In November 2025, artist and choreographer Zander Porter was in a one-week residency at Danseatelier together with multidisciplinary artist/performance-maker and collaborator Yooha Cheon. The residency culminated in a public performance sharing of "De-dissociation" (탈-dissociation) at Danseatelier on 22 November 2025.
“De-dissociation” (탈-dissociation) traces the psychic and sensorimotor textures of a body performed by and developed in intimate and intercultural collaboration with Yooha Cheon’s spiritual/psychic relations to birthplace (서울/Seoul). Questioned are postcolonial and post-DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone) cultural phenomena which complicate notions of origin and psychological categorization/diagnosis in globalized techno-culture amidst rippling wakes of empire (Japanese, United States). A series of solo dance scenes responds by negotiating an “East-West dichotomy” with cyborgic and spiritual overlay, unfolding a choreography of corporeality and its possessions vs. decompositions. The performance researches dissociation not as psychiatric DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) pathology/retreat but as a site of wonky attunement amidst aesthetic contours and atmospheres of Gen Z joy and horror.
The performance emerged after three years of personal advising/mentorship of Yooha during each semester of study and coursework at School for New Dance Development. Its initiation and rehearsal in 2025 were supported in Berlin by Erasmus+, Academy of Theatre and Dance, & Theaterhaus Berlin and a residency/showing occurred at DANSEatelier with additional support from Dansehallerne.
Zander Porter is an artist and choreographer based primarily in Berlin, working between liveness and onlineness. Citing internet semiotics, hormonal technologies, corporeality, and surveillance paradigms with a mixture of curiosity, reverence, irony, and skepticism, Zander’s work critically exposes neoliberal orders of hyper-individualization and reimagines staged/documented ceremonies of the techno-social. Ze articulates byproducts (expressions, performativities) of this negotiation as (technogenetic, neuroatypical) matrices of queerer relationality. Holding a BA in Art Studio from Wesleyan University and an MA in Choreography from DAS Graduate School – AHK, Zander has participated in residencies at Trauma Bar und Kino (Berlin), the Saison Foundation (Tokyo), National Institute for Space Research (São José dos Campos), Leonardo@Djerassi (Woodside), and ICST – ZHdK (Zurich), alongside reception of disparate grants or awards and participation in various exhibition/festival contexts internationally.
Yooha Cheon is a multidisciplinary artist/performance-maker from South Korea. They are currently pursuing and soon completing a BA at the School for New Dance Development (Amsterdam).
