Bita Bell

Echoes of Solo Resistance and Autonomous Protest

Echoes of Solo Resistance and Autonomous Protest is an artistic research project exploring individual acts of protest in public space through choreographic analysis. Building on earlier research initiated during the “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi – Woman, Life, Freedom” revolution, the project traces the force of embodied gestures within socio-political upheavals and resistances.
Unlike collective movements, these autonomous actions arise from necessity and precarity. They ripple outward through images (often circulated on social media) and memory, carrying both fragility and power. The project asks: how do individual bodies claim space, confront authority, and move others toward action? Which bodies bear risk, and which are granted symbolic weight? How does the choreographic placement of such acts inspire us to put our bodies on the line?
Through critical and decolonial-queer-feminist theories, performance studies, movement descriptions, and poetic writings, the research analyzes performance strategies of solo resistance. The fellowship culminates in a publication and a lecture performance—an embodied weaving of theory, archive, sound, and gestures.

Text: Bita Bell