Vera Shchelkina

Here, now — one month into Iceland and one month before I leave this wild place — I feel settled in the present: on this island, in my work, in the rhythm of rehearsals, in deep sleep, in cold water, and in the ease of not forcing myself to grow roots. From here, my mind can turn toward the future. From September, I am looking for new projects. Short-term or long-term, in Germany or across Europe (I am a tax resident of Germany). ~ My preferred roles ~ choreographer, choreographic assistant, movement educator (especially in contexts of art education) ~ What I bring ~ In movement research, I bring a somatic perspective and speculative practices that queer ways of sensing — shaping them into movement. In choreographic composition, I work across layers of attention, creating complex, non-narrative dramaturgies through the visual, sonic, spatial, and relational. I play with bodies, movement, light, sound, staging, angles of view, and states of the nervous system. In production, I bring a freelance dance artist’s perspective and enjoy working across the full process — before, during, and after — with all its challenges and wonders. ~ 5 highlights from the past year ~ – Currently: choreographic assistant (internship) with @icelanddancecompany on “Move with Pride” by @ondinathequeen – Facilitating a seminar on non-human perception with students at @muthesiuskunsthochschulekiel including a collaborative showing (with Annika Larsson and Geza Ghadyani) – Choreographing the site-specific performance “When Roots Moved” for @chtodelatemergencyprojectroom at @kampnagel_hamburg Sommerfestival 2025 – MA in Choreography, @hzt_berlin (@hfs_ernst_busch ) with a full-length dance work "Everyone here is a bit of a horse" – Choreographing the film “Songs of Hope and Despair” for @chtodelatemergencyprojectroom recently shown at @iffr Ongoing: further teaching and choreographic projects in development phase. Full CV available upon request. If this resonates, feel free to reach out or share. 🤍 P.S. This picture shows my deaf name (Щелк/Snap/Schnips) and the name of my last piece.

Some processes are finding unexpected forms that sing right into my heart. Group perception movement sessions I designed for @fruehling.ling and her master project "Sleeping Through The Film", inspired this Zin by @fruehling.ling @lovelykumari_i and Sarah. This is just one of the steps on the way to other forms and processes. Because life never stops changing forms. And teaching is letting go into this change.

April 24th, in Hamburger Bunker, There will be an opening of an exhibition “Stitched Connections” in @hajusom as part of the Project Urban Mending Lab by @chtodelatemergencyprojectroom To open the exhibition, we present a performance BENEATH THE CONCRETE SKIN ~We are~ Vera Shchelkina (choreographer) @moving_touch Maria Markina (music director and performer) @manyasya ~Co-authors and performers~ Azadeh Rahbar @azadehrahbar55 Mariya Gyurova @mashagyurova Ksenia Vidyaykina @kseniadance Alexey Markin @alexeyfmn Taisiia Sapurina sapurina Zoé Champagne @zoe__champagne Olga Egorova Tsaplya @olga_tsaplya_egorova ~The performance is~ playing with visible and invisible, with calling and listening, with scars and their healing, with presence and absence, with the space and bodies inserted in this space, with the personal and collective. ~To experience the performance and the exhibition~ come to Hamburg Bunker (Feldstraße 66, Hamburg) 24.04. at 19:00 and follow the call! The exhibition in @hajusom will be open afterwards! Both performance and exhibition are free.

Urban Mending Lab: Interim Exhibition & Public Program Urban Mending Lab began its activities in January 2026. Over the course of four intensive months, the Lab has initiated a series of four workshops that have shaped its conceptual direction: Body Practice: Scar Tissues; Songs of Repair and Catastrophe; Mending and Reweaving of Clothes; and Urban Narratives. Each workshop has fostered its own community, developing distinct practices and shared processes with participants. This interim exhibition offers a moment to open these processes to the public. The project deliberately foregrounds incompleteness, inviting visitors to engage with an open question: what kind of visual and performative language is possible today for addressing complex, often contradictory realities of the city which demands intervention of communities and repair? The exhibition brings together both collective expressions emerging from the Lab and individual projects by participants. Most of works remain in progress, as a sketches for the future possible realization. We also make an exhibition premier of the project “Here – Now - Everyone” which was realized by many current participants of the Lab as a performative intervention in August 2025. Over the course of a month, the exhibition will continuously evolve, activating the space through an extensive public program. This includes lectures, performances, screenings, discussions, open workshops, karaoke seminars, assemblies, and concert. The format reflects Hamburg’s vibrant culture of critical artistic exchange, where artistic practice intersects with social inquiry and collective experimentation. Alongside participants of the Urban Mending Lab, the program also features invited collaborators — artists, researchers, and practitioners who share a commitment to exploring processes of repair, care, and transformation in contemporary urban life. Urban Mending Lab positions itself as an open platform: a space for learning, making, and reweaving connections between bodies, materials, and narratives. We consider this interim exhibition marks as a public invitation to take part in shaping what comes next.

