UNEXPECTED LESSONS 5: The Resonating Body – Writing and Orality
Melanie Jame Wolf / emet ezell / Alvin Tran / Celina Baljeet Basra
Talk Performance Workshop
„My Mouth is a Resurrection Channel“, 2026 © emet ezell
Ticket Prices
Workshop 12 Euro
Performances 15 Euro
“Everything I make starts with language, with a word, a title, a repeated phrase” – Melanie Jame Wolf
Language is sound. Tunes dancing in a choreography; your tongue moving against your palate and pushing against your teeth. We spit and chew, bite and devour, click our tongues and sing and scream. Writing is a practice of knowledge transmission, memory, and self-positioning. In the intertwining of body, orality, and writing, hybrid forms emerge in which experience, history, and the present are inscribed and carried forward. The works presented in this chapter of “UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges…
“Everything I make starts with language, with a word, a title, a repeated phrase” – Melanie Jame Wolf
Language is sound. Tunes dancing in a choreography; your tongue moving against your palate and pushing against your teeth. We spit and chew, bite and devour, click our tongues and sing and scream. Writing is a practice of knowledge transmission, memory, and self-positioning. In the intertwining of body, orality, and writing, hybrid forms emerge in which experience, history, and the present are inscribed and carried forward. The works presented in this chapter of “UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound” reflect on these notions and more, in a writing workshop, in performative readings, in a play, and in a conversation.
“Language Acts” – Writing Workshop
How to edit language acts for the stage? How to shape text for dance and performance?
Language Acts is a writing workshop co-hosted by Melanie Jame Wolf and Celina Baljeet Basra for dance and performance practitioners, as well as writers who would like to think about language as a carefully considered material for performance, both in making and presentation. It is for artists who would like to develop concrete tools for editing and rewriting language that will live on stages. Celina Baljeet Basra and Melanie Jame Wolf invite participants to bring an existing text that we will workshop and evolve in two rounds. The objective of the workshop is to equip stage artists with agency in writing.
“The Resonating Body” – Three Performances
Choreographer, performer, writer, and visual artist Melanie Jame Wolf explores the vulnerability of the live moment and the body as an unruly political riddle; she will present the formal experiment “UNRULY MATERIAL (After Genet, after Mr. Punch)”.
Visual artist and writer emet ezell works with the themes of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return. The mouth and lips, and knowledge transmitted through eating, chewing, and spitting, are recurring motifs in their work. At Radialsystem, they will present the performative reading “MY MOUTH IS A RESURRECTION CHANNEL”.
Choreographer and artist Alvin Tran works with pop songs, music videos, and film. “STRAWBERRY, ARIZONA”, the artist’s first play, is about spectatorship and the parasocial imagination. It explores the frightening possibility that personality itself can become a survival technology: something we inherit, perform, desire, and eventually pass on to someone else.
Programme
15 – 18 h
“Language Acts”
Writing Workshop | Kubus
With Celina Baljeet Basra & Melanie Jame Wolf
19 h
“The Resonating Body”
Performances | Studio 1
„MY MOUTH IS A RESURRECTION CHANNEL“
Performative Reading by emet ezell
„UNRULY MATERIAL (After Genet, after Mr. Punch)“
Formal Experiment by Melanie Jame Wolf
„STRAWBERRY, ARIZONA“
A Play by Alvin Tran
20.30 h
Artist Talk | Studio 1
With Alvin Tran, emet ezell and Melanie Jame Wolf, hosted by Celina Baljeet Basra
In English.
