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For the next creation, Swedish dance company Cullberg collaborates with choreographer Halla Ólafsdóttir. The new work starts out from the mythological creature the sylph, an ethereal being with the power to shape-shift to rougher and rawer creatures.  Sylph premieres at Dansens Hus/Elverket in Stockholm in May 2023.

“I have a sort of love-hate relationship with classical ballet and usually work with a mix of “nice and bad culture”. The sylphs have a voice and a giant body, they wander in and out of a mysterious world, dancing, whispering, rustling, tapping and chewing. We play with exorcism and the occult and examine what happens choreographically when sound, costume, scenography, light and dance play equal roles. If I can dream completely freely, we will present a very mysterious world, a forest with the dancers as creatures and animals”, says Halla Ólafsdóttir.

Halla Ólafsdóttir creates Sylph together with the Cullberg dancers, composer Shida Shahabi, set and lighting designer Chrisander Brun and costume designer Hanna Kisch. Sylph is Ólafsdóttir’s first work for Cullberg.

Sylph (2023)
Choreography Halla Ólafsdóttir
Music Shida Shahabi
Set and lighting design Chrisander Brun
Costume design Hanna Kisch
With nine dancers.

Premiere with Cullberg May 4, 2023, Dansens Hus/Elverket, Stockholm.

About Halla Ólafsdóttir
Halla Ólafsdóttir is a dancer and choreographer with an MA in choreography from Stockholm University of the Arts (formerly DOCH). She always works collectively in various constellations that look for ways of expanding the notion of choreography. A big part of her work revolves around recognizable material from art and pop culture where she explores what happens when set in another context.  She often uses conventions and clichées, trying to find working methods that break and erase those. For Halla, the meeting between the artist and audience outside the stage is very important and through her artistic work she has focused on building structures to provide feedback, both among artists, but also between the audience and the practitioners.

Halla has been touring together with Amanda Apetrea with the pieces DEAD (2017), and Beauty and the Beast, which won the Prix Jardin d’Europe Awards at ImpulsTanz in 2013. The duo’s upcoming work is Sälkvinnorna (2023). Halla is part of the collective Samlingen, a choreographic project where a common interest in choreography and feminism is intertwined with the history of dance, together with other practitioners and the audience. Samlingen changes from place to place and has so far worked at the Postdance conference, the Works at work festival in Copenhagen and at Riksteatern (The Swedish National Touring Theatre). Samlingen is currently working with The Swedish Ballet 2020-2025. In the autumn 2013, Samlingen collaborated with Cullberg at Dansmuseet in Stockholm.

Halla experiments with various forms and expressions, and finds inspiration in different art forms. She played the lead role in the feature film Under Influence by Sidney Leoni and will play in the upcoming FLY by Leoni, as well as in a new film directed by Ester Martin Bergsmark, A Sweetness From Nowhere. Halla and choreographer Eliisa Erävalo have developed the workshop BITCHCRAFT which was held with Cullberg as well as with Iceland Art Academy. Together, they have created the works Bitch (2021) and Granddaughters (2022).  With Erna Ómarsdóttir they are currently working on their piece Romeo <3 Juliet (nominated for DER FAUST Awards 2019)  with Iceland Dance Company, including the new work The Juliet Duet (2022).

More bios on www.cullberg.eternitygroup.dev

For more information, please contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager
+46 70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

Cullberg is the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden, continuously co-creating to make contemporary dance relevant for the many. Together with choreographers from around the world, we are exploring ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Those explorations are the pillars of a company that is constantly in motion at the heart of the international arena. 2019-2022, Cullberg works exclusively with three associated artists: Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther. The core of the company consists of 17 extraordinary individual dancers with a central role in the creations. Cullberg’s works emerge from the times we are living in, as part of the socio-political environment including equality, diversity and sustainability. Cullberg is led by artistic director Kristine Slettevold and managing director Stina Dahlström. Cullberg is part of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre

Once again Cullberg steps outside, to the summer streets of Stockholm in collaboration with Kulturhuset Stadsteatern Parkteatern. This year’s long-awaited post-pandemic pop-up is based on material from choreographer Alma Söderberg’s latest work for Cullberg – Noche, promising rhythm and voice in close collaboration. Soon on a square or a street near you.

June 1 at 16.00 Skärholmen
June 2 at 16.00 Vällingby
June 3 at 16.00 Hässelby
June 4 at 16.00 Tensta
June 5 Scenkonstdagarna, Riksteatern, Hallunda

Read more! 

At the turn of the month, November/December, Mercat de les Flors, Barcelona’s stage for contemporary dance, presents a comprehensive retrospective of Cullberg’s associate choreographer Deborah Hay and her art. Cullberg participates with The Match and Figure a Sea.

At Mercat de les Flors, Cullberg presents The Match, which premiered in 2004 in New York and with Cullberg 2019 at Tanz im August in Berlin. In 2015, Deborah Hay created her first work for the company, Figure a Sea, to music by Laurie Anderson. The work has toured to festivals and stages throughout Europe and the United States. As part of the retrospective in Barcelona, Deborah Hay will also perform for the first time in Spain, with the solo My choreographed body.

The Match with Adam Schütt, Anand Bolder, Louise Dahl and Vincent Van der Plas will be presented November 27-28. Figure a Sea with 19 dancers on 2-4 December.

On Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay, born 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved icon status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements. Hay’s dances center on undoing the body’s reliance on learned behavior by enlarging the field from which a dancer can resource movement. She spent many years choreographing solo works for notable artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov. The choreographer William Forsythe helped influence her international career after seeing the premiere of her quartet The Match?in 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival. She has been awarded many grants and awards including the inaugural and groundbreaking Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. On May 5, 2015 France’s Minister of Culture and Communication awarded Hay the title of?Chevallier?de?L’Ordre?Des?Arts?et?Des?Lettres.

In 2015, Deborah Hay created the work ?Figure a Sea?directly for?Cullberg Ballet, to music by Laurie Anderson. The work has been highly acclaimed by audience and critics all over the world, toured in the US, and all over Europe and been presented at prestigious festivals such as Montpellier?Danse?and the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale di Venezia in 2018.

