Movement Research with Eva Urbanová

Project: It’s the Way You Walk It

I am looking for 1 or 2 professional dancers, movers, or physical performers based in Brussels to join me in a collaborative movement research residency for my new choreographic project It’s the Way You Walk It. This work will take place over two weeks as part of the P.A.R.T.S. Summer School, with rehearsals in the P.A.R.T.S. studios, culminating in a work-in-progress showing. Dancers and movers of all ages, body types, abilities, and sensory modalities are warmly encouraged to apply. The process values diverse experiences and access needs will be met with care.

Dates: 04.08. – 15.08.

It is not required to be available for the full two weeks. Please share your availability and we can plan accordingly. Of course, more days - preferably the full two weeks - are ideal.

Time commitment: 4 hours/day, 15:30–19:30 (1 rehearsal/day)

Reimbursement: €50 per one rehearsal (not a formalized fee or salary)

Location: P.A.R.T.S. Studios, Brussels

Includes: A work-in-progress showing toward the end of the residency; exact date to be announced.

* This invitation is self-organized and emerges from my independent artistic practice. I was selected to take part in the P.A.R.T.S. Summer Residencies program, which provides space and time for choreographic development. While the institutional framework offers valuable infrastructure, this open call is entirely initiated and managed by me.

** This two-week period will serve as a dedicated movement research phase; following this residency, I will re ect on the process and decide how to shape the next steps of the project and potential ongoing collaborations.

About the project

It’s the Way You Walk It is a speculative choreographic work set in a future where movement has replaced fashion as the dominant commodity. People - now cyborg-like beings purchase professionally choreographed walks to experience emotions like con dence, calm, seduction, or invisibility.

This research centers on developing a series of “walk-collections” that explore a spectrum of emotional and somatic states - ranging from survival, resistance, and manipulation to vulnerability, grace, bliss or focus. These walks are not symbolic gestures, but embodied inquiries shaped by lived experience, social coding, and speculative exaggeration. For example a bliss walk could dilate time and sensory attention, immersing the body in pleasure or surrender. A grace walk navigates balance, poise, and uidity as a form of quiet power. Focus walks hone intention into directionality - composing presence with clarity and precision. A manipulative walk orchestrates charm, ambiguity, and strategic shifts in rhythm or direction to seduce, confuse, or control attention. Together, these walks oscillate between states of inner navigation and outer performance, offering the body as both archive and invention.

While this speculative world may initially seem playful or liberating, it gradually reveals how somatic knowledge and healing vocabularies can be co-opted by systems of control and optimization. I draw from physical theatre, somatic strategies, repetition, exhaustion, and performative distortion to create walks that oscillate between hyper-speci city and unruly embodiment. For me, movement is not step-based choreography - it is a method to construct states, invent alternative physical logics, and question performativity itself.

Artistic context & working method

Over the past three years, I have been developing a choreographic language rooted in speculative imagination, somatic experimentation, and political inquiry. During the residency, I will share tools and methods I’ve created - but equally important is for me cocreation. I initiate and frame the research, but I am committed to collaborative dynamics where listening and exchange are central. The structure of the rehearsal is guided by care, curiosity, and mutual respect. I bring a vision, but that vision is shaped by the voices and bodies present in the studio.

Who I’m looking for

I’d love to hear from artists who:

* Are curious about speculative and critical performance

* Are open to stretching their physical, sensory, imaginary and emotional capacities—from subtle, internal states to moments of intensity or unpredictability. This does not imply one xed idea of virtuosity, but rather a curiosity to explore the full range of one's own embodiment, limits, and imaginative force

* Enjoy working across contrasts of scale, rhythm, and emotional charge

* Are interested in queerness as an aesthetic, embodied, or critical position

* Are comfortable with repetition, improvisation, and non-linear research * Want to co-shape the space rather than just execute material

* Value care, complexity, curiosity, and collaboration

* Are attentive to political realities and structural injustices, and understand movement not only as physical, but as social, relational, and political

How to apply

Please send:

* A CV

* A video that shows your physicality and performativity (showreel, rehearsal, or anything you feel represents you)

* Optional: a few lines on why this project speaks to you

* Your availability during the two-week period

* Comments, questions or access needs

Send your materials to: evaurbanovaprojects@gmail.com

Deadline: 02.08. — but I will be reviewing applications as they arrive, as I hope to select collaborators as soon as possible.

Due to the volume of interest and the limitations of my current workload, I may not be able to personally respond to each application. If you do not hear from me by August 2nd, it means I’ve moved forward with other collaborators for this particular stage of the project. Please know that this decision is not a re ection of your value or potential, but simply the result of curatorial and practical constraints. I truly appreciate the time, thought, and energy you’ve put into reaching out.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Eva Urbanová