Cast
With
Melanie Jame Wolf
emet ezell
Alvin Tran
Celina Baljeet Basra
Cast
With
Melanie Jame Wolf
emet ezell
Alvin Tran
Celina Baljeet Basra
Biographies
Melanie Jame Wolf is a choreographer, performer, writer, and visual artist. She makes artworks, performances, and texts about power, persona, and the phenomenon she calls “show business”: the persuasive, the deceptive, the staged, the dramatic, the cathartic, and the performed in political, theatrical, and everyday contexts.
emet ezell is a poet and typographer living in Berlin, Germany. Trained in the studio of Robert Sawa, ezell works with the letter as the visceral and tactile unit of composition. In addition to printing, the artist makes their own paper, preserving forgotten techniques through practice. ezell’s work is concerned with the reverberations of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return.
Alvin Tran is a visual artist and choreographer raised in Seattle. He has held residencies at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, and NEW INC, New Museum, New York, and his work has been featured in Flash Art, Artforum, Bomb, amongst others.
Celina Baljeet Basra is a writer and curator, based in Berlin. Her first novel HAPPY was published in 2023 (Astra House, New York Times Editor’s Pick). She is part of the team of the Talking Objects Lab, and is currently working on her second novel.
Biographies
Melanie Jame Wolf is a choreographer, performer, writer, and visual artist. She makes artworks, performances, and texts about power, persona, and the phenomenon she calls “show business”: the persuasive, the deceptive, the staged, the dramatic, the cathartic, and the performed in political, theatrical, and everyday contexts.
emet ezell is a poet and typographer living in Berlin, Germany. Trained in the studio of Robert Sawa, ezell works with the letter as the visceral and tactile unit of composition. In addition to printing, the artist makes their own paper, preserving forgotten techniques through practice. ezell’s work is concerned with the reverberations of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return.
Alvin Tran is a visual artist and choreographer raised in Seattle. He has held residencies at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, and NEW INC, New Museum, New York, and his work has been featured in Flash Art, Artforum, Bomb, amongst others.
Celina Baljeet Basra is a writer and curator, based in Berlin. Her first novel HAPPY was published in 2023 (Astra House, New York Times Editor’s Pick). She is part of the team of the Talking Objects Lab, and is currently working on her second novel.
Further Information
The series UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound, which will take place from May 2026 to February 2027 at Radialsystem, explores the plural knowledge of dance, body, and sound. Interdisciplinary perspectives and practitioners from the African continent, the diaspora, and beyond will engage in dialogue with Berlin's dynamic dance scene.
The focus is on the social and political dimensions of dance, knowledge systems in music, the body as a living archive, movement as healing, a decolonial perspective on the body and dance, and a critical examination of global dance history. Performances, talks, listening sessions, and workshops transform knowledge into experience and movement.
The series is curated by Isabel Raabe (artistic director) and Celina Baljeet Basra (co-curator) and accompanied by Prof. Dr. Mariama Diagne.
Programme
15 – 18 h
“Language Acts”
Writing Workshop | Kubus
With Celina Baljeet Basra & Melanie Jame Wolf
19 h
“The Resonating Body”
Performances | Studio 1
„MY MOUTH IS A RESURRECTION CHANNEL“
Performative Reading by emet ezell
„UNRULY MATERIAL (After Genet, after Mr. Punch)“
Formal Experiment by Melanie Jame Wolf
„STRAWBERRY, ARIZONA“
A Play by Alvin Tran
20.30 h
Artist Talk | Studio 1
With Alvin Tran, emet ezell and Melanie Jame Wolf, hosted by Celina Baljeet Basra
In English.
Further Information
The series UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound, which will take place from May 2026 to February 2027 at Radialsystem, explores the plural knowledge of dance, body, and sound. Interdisciplinary perspectives and practitioners from the African continent, the diaspora, and beyond will engage in dialogue with Berlin's dynamic dance scene.
The focus is on the social and political dimensions of dance, knowledge systems in music, the body as a living archive, movement as healing, a decolonial perspective on the body and dance, and a critical examination of global dance history. Performances, talks, listening sessions, and workshops transform knowledge into experience and movement.
The series is curated by Isabel Raabe (artistic director) and Celina Baljeet Basra (co-curator) and accompanied by Prof. Dr. Mariama Diagne.
