Amanda Piña - Daniel Zimmermann nadaproductions

She is half Chilean, half Mexican and a choreographer. He is a Swiss artist and a film-maker. Amanda Piña and Daniel Zimmermann have been working in Vienna under the name Nada Productions since 2005. They use their multicultural background to talk about issues of perception and reception. For ‘WAR’ they went to Easter Island, which politically speaking is a province of Chile. There they studied Polynesian dance forms that were revived in the eighties, including the infamous Hoko-war dance of Rapa Nui. This material opened their eyes to a much broader story. Piña and Zimmermann show us a world in which colonial relations are still at issue. They point to the danger contained in the ideal of cultural connectedness: a monoculture that ruthlessly slaps down anything that does not meet our cultural expectations. With their findings, they question our western division between contemporary and traditional. We see eleven war dances that Amanda Piña choreographed together with Pascual Pakarati, who is from Easter Island. These artists seem to suggest that wars should be danced, not fought. The body itself is a tool of resistance. ‘WAR’ is an appeal against war and a plea for diversity in art and society. It is an invitation to embrace other cultures, beyond ethnocentrism and exoticism.