2019-2022, Deborah Hay is associated artist at Cullberg, along with Alma Söderberg and Jefta van Dinther. In the winter of 2021, the dancers performed a premiere of Hay’s latest work, Horse, the solos, in front of an empty theater. Director Marcus Lindeen followed the process in the film Dear Dancer, which premieres next year, 2022.

For more information, contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullberg
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

www.cullberg.eternitygroup.dev

About Cullberg
Cullberg is the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden, continuously co-creating to make cutting edge dance relevant for the many. Together with choreographers from all over the world, we are exploring ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Those explorations are the pillars of a company that is constantly in motion at the heart of the international arena. 2019-2022, Cullberg works exclusively with three associated artists: Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther. The core of the company consists of 17 extraordinary individual dancers with a central role in the creations. Cullberg’s works emerge from the times we are living in, as part of the socio-political environment including equality, diversity and sustainability. Cullberg is led by artistic director Gabriel Smeets and managing director Stina Dahlström. Cullberg is part of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre.

On the same day that the last audience restrictions are lifted across the country on September 29, Cullberg premieres Deborah Hay’s new work Horse, the solos at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg. The music for Horse, the solos is written by Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds who makes music for film, television, theater, dance, radio, clubs and concert halls.

Since 2019, the American choreographer Deborah Hay is associated artist with Cullberg. Last winter, the dancers premiered Hay’s latest collaboration with the company; Horse the solos, but for an empty theater. When the work and the dancers now finally meet an audience at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, the same day as the audience restrictions in Sweden are lifted, it is long awaited.

“Rejecting the myth of emptiness was the first step in choreographing Horse, the solos. It is also the first step for the dancers performing this evening length work. This was true for its first performance in a theater with lights, sound, and costumes but without an audience or cameras of any kind. This will also be true for its premiere with an audience in Gothenburg”, says Deborah Hay.

The recent years have meant difficulties for internationally active choreographers, the creative process has repeatedly been forced to take new paths. Deborah Hay, who lives in Austin, Texas, has not been able to travel to Sweden during the pandemic, instead she was filmed dancing the solo pieces in Austin. The recording was then used in the rehearsal and Hay choreographed over link, with the dancers in Cullberg’s studio together with the rehearsal leader Jeanine Durning. With Horse, the solos, the soon-to-be four-year collaboration between dance icon Deborah Hay and Cullberg ends.

As an associate artist, Hay has re-staged The Match from 2004, a work for four dancers that was acclaimed after its world premiere in New York. Already in the autumn of 2015, Cullberg had a premiere of the newly created work Figure a Sea, a collaboration between Deborah Hay and the composer Laurie Anderson. The work is one of the company’s most successful and has, among other things, taken Cullberg on tour in Sweden and Europe, on a long US tour, to the Venice Biennale and Montpellier Danse. Later this autumn, the Mercat de les Flors stage in Barcelona will present a retrospective of Hay’s art, which includes both The Match and Figure a Sea with Cullberg.

On Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay, born 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved icon status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements. Hay’s dances center on undoing the body’s reliance on learned behavior by enlarging the field from which a dancer can resource movement. She spent many years choreographing solo works for notable artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov. The choreographer William Forsythe helped influence her international career after seeing the premiere of her quartet The Match?in 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival. She has been awarded many grants and awards including the inaugural and groundbreaking Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. On May 5, 2015 France’s Minister of Culture and Communication awarded Hay the title of?Chevallier?de?L’Ordre?Des?Arts?et?Des?Lettres.

In 2015, Deborah Hay created the work?Figure a Sea?directly for?Cullberg Ballet, to music by Laurie Anderson. The work has been highly acclaimed by audience and critics all over the world, toured in the US, and all over Europe and been presented at prestigious festivals such as Montpellier?Danse?and the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale di Venezia in 2018.? 2019-2021, Deborah Hay is associated artist at Cullberg.

On Graham Reynolds
Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent , Austin-based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concert halls with collaborators across a multitude of disciplines. Heard throughout the world in films, TV, stage, and radio, he recently scored Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette with Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, and Laurence Fishburne for Annapurna Pictures, Happy Jail for Netflix, the Rude Mechs’ Stop Hitting Yourself for Lincoln Center Theater, Ballet Austin’s Grimm Tales , and a multi-year commission from Ballroom Marfa, The Marfa Triptych . He has performed on an array of legendary stages, from the Kennedy Center to the Green Mill Tavern to the Conan O’Brien Show. His Creative Capital Award winning project, Pancho Villa from a Safe Distance , a bilingual cross-border opera created with librettists Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (Mexico City) and director Shawn Sides (Rude Mechs), has been staged in over a dozen cities in North America.

Artistic team Horse, the solos
Choreography: Deborah Hay
Music: Graham Reynolds
Lighting design: Minna Tiikkainen
Costume: Behnaz Aram
With: 7 dancers, 2 casts.
For interviews and more information, contact:

Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullberg
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

www.cullberg.eternitygroup.dev

About Cullberg
Cullberg is the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden, continuously co-creating to make cutting edge dance relevant for the many. Together with choreographers from all over the world, we are exploring ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Those explorations are the pillars of a company that is constantly in motion at the heart of the international arena. 2019-2022, Cullberg works exclusively with three associated artists: Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther. The core of the company consists of 17 extraordinary individual dancers with a central role in the creations. Cullberg’s works emerge from the times we are living in, as part of the socio-political environment including equality, diversity and sustainability. Cullberg is led by artistic director Gabriel Smeets and managing director Stina Dahlström. Cullberg is part of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre.

Award-winning director Marcus Lindeen makes a film of associated artist, choreographer Deborah Hay’s new work Horse, the solos for Cullberg. The short film Dear Dancer depicts the work prior to the premiere, and will be shot in Stockholm starting at Dansens Hus this week, March 26.

Deborah Hay’s new work Horse, the solos was scheduled to premiere at the Dance and Theater Festival in Gothenburg last summer, but has been postponed several times due to the pandemic. The premiere, planned to March 24, is cancelled due to the restrictions, but will be carried out to an empty auditorium. At the same time, the shooting of the short film Dear Dancer, about the work, starts, with director Marcus Lindeen, the Guldbagge Award-winning film photographer Ita Zbroniec-Zajt, composer Hans Appelqvist and producer Jesper Kurlandsky.

