory, justice, and embodiment, each offering a distinct articulation of the Edition’s concerns.
Our roof terrace is in full bloom, and so is the plant life at the WG-Terrein. We hope to welcome you soon at If I Can’t Dance!
Anik Fournier, Sara Giannini and Annick Kleizen
Co-directors of If I Can’t Dance
Josephine Sales
PLOT 5–7 June 2026
LAB111 (chapel), Amsterdam
PLOT (2026) is a site-specific video work made with a camera on wheels and produced in relation to the architecture of If I Can’t Dance’s home. Filmed in a single take, the camera moves from exterior to interior to exterior, attempting not to leave the same way it came in. Departure is understood as a condition of entry. Drawing on Amsterdam’s historic rope-and-block mechanisms used to move objects in and out of buildings, the work experiments with cinematic movement through vertical transfer, traversal, and suspension. PLOT is produced in the Women’s Clinic of the former WG Hospital and projected in the chapel of its former Pathological Anatomy Lab.
As part of the weekend presentation of PLOT, the publication There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park by curator and writer Iarlaith Ní Fheorais will be launched on Sunday 7 June (13–15hr, RSVP here), with a conversation between Ní Fheorais, artist, writer and musician Rouzbeh Shadpey, and artist Josephine Sales.
Venue: the chapel of cinema LAB111, Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam
For any access related inquiries, please contact office@ificantdance.org
PLOT is commissioned by If I Can’t Dance as part of access: practices and habits, an artistic research programme in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Arts in Limerick and Bulegoa z/b in Bilbao. There’s a Tunnel Under Ballybrit Business Park is commissioned by Askeaton Contemporary Arts. Access: practices and habits is co-funded by the European Union.
yasmine eid-sabbagh Frictional Conversations – The Script 20 June–11 July 2026 If I Can’t Dance
If I Can’t Dance is proud to present a new iteration of Frictional Conversations, a multi-layered and ongoing research and performance project by yasmine eid-sabbagh. Through live broadcasting events and a rich public programme, the project continues a process of (counter-)archiving and engaging with a repository of photographs from Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon.
The project is built around the script for an experimental radio show developed by eid-sabbagh together with musician and composer Sary Moussa and her collaborators in Burj al-Shamali. Blurring past, present, and future, the show weaves together field recordings, archival fragments, and conversations from Burj al-Shamali, along with an electronic music score created by Moussa. The script of the radio show is performed live across four broadcasting events, followed by artist talks featuring eid-sabbagh, DJ Lynnée Denise, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Ola Hassanian. Outside these events, the space remains open as a reading retreat and gathering place for workshops, reading circles, and activities. A symposium convened by eid-sabbagh in dialogue with Layal Ftouni, and organized in collaboration with de Appel on 21 June, further expands on the questions raised by the project.
The full programme will be announced soon.
Frictional Conversations – The Script was commissioned as part of the Consortium Commissions—a project initiated by Mophradat. The presentation is further supported by the Mondriaan Fund, AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts), and the DOEN Foundation.
