An Informance is a living artwork
The term Informance was coined by Krysten Cunningham to describe her participatory artworks. Rather than a performance meant for others, an Informance is meant to inform you, the participant, about yourself through explorative movement. During an Informance you intuitively follow a set of instructions and perform tasks with colorful stretchy bands that help you explore new tactile and visual experiences. Each Informance is customized and a little different, but the outcome is almost always a sense of connectedness to self and others. Informances are great for boosting creativity, improving adaptability and managing stress.
Like play, Informances engage you in a process of exploration and creative problem solving that increases your neural plasticity. During an Informance you learn to make new predictions and expand your catalog of potential outcomes in a low stakes environment. The interactive movements cause you to become more aware of your body in space and your sense of balance. You also move in new lateral directions which opens up new prefrontal cortex circuits. Ultimately Informances help you expand your perspective on movement, build awareness and generally make you feel more alive.
Informances are excellent team-building activities. They allow us to visualize the unseen connections we have with others. They increase our empathy and awareness of how we directly affect one another. Informances place us in positions where we must trust each other. They allow us to experience failure, discomfort, tension and participation within a safe environment that allows for authentic interactions between participants.
Some of our goals are:
- Reducing stress
- Increasing empathy, awareness and adaptability
- Developing trust in self and others
- Changing social roles and hierarchies
- Taking risks in a low stakes environment
- Participation and inclusion
- Increasing neural plasticity
- Expanding variability of movement
- Boosting innovation and creativity
- Exploring contingencies and new potential outcomes
- Team building
Some of the institutions we have worked with:
Please contact us for more information ︎
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