In a postmodern building of a former bank, BANKing interweaves various forms of physical exchange with social interactions and ambivalent yet interdependent relationships between bodies and social institutions. A social choreography evolves that is simultaneously physical, musical, spatial, and ethical. Referencing the phenomenon of biobanking – the extraction, storage and administration necessary for the exchange and donation of biological matter – a dense field of ethical and empathic conundrums emerge. BANKing considers the conditions that govern, extract, implant, and transfer physical and immaterial matter between bodies. In this durational performance, dancers and instrumentalists transform an eclectic building into an oscillating composition, constantly creating new situations for interdependencies between body parts and beings. Over time, the performance space transforms from a passive environment – a container for bodies and sound – into an active reflection of the mysterious, wondrous, and abysmal aspects of the human condition.Through dialogues between the performers’ own bodies, one another, and the audience, BANKing explores the transformative potential of what happens when our physical, sensorial, and biological resources are being made available for collaboration and creative processes. A meditative journey through various choreographies of care around the acts of harvesting and exchanging [biological] matter, BANKing is a soothing antidote for a desperate time.

Moriah Evans is a choreographer based in New York. She understands choreography as a speculative and socio-cultural process that transcends traditional genre boundaries. Drawing on somatic choreographic practices and feminist critiques of visuality, her work expands the relationship to dance beyond the visible, to the various ways we perceive ourselves and our relationships to one another. By developing movement from the invisible yet felt worlds of a body’s material and affective interior, Evans’ projects question hierarchies between flesh, body, self and subject. Evans pursues a multi-layered approach in her artistic practice: she creates site-specific performances, theater productions, participatory installations in museums, symposia, theoretical texts and curatorial projects.