Bio

Omer Keinan (Israel, 1997) is a freelance performance artist and scholar based in Berlin (DE) and Tel Aviv (IL). He received a diploma in choreography from the International Choreographic Exchange postgraduate program at SEAD Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (AU, 2019), and graduated from the Maslool Professional Dance Program (IL, 2017). Currently, he is studying in the New Performative Practices Master program at the Stockholm University of the Arts (SE, 2023-2025).

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As a freelance performance artist, Omer created improvisation-based performance work such as Azathoth, a cosmic meditation on the elation and horror of the unknowable; premiering at DOCK ART (2022, DE) in collaboration with nein9 kollektiv, and further developed during a residency at Lake Studio Berlin. The New Fire Ceremony, an audience-participatory competition meddling with aesthetic biases and the illusion of choice; premiering with support by SEAD (2019, AU), adapted to an online format for Viral Festival (2020, IL), and restaged at DOC ART (2022, DE). And Quad, an interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s play by the same name; premiering at and in collaboration with Fresco House of Dance and Culture (2017, IL). His performance practice engages with theoretical literature and an array of media references, seeking to deconstruct contemporary rituals, ceremonies, and conventions; modalities of perceiving reality which provide a precarious and elusive sense of comfort and freedom. Drawing on performance research projects of the last century, they invite audiences to contemplate their perception of reality by generating an interactive and meditative space for staying with the trouble.

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As a scholar of performance practice, Omer has been producing and facilitating a research-oriented performance laboratory experimenting in and on embodiment. This ongoing process (2018-present) has sustained through the collaboration with more than eighty practitioners from various backgrounds and disciplines across myriad modes of exchange and four cities (Salzburg, Brussels, Tel-Aviv, and Berlin). Through the interplay of dance, theater, somatic, and psychoanalytic practices, he adventures to develop models and methods for thinking through embodiment; inviting practitioners to contemplate their agencies, as bodies and creators, to interact with and enact change in their realities. Employing an extensive archiving methodology, the project has yielded several online research catalogues which include video-excerpts, essays, and exercise descriptions. The laboratory has sustained through residency programs such as Sadnaot Habama (2020, IL) and SummerStudios P.A.R.T.S 2019 (BE), creation processes which double as specialized research projects, and the co-founding of nein9 kollektiv, a Berlin-based movement community.

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Omer also participated in various workshops, such as Body IQ Somatics Festivals at the Somatische Akademie Berlin (2021, DE) and SUBMERGE – Choreographer’s Lab at Lake Studios Berlin (2021, DE). His collaborators include movers Raz Mantell, Susanna Ylikoski, and Máté Asbót, and musician Roi Becker.