”For me, dance is something abstract, difficult to touch, as I am more used to working with text and stories. I am looking forward to experience what happens when my expression meets a choreographer like Deborah Hay and Cullberg’s dancers. Directing will of course be a challenge due to the pandemic, the dancers can not be too close to each other and everything needs to be done with restrictions”, says Marcus Lindeen.

Cullberg’s associated artist, choreographer Deborah Hay who lives in Austin, Texas has not been able to travel to Sweden throughout 2020. Dear Dancer is about how Hay has worked with the dancers in Sweden online and prepared them to perform Horse, the solos for an empty theater in Stockholm. From her home in the US, she writes a letter to the dancers and reflects on what it means to work as a dancer and perform in a time that does not allow it.

”I recently became aware of Marcus’ work and felt his aesthetic appreciation of language and how it is transmitted between individuals in film parallels my appreciation of language and how it influences the the whole person who is dancing”, says Deborah Hay.

The stage version of Horse, the solos is scheduled to premiere with audience at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg in the coming autumn. The premiere date for the film Dear Dancer is not set.

Dear Dancer is produced in collaboration between Fasad and Cullberg. With thanks to Dansens Hus.

Artistic team Horse, the solos
Choreography: Deborah Hay
Music: Graham Reynolds
Set and lighting design: Minna Tiikkainen
Costume: Behnaz Aram
With: fourteen dancers in two casts of seven

Artistic team Dear Dancer
Director: Marcus Lindeen
Cinematographer: Ita Zbroniec-Zajt
Music: Hans Appelqvist

Bios
Marcus Lindeen is a Swedish writer and director. His latest theater play is called L’Aventure invisible and premiered at Théâtre de Gennevilliers during Festival d’Automne in Paris in October 2020. His feature documentary film The Raft premiered at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen in 2018 where it won the main award. The Raft has since been shown in over fifty festivals (IDFA, BFI London, Zürich, Melbourne, Sao Paolo, Moscow) and was theatrically released in eleven countries, among them France, Mexico, the UK and the US. The film became a New York Times Critic’s Pick and was broadcasted on BBC Storyville. In 2019 it won the Prix Europa for Best European Television Documentary. The same prize was awarded to Marcus Lindeen’s debut film Regretters in 2011. Regretters is both a theater play and a documentary film about two Swedish men who change their sex twice. The play has been translated into several languages and the film went on to win numerous awards, among them both the Swedish Academy Award (Guldbagge) and Kristallen (Swedish Emmy) for best documentary film in 2011. The same year his second film Accidentes Gloriosos premiered at The Venice Film Festival where it picked up the prize for best medium-length film. Marcus Lindeen lives between Paris and Stockholm, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. candidate at Stockholm University of the Arts, exploring the subject of ”The Staged Documentary” through an artistic film project consisting of a trilogy of studio-based documentaries.

Deborah Hay, born 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved icon status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements. Hay’s dances center on undoing the body’s reliance on learned behavior by enlarging the field from which a dancer can resource movement. She spent many years choreographing solo works for notable artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov. The choreographer William Forsythe helped influence her international career after seeing the premiere of her quartet The Match?in 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival. She has been awarded many grants and awards including the inaugural and groundbreaking Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. On May 5, 2015 France’s Minister of Culture and Communication awarded Hay the title of?Chevallier?de?L’Ordre?Des?Arts?et?Des?Lettres. In 2015, Deborah Hay created ?Figure a Sea? for?Cullberg Ballet, to music by Laurie Anderson. The work has been highly acclaimed by audience and critics all over the world, toured in the US, and all over Europe and been presented at prestigious festivals such as Montpellier?Danse?and the International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Biennale di Venezia in 2018.? Deborah Hay is associated artist at Cullberg, 2019-2022.

For interviews and more information, contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullberg
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

www.cullberg.eternitygroup.dev

About Cullberg
Cullberg is the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden, continuously co-creating to make cutting edge dance relevant for the many. Together with choreographers from all over the world, we are exploring ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Those explorations are the pillars of a company that is constantly in motion at the heart of the international arena. 2019-2022, Cullberg works exclusively with three associated artists: Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther. The core of the company consists of 17 extraordinary individual dancers with a central role in the creations. Cullberg’s works emerge from the times we are living in, as part of the socio-political environment including equality, diversity and sustainability. Cullberg is led by artistic director Gabriel Smeets and managing director Stina Dahlström. Cullberg is part of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre.

Artistic director Gabriel Smeets will leave Cullberg at the turn of the year 2022. During his years at the position, Smeets has anchored the dance company in a contemporary aesthetic.

”When I came to Cullberg my assignment was to establish the company as the leading contemporary dance company in Sweden. I think we have achieved that goal. It is a stable and brave institution, an avantgarde company eversince the beginning. Today we explore ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented, and we work closely with experimental artists in the freelance field. For me it has been important that the dancers and choreographers we work with have lust to tap from an infinite variety of sources to create dance, and that they are strongly rooted in the times we are living in. I am very proud of the dancers’ ensemble, in its diversity, engagement and connection to the artistic and socio-political reality we are in”, says Gabriel Smeets.

Gabriel Smeets came to Cullberg in May 2014, from a position as artistic director of SNDO, the School for New Dance Development/University for the Arts in Amsterdam. He has a background in journalism, communication and dramaturgy. As he leaves Cullberg, Gabriel Smeets has deepened and consolidated the artistic direction, and moved the company from a dance theater tradition to a contemporary and experimental one.

”After my eight year long contract with Cullberg I am ready for a new chapter and challenge. I want to return to work as a freelance dramaturge, advisor, and curator”, says Gabriel Smeets.

During his time as artistic director, Gabriel Smeets has, among other things, taken the company on a long US tour, to the Venice Biennale, and to several core festivals for contemporary dance. Smeets has advocated a close relationship with the university and the voice of dance in the academic field. On several levels, Gabriel Smeets has worked to increase the diversity and representation throughout the company.
In 2019, a new working model was initiated, and three contemporary choreographers; Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther, were linked to Cullberg as associated artists. At the same time the “ballet” was removed from the company’s name which in short became: ”Cullberg”.

