On Saturday 21 June, when the longest day and the shortest night of the year meet, If I Can't Dance presents an Emma's with Sara van der Heide who welcomes you to celebrate the transitional moment of the summer solstice at a specially chosen location, the Hortus Botanicus of the Vrije Universiteit. The night will be interspersed by short contributions from artists, writers and curators invited by Van der Heide, who share affinities with her practice and research into time, the earth, the body and light.
 
Van der Heide's forthcoming work Mother Earth's Breathing contemplates notions of time and metabolizing processes, including breathing and photosynthesis. For a period of one year she has been filming her garden, considering its embodiment of notions of cyclical time through the Earth’s daily turns around its axis and yearly turns around the sun. From the laws of nature we can distil a model for a reconsideration of time and value; a model that is not founded on linear growth, but is cyclical and also gives space and time to those processes taking place before and after growth: decay, death, stillness, contemplation and spirituality. In November 2013 van der Heide presented an early stage of the work at OCAT in Shenzhen, China. 


This presentation is the last of the Emma's gatherings with the artists of Edition V – Appropriation and Dedication (2013-2014) including Gerry Bibby, Sara van der Heide, Snejanka Mihaylova, and Emily Roysdon, sharing with the audiences the interests explored in their current works. These works, along with the projects currently in development within the Performance in Residence programme, will be presented in Amsterdam over several days in November 2014.

- Unfortunately we are now fully booked.-

No entrance fee. Please RSVP at bookings@ificantdance.org, space is limited. - 

Please bring a (flash)light. Layered clothing is advisable as it gets chilly after sunset, but it's tropically warm in certain greenhouses.

The botanical garden of the Vrije Universiteit is easily accessible by bike from the city centre, and can also be reached with tram 16 and 24, from metro stop De Boelelaan/VU or train station Amsterdam Zuid.

With thanks and much appreciation to the Vrienden van VU Hortus and Clivia Festival.