As a part of Urban Mending Lab (a project by @chtodelatemergencyprojectroom ) We combine 2 of 4 workshops - “Scar Tissues” by @moving_touch and “Songs of repair” by @manyasya during an intensive workshop on 11-12.04 in @hajusom Come to perceive, listen, move, touch, and tremble bodies and soundwaves in the space of the Hamburger Bunker. ~ When 11-12.04 From 12:00 to 16:00 ~ Where We will start in the studio of Hajusom ~ How much It is free ~For whom For those who have attended either of our workshops, or anyone interested!

Right now I’m preparing teaching sessions for five different projects. I also regularly join other people’s teaching. This creates a kind of inner statistic, a clearer sense of what it is that I actually do. So, this is my teaching statement: 1. I teach as artistic research. This is not a therapeutic process. Not something I want you to “learn.” Not a model I want to impose on you. Not about moving correctly or perceiving things in a specific way. Not about feeling better or changing the world. 2. I work with speculation. I borrow body models from different scientific fields (for example, I’m hugely inspired by embryology). That does not mean I am telling you the truth about the body. On the contrary: I name these practices clearly speculations. We cannot turn back time and return to the embryo to re-decide our form of development. This is speculation. So: double-check everything I say, if you are a critical mind. Create your own model of thinking. 3. Playing. We are playing together, constantly reframing the rules of the game, for the sake of the game. This also applies to choreographic rules. In teaching outside of production context, I am not your choreographer, even though I propose compositional strategies. Choreographic forms, scores, and methods are there as examples. Create your own scores, forms, and rules. Let us play your game. 4. What can you take from this type of teaching? Whatever you want. A practice to practice. An inspiration for an art piece. A new thinking model. You can also take nothing. This is how I teach. Join if you like. Photos by @alenka.na.gorke From a short class about vision

We invite you to the 𝗨.𝗠.𝗕.𝗥.𝗔. workshops (𝗨n.𝗠asking.𝗕odily.𝗥ealms.of.𝗔wareness) 👤Who are we? 2 choreographers (@moving_touch & @ming.apur ), 2 approaches, 1 collaboration. 🌀 What is it? After listening to the feedback, we feel that it would be good to try out a new format: two separate workshops, each with its distinct approach to perception, movement, and emotion research on shadow. We believe this will give us the space and time needed to go deeper into each practice. We are seeking participants to test out this format. ✳️ Workshop 1: Shadow Space (Vera Shchelkina) 🗓️ 5 & 6 April @ 15-20 hrs Let’s hypothesize together: There is a Shadow Space — everything beyond conscious attention, everywhere not seen, felt, heard, smelled, or sensed in this moment. In this artistic research workshop, we will tune into these dark matters of body and perception — from the darkness of an embryo growing its eyes to the unseen everywhere — through somatic, neurophysiological, optical, and performative tasks: tracing with our skin, mapping blind fields, seeing with eyes closed, casting and being cast as shadows, and encountering our own dark twin in duos. The process will culminate in a group composition in our shared shadow space. ✳️ Workshop 2: Dancing with our S.H.A.D.O.W. (Ming Poon) 🗓️ 25 & 26 April @ 10-15 hrs We embark on a journey with our personal shadows, the parts of ourselves that we are unconscious of, fear, or suppress. This is an invitation to pause — letting ourselves sink gently toward our shadows, guided by non-judgmental attention, compassion, and curiosity. Through a process of listening, sensing, feeling, and dialoguing, we move with our shadows and transform our relationship to them. Note: this is not a therapy — it is an awareness and movement research workshop: you decide how deep you wish to go. Details • Venue: Kienitzer Straße 98, 12049 (Neukölln) Berlin • Participants: max. 8 (No prior experience required) • Cost: Free • Requirement: You can choose to join one or both workshops, but should commit to being present for both days of your chosen workshop(s) 👉𝗗𝗠 to take part! 🌑✨ #ShadowWorkshop #UMBRA #EmbodiedResearch

We invite you to the U.M.B.R.A. Workshop Un.Masking.Bodily.Realms.of.Awareness ~ What is it? A two-day workshop on perception, movement, and emotion research. We are seeking 4 more participants to test out our workshop model. ~ Day 1: Shadow Space Toolbox We hypothesize: There is a Shadow Space that you can tune into. Shadow Space is everything beyond your conscious attention, everywhere not seen, felt, heard, smelled, and sensed at this moment. We will research this space through various tasks: we will become an embryo that senses light with all its skin, map blind fields, learn to see with eyes closed, cast shadows, be cast as a shadow, and become our own dark twin in duos and group scores. ~ Day 2: Dancing with our S.H.A.D.O.W. We embark on a journey with our personal shadows, the parts of ourselves that we are unconscious of, fear, or suppress. The session is an invitation to pause — letting ourselves sink gently toward our shadows, guided by non-judgmental attention, compassion, and curiosity. Through a process of listening, sensing, feeling, and dialoguing, we move with our shadows and transform our relationship to them. * Note: this is not therapy — it is a research workshop: you decide how deep you wish to go. ~ Who are we? Two choreographers (@moving_touch & @ming.apur ), two approaches, one collaboration. ~ Details •Date: March 14 & 15, 2026 @ 15-20 hrs •Venue: Kienitzer Straße 98, 12049 (Neukölln) Berlin •Participants: 4 places left (No prior experience required) •Cost: Free •Requirement: committed to being present for the 2 whole sessions DM to take part! 🌑✨ #ShadowWorkshop #UMBRA #EmbodiedResearch