”The model with three choreographers has enabled a continuity for the company, the presenters and the audience, and has been crucial in clarifying the Cullberg company today. Gabriel Smeets’s international network has also been of great importance. Several collaborations with new producers in Europe and the US have been initiated and opened up to new venues, artistic contexts, and large audiences. Gabriel Smeets’ great love for art and dance and his ability to connect it to our time is one of his most characteristic traits. The task for the next artistic director will be to continue managing and develop that work”, says Mia Larsson, head the dance department at the Riksteatern/the Swedish National Touring Theatre.

The recruitment of a new artistic director will begin in February and is expected to be completed in the autumn. Stina Dahlström will continue as managing director.

About Cullberg
Cullberg is the national and international repertoire contemporary dance company in Sweden, continuously co-creating to make cutting edge dance relevant for the many. Together with choreographers from all over the world, we are exploring ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Those explorations are the pillars of a company that is constantly in motion at the heart of the international arena. 2019-2021, Cullberg works exclusively with three associated artists: Alma Söderberg, Deborah Hay and Jefta van Dinther. The core of the company consists of 17 extraordinary individual dancers with a central role in the creations. Our works emerge from the times we are living in, as part of the socio-political environment including equality, diversity and sustainability. Cullberg is led by artistic director Gabriel Smeets and managing director Stina Dahlström. Cullberg is part of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre.

For further information, please contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullberg
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

The Explorations of Now project was launched spring 2020 by Kultivator, Cullberg and the Institute for Futures Studies. The aim is to explore how a coalescence of art and science can inspire greater civic participation and explore the challenges of transitioning to a sustainable life in a world transformed by climate change. The project is funded by the Postcode Foundation, Cullberg and the Institute for Future Studies.

Monday 7 December:
Marit Shirin Carolasdotter, Signe Johannessen, Deborah Hay, and Jeanine Durning

Follow the Monday lectures here.

14:00-14:15 Introduction by Gabriel Smeets, artistic director and Stina Dahlström, managing director Cullberg. Short introduction of the program by Jane Hopper, artistic coordinator Cullberg

14:15-15:00 Lecture by Marit Shirin Carolasdotter: Exploring the corporeality of humans’ relationship to soil through choreography and music
Humans & Soil is an artistic collaborative project that focus on land rights from an indigenous perspective such as the Sámi of the north and the Ainu people of Japan. The project is initiated by Marit Shirin Carolasdotter, a Sámi – Kurdish choreographer, dancer and researcher currently based in Umeå, Sweden.

15:10-15:45 Discussion and Q&A moderated by Signe Johannessen

Break

16:00-16:45 Lecture by Deborah Hay: Non-discriminatory learning: my dance practice now
“Not quite 60 years ago I knew I could no longer accept the values of an art form that had shaped the trajectory of my life as well as etched its hierarchical underpinnings into the very neurons of my body. Although I was already dancing professionally, I knew I was not being nourished by my experiences of movement and performance up until that point. From then on my bodily research has centered around a process I have called A CONTINUITY of DISCONTINUITY – the continuity of my attention to the discontinuity inherent in the body-based experiments I set for myself.”

Deborah Hay, born 1941 in Brooklyn, has achieved icon status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements. Hay’s dances center on undoing the body’s reliance on learned behavior by enlarging the field from which a dancer can resource movement. She spent many years choreographing solo works for notable artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov. The choreographer William Forsythe helped influence her international career after seeing the premiere of her quartet The Match in 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival. She has been awarded many grants and awards including the inaugural and groundbreaking Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. On May 5, 2015 France’s Minister of Culture and Communication awarded Hay the title of Chevallier de L’Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres.

16:50-17:15 Discussion and Q&A moderated by Jeanine Durning

The Explorations of Now project was launched this spring by Kultivator, Cullberg and the Institute for Futures Studies. The aim is to explore how a coalescence of art and science can inspire greater civic participation and explore the challenges of transitioning to a sustainable life in a world transformed by climate change. The project’s busy autumn is now kicking off with a number of meeting places where researchers, artists and participants from various fields are invited to collaborate. First up is the art collective Kultivator, which is based in Dyestad on Öland. Starting on 1 September, they will spend six days leading conversations with the biosphere. Participants include the artists Bigert & Bergström, Karin Bolender and Signe Johannessen, biologist Pav Johnsson, farmer Henric Stigeborn, chef Jonas Rahm from Kultdjurhuset, students from Öland Folk High School, 14 dancers from Cullberg, researchers from the Institute for Future Studies, and the horse named Tussan.

“We will delve into the ecosystem of this landscape and see if we can find new and different knowledge, and above all, new perspectives. The farm here – and all farms – are places where we humans endeavour to collaborate with the rest of the ecosystem in order to obtain food or other materials, but how well does that really work? What stories and interactions do we overlook in our collaboration? What will we find if we follow a map drawn by microbes from the tongue of a cow? What do we learn about our bodies’ collective memories as we explore the suction reflex together with the farm’s calves? Or can the midland forest be presented to us by the horses that live there? This workshop, which brings together the fantastic dance, visual arts and science expertise of its participants, aims to awaken thoughts and questions that lie just beyond our ingrained ways of thinking, in order to make a sincere effort to approach things from a new perspective. We believe that it’s necessary if we are to move forward in a genuine transition of the way we live,” says Malin Lindmark Vrijman, Artistic Director at Kultivator.

Participants in the workshop are picked up every morning by horse and carriage from a bed & breakfast where they stay. During the slow journey to Kultivator they prepare for the day, and once they arrive, they engage in practical exercises and investigations together with the farm’s plants and animals, interspersed with digital presentations by remote participants. Each day ends with feedback to the visual artist Karin Bolender, who processes and reflects the participants’ material on her farm in Oregon, USA, and then sends it back to the group the next day.

Participating artists
Over the course of their extensive career as an artist duo, Bigert & Bergström have produced and created both large sculptures and installations as well as performances and films. The essence of their work is often found in the borderland between humanity, nature and technology. With energetic curiosity – and often with humour as a tool – the duo is known for analysing the scientific and social issues being discussed in today’s society, such as climate change or environmental sustainability. Bigert & Bergström will also be part of Explorations of Now’s final presentation in 2021.