Credits
The series ‘UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound’ is supported by the LOTTO Foundation Berlin. In cooperation with the Betty Center for Movement Research in Dance Studies at LMU Munich. An event as part of the TALKING OBJECTS LAB.
Media partners Radialsystem: taz. die tageszeitung, tip Berlin, The Berliner, Radio 3.
Credits
The series ‘UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound’ is supported by the LOTTO Foundation Berlin. In cooperation with the Betty Center for Movement Research in Dance Studies at LMU Munich. An event as part of the TALKING OBJECTS LAB.
Media partners Radialsystem: taz. die tageszeitung, tip Berlin, The Berliner, Radio 3.
“Everything I make starts with language, with a word, a title, a repeated phrase” – Melanie Jame Wolf
Language is sound. Tunes dancing in a choreography; your tongue moving against your palate and pushing against your teeth. We spit and chew, bite and devour, click our tongues and sing and scream. Writing is a practice of knowledge transmission, memory, and self-positioning. In the intertwining of body, orality, and writing, hybrid forms emerge in which experience, history, and the present are inscribed and carried forward. The works presented in this chapter of “UNEXPECTED LESSONS – Knowledges of Body and Sound” reflect on these notions and more, in a writing workshop, in performative readings, in a play, and in a conversation.
“Language Acts” – Writing Workshop
How to edit language acts for the stage? How to shape text for dance and performance?
Language Acts is a writing workshop co-hosted by Melanie Jame Wolf and Celina Baljeet Basra for dance and performance practitioners, as well as writers who would like to think about language as a carefully considered material for performance, both in making and presentation. It is for artists who would like to develop concrete tools for editing and rewriting language that will live on stages. Celina Baljeet Basra and Melanie Jame Wolf invite participants to bring an existing text that we will workshop and evolve in two rounds. The objective of the workshop is to equip stage artists with agency in writing.
“The Resonating Body” – Three Performances
Choreographer, performer, writer, and visual artist Melanie Jame Wolf explores the vulnerability of the live moment and the body as an unruly political riddle; she will present the formal experiment “UNRULY MATERIAL (After Genet, after Mr. Punch)”.
Visual artist and writer emet ezell works with the themes of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return. The mouth and lips, and knowledge transmitted through eating, chewing, and spitting, are recurring motifs in their work. At Radialsystem, they will present the performative reading “MY MOUTH IS A RESURRECTION CHANNEL”.
Choreographer and artist Alvin Tran works with pop songs, music videos, and film. “STRAWBERRY, ARIZONA”, the artist’s first play, is about spectatorship and the parasocial imagination. It explores the frightening possibility that personality itself can become a survival technology: something we inherit, perform, desire, and eventually pass on to someone else.
Cast
With
Melanie Jame Wolf
emet ezell
Alvin Tran
Celina Baljeet Basra
Biographies
Melanie Jame Wolf is a choreographer, performer, writer, and visual artist. She makes artworks, performances, and texts about power, persona, and the phenomenon she calls “show business”: the persuasive, the deceptive, the staged, the dramatic, the cathartic, and the performed in political, theatrical, and everyday contexts.
emet ezell is a poet and typographer living in Berlin, Germany. Trained in the studio of Robert Sawa, ezell works with the letter as the visceral and tactile unit of composition. In addition to printing, the artist makes their own paper, preserving forgotten techniques through practice. ezell’s work is concerned with the reverberations of devotion, dispossession, ruin, and return.
Alvin Tran is a visual artist and choreographer raised in Seattle. He has held residencies at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, and NEW INC, New Museum, New York, and his work has been featured in Flash Art, Artforum, Bomb, amongst others.
Celina Baljeet Basra is a writer and curator, based in Berlin. Her first novel HAPPY was published in 2023 (Astra House, New York Times Editor’s Pick). She is part of the team of the Talking Objects Lab, and is currently working on her second novel.