Lately I’ve been teaching a lot—and witnessing others teach. The scary and the game changing part is that knowledge is no longer exclusive. Anyone can get any information, from any angle, in half an hour with an AI model. So why do you still need a teacher? For creating contexts, asking research questions, and practicing the practice. For inviting students into a space that’s safe and brave enough to experiment—where curiosity matters more than survival, academic hierarchy and credits. Where we could together come up with a specific interest: for example what “non-human vision” might mean for being a human artist. The project "Soft Animal of Your Body" @muthesiuskunsthochschulekiel was unbelievably ambitious: a collective experiment in teaching, learning, producing, and inventing methods in real time. I’m absolutely happy that this is what education can look like now. (If you prefer even longer texts -- my Telegram-channel is in bio) The bravest of the students: @lina_akrami1 @lillyfranzaltmann @choiseoyong_im mariama_dns @katharinafedde @miriamflick.art @sana_gharany @jane.9han @jona.mai_ @habeenbee_ @bureauthorslund @vanni_vo The magicians of the co-teachers: Annika Larsson & Reza Ghadyani

Chto Delat Urban Mending Lab Between Repair and Catastrophe Events in Hamburg on 14th and 15th of February Hajusom Entrance to the Bunker (not the roof entrance)Feldstraße 66, 2nd floor, 20359 Hamburg (follow the signs inside the bunker) 14.02.202 – Body practice: Scar tissues (Seminar Nr.2) 12:00 – 16:00 Hajusom Facilitator: Vera Shchelkina Workshops on the body, the body–mind connection, movement, and performativity in relation to public space (and the history of bodily approaches to injury). 15.02.202 – Songs of Repair and Apocalypses (Seminar Nr.1) Facilitator: Maria Markina 13:00 – 16:00 Hajusom Through collective singing, listening, and experimental songwriting, participants transform memories, languages, and lived experiences into shared music. The workshop creates an inclusive space to reclaim voice, build connection, and strengthen a sense of belonging through communal sound. Important changes in program: the Artist Talk Katja Pilipenko scheduled for 12.02.202 is shifted to 05.03.2026

Update: free for choreographic and teaching with from August! Okay, here I will try to explain Speculative Somatics. I must admit that I have been developing this practice since early childhood — as games of perception, but also as a survival strategy in a world wired for neuro-normativity. It became my way of finding connection not through social interaction, but through the shared feeling of living matter. With the help of hyperfocus, precision, overstimulation, and deep sensory attention, perception games became perception research, and research became a way to transform difference into connection, and sensitivity into a way of knowing. And here a more professionalized text: Speculative Somatics is a body-based research method that invites participants to reimagine their physical form — tracing it back to an embryo and evolving it into another kind of being: a cat, an amphibian, or an entirely imaginary creature, texture, substance. Through this process, the body becomes a speculative model — a way to question how sensation, regeneration, and collective life could unfold differently. On a political level, it asks what kinds of societies might grow from these alternative forms of existence. By shifting sensory experience, Speculative Somatics opens the possibility to decentralize the human perspective and reconnect with living matter on a deeper, more elemental level. The method can be used for personal exploration, movement research, and choreography, but also as a political and activist practice — to challenge normative ideas of the body, expand perception, and imagine other ways of being. Camera and editing by @alenka.na.gorke / @aye.eye.captain Thank you for all friends and colleagues in this video and everyone who played with us!

SOFT ANIMAL OF YOUR BODY (open lab) ~ With all of their eyes, animals behold openness. Only our seeing is retrospective, set like traps around them ~ (Rilke, "The Eighth Elegy") In this laboratory “Soft animal of your body”, we have attempted to avoid the trap of viewing the world solely through human eyes. Obviously, we are humans. But the evolution of the eye have gone through so many interesting and unexpected turns, that it would be a shame to forget about them. By using the interactive software @troikatronix_isadora not as a technical tool but as our partner in perception, a prosthetic eye, and an interface, we have been experimenting with a series of choreographed relations between modes of perceptions, bodies, and actions, including goose rave. This event and open lab are to share our ongoing process with you. @uferstudios_tanz_berlin Studio 1 06.02 at 18:00 with Lina Akrami @lina_akrami1 Lilly Altmann @lillyfranzaltmann Seoyeong Choi @choiseoyong_im Mariama Danso mariama_dns Katharina Fedde @katharinafedde Miriam Flick @miriamflick.art Sana Gharany @sana_gharany Jongeun Han @jane.9han Johanna-Marie Lösche @jona.mai_ Habeen Park @habeenbee_ Jieon Sun, Clara Thorslund @bureauthorslund & Vanessa von Appen @vanni_vo Developed from a seminar by Vera Shchelkina done in collboration with Annika Larsson & Reza Ghadyani Time Based Media - Zentrum Für Medien, DLC Art Lab, @muthesiuskunsthochschulekiel Poster by Clara Thorslund @bureauthorslund