Karin Bolender is a visual artist who in recent decades has run the Rural Alchemy Workshop (R.A.W.). It is a platform for collaborative, interdisciplinary artistic practices derived from rural landscapes (all flora, fauna, minerals and chemical forms that are present there). More specifically, the workshop works with actions related to metaphors, naming, memories and imagination. Through experimental art and research, R.A.W. explores relationships between native species and peripheries, while seeking out new territories and unspoken narratives among general stories, passions and needs.

Signe Johannessen’s work questions our notions of life, power structures and morality. She often draws on her own experiences, with the aim of connecting concrete everyday dilemmas with science fiction-like worlds. Actual and fictitious evolutionary breakthroughs tell us something about where we are headed. Johannessen is interested in how we write natural history and depict other species. Her work examines what our relationship with other species can tell us about power structures. By delving into history and reviewing our interpretations of nature, animals and artificial machines, her art discusses what it means to be human.

Explorations of Now, directed by Kultivator, will take place from 1-3 September and 8-10 September in Dyestad on Öland. If you wish to participate on-site, please contact the project to ensure that there is room; otherwise you can follow Explorations of Now and Kultivator’s workshops on Instagram at @explorationsofnow. In November, the Institute for Future Research is arranging its next meeting place in Stockholm, and in December it will be Cullberg’s turn to arrange a meeting place in Botkyrka. 2021 will bring a joint, comprehensive manifestation of the project.

The UN Global Goals and Agenda 2030 constitute the basis for Explorations of Now, and the project is funded by the Postcode Foundation, Cullberg and the Institute for Future Studies.

Partners
Kultivator is an art collective based on Öland. Their interdisciplinary activities include art projects and a farm that interact with social projects and environmental actions, as well as an international residency and exhibition programme. Over the years, some 80 artists have participated in the residency programme – together with some 30 cows, chickens, ducks, sheep and horses. The art collective is led by Mathieu and Malin Vrijman, who in 2017 were awarded the Dynamo Scholarship by the Swedish Visual Arts Fund.

The Institute for Futures Studies is a state-run research foundation where researchers from various social science disciplines conduct research on issues that are of great importance for how we shape our future society. The business is based on the insights of the 1960s – namely, that in many ways we humans affect not only our own lives but also future generations. All research conducted here should have a long-term perspective and clear relevance for our future. The subjects studied are regularly replaced, creating a dynamic research environment. Here researchers from a variety of social science disciplines mix and collaborate. Areas of expertise currently include sociology, philosophy, political science, business administration and psychology.

Cullberg is a national and international repertory company and part of Riksteatern. It is based in Botkyrka, outside of Stockholm. Cullberg’s contemporary dance performances enjoy a large audience, both in Sweden and abroad. Together with leading choreographers and artistic teams from all over the world, we explore ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. Exploratory work is the foundation of the company, which is consistently at the centre of the international dance scene.

The Postcode Foundation is the beneficiary of the Swedish Postcode Lottery and provides time-limited support to projects that contribute to positive social change. The foundation supports non-profit organisations in Sweden and abroad that actively contribute to the achievement of the global goals and to creating positive change through concrete efforts. The projects deal with everything from human rights to environmental issues, as well as social change and education through sport and investments in culture. Since 2007, SEK 1.5 billion have been granted to over 600 projects.

Former prima ballerina and Yugoslavian ballet teacher Irena Milovan died last month in Madrid. She was an engaged teacher at Cullbergbaletten for many years, starting in the early nineties and giving her final class for the company in 2013. Her Vaganova- and English school based pedagogy asked the dancers to go to the extremes. In her long and rich career as a dancer, Irena danced Giselle and Coppélia at the Royal Opera House, La fille mal gardée with the American Ballet and special pieces by Alfred Rodrigues and Michael Descombey. Birgit Cullberg personally staged Miss Julie with her. Irena Milovan’s work was highly appreciated at the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Frankfurt Ballet, the Gulbenkian Ballet and at Cullbergbaletten at the time. Her life was dedicated to dancing and teaching. Irena was one of those many people that have shared their passion and professional knowledge with our company.

The art collective Kultivator on Öland and Sweden’s most famous contemporary dance company Cullberg have together initiated the Explorations of Now project and invited the Institute for Future Studies. The initiative comes from art to science is new and the diversity of perspectives and audiences are the project’s strength. The initiators and participating parties are all active both in metropolitan areas and in rural areas, small independent actors and large government institutions and all operate in different parts of contemporary art and science.

“With Explorations of Now, we want to collectively formulate the questions we as ecosystems must ask ourselves now. We are in the middle of the present and want to bring together art, dance and research to find a new kind of conversation with the biosphere. Both all life around us and what we embody ourselves. If we can imagine a reciprocity where we create the future together, sustainability becomes a natural part of it, and the change we are facing will be possible”, says Malin Lindmark Vrijman, Kultivator.

Explorations of Now has begun with an exploratory part during the spring, which has mainly taken place through digital meetings and work in different directions due to the current corona virus pandemic.

“Many cultural projects have been canceled this spring due to the pandemic. For this project, to cancel was not an option, it’s just about resetting. Adapting to all possible situations and unforeseen events, in the short and long term, is in the nature of the project. The corona virus began to spread in earnest in Sweden the same week that our project started, but by then we did not know how it would affect us and the project. We still do not know. It has been a challenging time, but a time that has actually tested our own creativity and ability to imagine a different, alternative future. To think new and see what is possible when we put our heads together and take responsibility for each other”, says Stina Dahlström,  managing director Cullberg.

In the next phase of Explorations of Now, Kultivator, Cullberg and the Institute for Future Studies will each arrange a meeting place. These will take place on Öland, in Botkyrka and in Stockholm during the year and will be adapted to the current situation. The purpose is to establish places where an audience interested in society, researchers, artists and those involved from various relevant fields can meet and collaborate.

“Based on artistic and scientific processes and based on existential issues, the idea is that the meeting places should explore how we release our collective imagination in order to achieve a sustainable future. We do not have all the answers now and maybe we will not get all the answers during the process. It will be something for the future to develop”, Stina Dahlström continues. In the late summer of 2021, Explorations of Now will finally present a large joint finale in the Stockholm area.

“The finale is not the end but the beginning. We have hopefully landed in inspiring more people to join this movement going forward. We have found ways to collectively imagine a transition to a future which not only adapts to climate change but to a better world to live in for us humans and the biosphere. We will produce an inspiring manual that we hope will help in the work for a sustainable world”, concludes Stina Dahlström.

The UN’s global goals and Agenda 2030 form the basis for Explorations of Now and the project is funded by the Postcode Foundation, Cullberg and the Institute for Future Studies.

“The climate is the great fateful issue of our time and the time to act is now. Despite an increased awareness of the challenges we face, it is difficult for many of us to change habitual behaviors. The
Postcode Foundation is therefore proud to support this project, where researchers, businesses and artists together with the general public create new visions of how we could live together in a more sustainable future”, says Marie Dahllöf, Secretary General of the Swedish Postcode Foundation.

About the participating parties
Kultivator is an art collective based on Öland. The interdisciplinary activities include art projects and agriculture that meet social projects and environmental actions, as well as an international residency and exhibition program. In the residency activities, about 80 artists have participated over the years together with about 30 cows, chickens, ducks, sheep and horses. The art collective is led by Mathieu and Malin Vrijman, who in 2017 were awarded the Dynamo Scholarship by the Visual Artists’ Fund.

Cullberg is a national and international repertoire company, part of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, based in Botkyrka outside Stockholm. Cullberg’s contemporary dance meets a large audience in Sweden and abroad. Together with leading choreographers and artistic teams from around the world, we explore ideas on how dance can be defined, produced and presented. The exploratory work is the basis for the company, which is constantly at the center of the international dance scene.

The Institute for Future Studies is a government research foundation where researchers from various social science disciplines conduct research on issues that are of great importance for how we shape our future society. The business is based on the 1960s insights that we humans in many ways affect not only our own lives but also future generations. All research conducted here must have a long-term perspective and clear relevance for our future. The subjects studied are changed regularly, which creates a dynamic research environment. Here, researchers from a number of different social science disciplines are mixed and collaborate, today including sociology, philosophy, political science, business administration and psychology.

The Postcode Foundation
The Postcode Foundation is a beneficiary of the Swedish Postcode Lottery and mediates time-limited support for projects that contribute to a positive change in society. The foundation supports non-profit organizations in Sweden and internationally that actively contribute to the fulfillment of the global goals and to create positive change through concrete efforts. The projects are about everything from human rights to environmental issues as well as about social change and education through sports and investments in culture. Since 2007, 1.5 billion has been allocated to over 600 projects.

Contact
Press
ILES PR, Daniel Pérez Wenger, daniel@iles.se 073-996 11 46

Explorations of Now
Stina Dahlström, Managing Director, Cullberg, stina.dahlstrom@cms.cullberg.com, 070-637 59 44
Folke Tersman, Ställföreträdande VD, Institutet för framtidsstudier, folke.tersman@filosofi.uu.se, 08-402 12 22
Malin Lindmark Vrijman, Kultivator, kultivatormalin@gmail.com, 070-885 46 39

“In order to sharpen, deepen and develop the company’s artistic identity, we want to work exclusively with three choreographers. What unites them is that they individually have developed practices that form the basis of all their work. Their artistic proposals are original, risky, remarkable and personal. Their works are immersive, accessible and thought-provoking”, says Gabriel Smeets, artistic director of Cullberg.

First out is a not completely new work, but a restaging of Deborah Hay’s The Match for four dancers from 2005 with premiere at Tanz im August in Berlin this summer. Alma Söderberg’s first work for Cullberg – The Listeners – for eight dancers premieres in Umeå in collaboration with Norrlandsoperan in January next 2020 and Jefta van Dinther’s first new work for Cullberg will be a solo for big scenes; Solo for Suelem, premiere at Hau in Berlin, next fall.

Alma Söderberg
Alma Söderberg has studied at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, flamenco at Escuela de Danza de Matilde Coral in Seville, and graduated from SNDO in Amsterdam 2011. In recent years she has been based in Brussels and toured her works all over Europe. Her work is characterized by a strong connection between dance, music and voice. Sound and movement are always closely intertwined and an artistic exploration of these expressions is a fundamental base in Söderberg’s artistry. The collaboration with Cullberg also means stepping into a larger context for Alma Söderberg.

“The fourteen-year-old in me cannot believe that I will create for Cullberg. I have not had the ambition to create for a world-famous company, but when I received the invitation, I felt it was time for me to open up and share what I developed over the past ten years. Together with the dancers, I will work with the body as an instrument in the room. My works are rarely representative or narrative, what happens on stage is more like a concert, a musical exploration. The dancers will participate in creating the music they dance to live on stage. Listening is central, both to the silent movement and to the sounding, says Alma Söderberg about her work with Cullberg.

Jefta van Dinther
Jefta van Dinther’s first meeting with Cullberg was in autumn 2011 when he choreographed the company in The Way Things Go at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. Van Dinther then premiered the large-scale Plateau Effect 2013 which was his first work for many dancers and became his major breakthrough, was awarded prizes and presented at Scenkonstbiennalen in Malmö 2015. The success was followed up with Protagonist from 2016. Both works have toured extensively in Sweden and abroad.

“I have been part of Cullberg’s transformation process: following, accompanying and working with them towards who they are today. The soul of the company is conscientious, warm and fierce. For me personally the offer to be Associated Artist with Cullberg comes at a very good moment. I have been establishing my work in the freelance scene for the last 10 years. Many other offers have come from various companies, but I have always felt that my work wouldn’t thrive as it does with Cullberg. Cullberg gives artistic space, provides amazing working conditions, and tunes into the people they work with. To have the chance to get deeper and go further with them over these coming years is nothing but a privilege”, says Jefta van Dinther.

Deborah Hay
In autumn 2015, Deborah Hay created one of Cullberg’s most successful works in recent years – Figure a Sea to music by Laurie Anderson. The work was the first that Hay created for many dancers and also became a new breakthrough in her long career that began in the 1960s. Figure a Sea has been touring Europe and the US since its premiere and has been shown on prestigious festivals such as Montpellier and the Venice Biennale.

Digital archive
During April, a digital archive will be launched on Cullberg’s website. The archive presents a complete overview of the company’s works since its inception in 1967 and aims to provide information on Cullberg’s artistic history for research, studies and media. The archive will be continuously completed and updated and presents the works that are no longer on the repertoire.

New website
As of Thursday 21 March, Cullberg’s website will be located at www.cullberg.eternitygroup.dev.

For more information, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR and Marketing Manager Cullberg
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cms.cullberg.com

It was the first time, choreographer Eleanor Bauer and Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean worked together, and for both artists, a strong relationship to writing is at the center of their respective artistic practices. Poetry became a common ground in the collaboration NEAR.

A co-production between Cullbergbaletten, Luger Sweden and Sothbank Centre, London, NEAR premiered at Way Out West festival in Gothenburg the past summer. In September, NEAR was presented at the main stage at a sold out Dramaten in collaboration with Dramaten&.

NEAR – a dance concert by Eleanor Bauer and Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
Concept: Eleanor Bauer and Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
Direction: Eleanor Bauer
Choreography: Eleanor Bauer with the dancers Adam Schütt, Camille Prieux, Daniel Sjökvist, Eleanor Campbell, Eliott Marmouset, Gesine Moog, Georges Hann, Giacomo Citton, Katie Jacobson, Mohamed Y. Shika, Suelem de Oliveira da Silva, Sylvie Gehin Karlsson, with contribution by Anand Bolder, Núria Guiu Sagarra, Unn Faleide, Vincent Van der Plas, and the apprentices Heather Birley and Yulia Kalinchenko
Music: Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean in collaboration with Frederik Valentin
Set design: Josefin Hinders
Lighting design: Jonatan Winbo
Costume design: Pontus Pettersson
Rehearsal director: Lisa Drake

For more information about Cullbergbaletten and NEAR, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR- and Marketing Manager Cullbergbaletten
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten
Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre.

Every dancer in Cullbergbaletten has their own story, and the company connects them. Who are the people in the group, and how do they construct this group? Navigating and shifting through different situations, who are they in private and how does that shape their stage characters?

“I am very interested in narrative, how real and personal stories are contained in our bodies, and can be animated through movement, amplified in different readings through music, and bring up memories and associations in relationship to the space we’re in. ON THE CUSP is part of a choreographic series exploring portraits – the title describes a situation at the tipping point, the moment before something is changing, in a state of becoming. I want to create portraits of each dancer that overlap the biographical with the fantastic or imagined or desired, thus building characters that are specific to each of them and constructed at the same time. Both music and performance play with a range of emotional intensities as layers on top of the movement practice”, says choreographer Ian Kaler.

Ian Kaler (AT/DE)
Ian Kaler studied Transmedial Art at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna and graduated from the BA Pilotprogram Contemporary Dance, Context, Choreography at the Inter-University Center for Dance, the University of the Arts, Berlin. Since 2010 he develops his physical and creative practice in choreographic series in exchange with different artists through different (visual) media. From 2015 – 2018 Kaler developed the choreographic series o.T. (German acronym for “untitled”) in close collaboration with musician Planningtorock and different guests. o.T. contains three pieces and one practice format up to date. o.T. | RAW PRACTICE was presented at LABO Stockholm, curated by Cullbergbaletten, in April 2018. LIVFE – the first part of a new series of works that combine movement with (spoken) language, live music and live video premiered at Akademietheater in the frame of ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival in August 2017 and was presented in a newly edited version at HAU1 in Berlin in April 2018. Ian Kaler is rehearsing with Planningtorock on their multimedia musical concert performance Power House which will premiere at Berghain in Berlin in January 2019. Ian Kaler develops workshops as research formats analog to his choreographic series, so far for DOCH School for Dance and Circus Stockholm, ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Tanzquartier Wien as well as for the Escuela Profesional de Danza in Mazatlán and the University of Sonora in Mexico. Besides giving workshops for professional dancers with mixed abilities he has also transmitted his practice in workshops for practitioners from backgrounds other than dance.

“We are honored and delighted that Ian Kaler accepted to create his first company piece for Cullbergbaletten. Today, Ian Kaler belongs to a leading group of artists of his generation in Europe but his work has been fascinating for me since I saw the queer solo he made as a student in Berlin in 2010, Save a horse, ride a cowboy. His artistic proposals are original, take risks and have a unique, specific style. Ian Kaler is rooted in the 21st century and works from his socio-politically context, defining and redefining his style, aesthetics and working methods in a direct relation to what is going on in the here and now. His works are immersive, accessible and thought-provoking”, says Cullbergbaletten’s artistic director Gabriel Smeets.

With ON THE CUSP, Cullbergbaletten follows up on the last years’ direction with close collaborations between choreographers and musicians. Jam Rostron/Planningtorock creates the music, composed for electronic brass instrumentation.

“For ON THE CUSP I decided to work solely with brass instruments because brass has this unique quality to be both humorous and dramatic at the same time. The ‘film like’ soundtrack I’m composing will shift between bombastic dance tracks filled with attitude and a sense of urgency, to symphonic narratives that swell with emotion and stories”, says Jam Rostron/Planningtorock

Jam Rostron/Planningtorock
Planningtorock, aka Jam Rostron, is a Bolton-born Berlin-based singer-songwriter, composer, producer and director with three critically acclaimed studio albums of left-field dance to their name, not to mention various collaborations, operas, film scores and remixes. A self-taught, non-binary, working-class musician, they’ve spent a decade plus queering sound and vision as Planningtorock. Planningtorock debuted in the Noughties with 2006’s Have It All [Chicks On speed], finding artistic community among fellow DIY outliers and gender outlaws such as Peaches and The Knife. Their sound – tense, spellbinding dance music with classical flourishes, unexpected brass and pitched-down vocals that have become Planningotorock’s signature – have earned them a dedicated following. W, Planningtorock’s critically acclaimed 2011 debut on DFA, revealed a visionary and politicized producer. It offered up deeply queered art-pop – 2014’s All Love’s Legal (“a masterclass in left-of-centre dance music”, Mixmag), released on Rostron’s own imprint Human Level with banner-ready slogans like Patriarchy Over And Out, Let’s Talk About Gender Baby, revealed their ability to combine pop-oriented music with a political message.

ON THE CUSP credits
Choreographic framing and direction: Ian Kaler
Music: Jam Rostron/Planningtorock
Set design: Stephanie Rauch
Lighting design and video: Imogen Heath
Costume design and movement input/choreographic assistance: Stéphane Peeps/ FAAM Studio
Created together with the dancers of Cullbergbaletten
World Premiere at Tanzquartier, Vienna, 10 January 2019
Sweden premiere NorrlandsOperan, Umeå, 30 January 2019

Tour 2019
Vienna, Tanzquartier 10-12 January
Umeå, NorrlandsOperan 30 January
Essen, PACT Zollverein 8-9 February
Stockholm, Dansens Hus 21-22 February
More dates are added continuously.

A co-production between Cullbergbaletten, Tanzquartier Vienna, NorrlandsOperan Umeå and PACT Zollverein Essen. Ian Kaler is supported by Wien Kultur.

Cullbergbaletten
Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it is still part.

NEAR
Choreographer Eleanor Bauer works for the first time with Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean and Cullbergbaletten creating the concept dance concert, a common fantasy world in which they examine the concept together. The two artists share an interest in poetry which is a big part of this unique collaboration.

Originally from the US, Bauer is a PhD candidate in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts. The music for NEAR is created by Jonatan Leandoer Håstad /Yung Lean in collaboration with ambient music multi-instrumentalist and video artist Frederik Valentin. The dancers in Cullbergbaletten co-create a temporary autonomous zone in which they navigate improvisational practices and scores to continually generate spontaneous interpretations of a musically and poetically structured universe. Fragile forms and strong magic drive the collaboration in a touching and honest excavation of what it takes to be awake in the world, in a body, with others.

Eleanor Bauer
Eleanor Bauer is a performer and choreographer working at the intersections of dance, writing, and music. From talk shows to evening-length ensemble pieces, her versatile works range in scale, media, and genre, traversing disparate methods and categories of performance. Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bauer studied at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California, holds a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, completed the Research Cycle at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and is a PhD candidate in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts. She has been producing her own pieces via GoodMove vzw in Brussels since 2007, touring internationally to critical acclaim. She was artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels from 2013-2016, and co-founded the open-source format for exchange of practices in the performing arts called Nobody’s Business in 2015 (www.nobodysbusiness.info). Bauer has collaborated and worked as a performer with, among others, choreographers Xavier Le Roy, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Boris Charmatz, Trisha Brown, Mette Ingvartsen, David Zambrano; with visual artists Matthew Barney and Emily Roysdon; and with music artists Ictus ensemble and The Knife. Bauer has worked in close collaboration with musician and composer Chris Peck since 2003, creating several original works together over the years.

Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
The tale of Yung Lean is as unassuming as it is wildly exploratory, a contradictory narrative about a misfit stranger from Stockholm who became a worldwide phenomenon – a protracted and at times grievous metamorphosis from pubertal, post-internet novelty to D.I.Y icon with an extensive, organic influence over anything and everything from off-beat art projects and mainstream culture alike. Originating with a nomadic upbringing in Vietnam and Belarus via secretly experimenting and recording in a highschool computer lab to first hand encounters of the triumphs and tragedies of rockstar hyperbole, the mere four years have passed since Ginseng Strip 2002 saw the light of day. It has set him off on a seemingly genreless and open minded dispatch into the past, present and future of pop culture, an alternate reality where early internet aesthetics, late 90’s southern rap and a punk mindset all fused perfectly together. The momentum born from the gentle, abstract touch of his first tracks were swiftly embodied by Kyoto, electrified by Yoshi City deconstructed again via Hoover and then re-animated by Hennesy & Sailor Moon; emerging each time perhaps not rejuvenated but in many ways re invented, his trademark lethargic flow and singular lyrical content elevated and seamlessly integrated with GUD and Yung Shermans’s resourceful and labelfree sonic scenery. Soon to be 22 years of age, the past years have been huge for Yung Lean; besides kicking off with the independently released, eclectic album Warlord in 2016 and embarking on a sold out world tour, it also saw him featured on Frank Ocean’s Blonde, star in Calvin Klein’s #mycal-vins campaign, launch his own Sadboys Gear brand, co-design a sneaker for Eytys and drop a full length punk album together with GUD as Död Mark – to name a few highlights. Last year Yung Lean released Stranger, his 4th studio album project that was followed by an extensive world tour. The collaboration with Eleanor Bauer and Cullbergbaletten is his first commissioned work.

NEAR – a dance concert by Eleanor Bauer and Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
Performed by Cullbergbaletten
Initiated idea: Eleanor Bauer and Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
Choreography: Eleanor Bauer with the dancers in Cullbergbaletten
Music: Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean in collaboration with Frederik Valentin
Set design: Josefin Hinders
Lighting design: Jonatan Winbo
Costume design: Pontus Pettersson
With 12 dancers in Cullbergbaletten
Co-production with Luger, Way Out West Festival Gothenburg and Southbank Centre, London
World premiere at Way Out West, Gothenburg, August 2018

ON THE CUSP
The season’s second premiere is by choreographer Ian Kaler who for the first time creates a big stage production for Cullbergbaletten. ON THE CUSP will be a mix of live-practicing and synchronized movements. It will be a combined live and video work, on a series of different topics, a spectrum of emotions and projections. The work presents a collection of portraits, of the individuals, as well as of the group. Every dancer has their own story, and the company connects them. Who are the people in the group, and how do they construct this group? Shifting from different kind of characters, who are they in private and how does that shape the stage character? The music of electronically synthesized brass sound composed by Planningtorock will create bold, dramatic, playful and deeply moving dance pieces.

Ian Kaler
Ian Kaler, originally from Austria, studied Transmedial Art at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and graduated from the BA Pilot program Contemporary Dance, Context, Choreography at the Inter-University Center for Dance, the University of the Arts in Berlin. Since 2010 he has developed his physical and creative practice in choreographic series in exchange with different artists through different (visual) media, among others, dancer and fashion designer Stephane Peeps Moun, musician Jam Rostron/Planningtorock, lighting designer and video artist Imogen Heath, and drummer Joy Leah Joseph. A special format within the o.T. Series is RAW PRACTICE which was presented at LABO Festival in Stockholm in April 2018, curated by Cullbergbaletten. In a structured and improvised jam session Kaler and Planningtorock uncover their shared practice and further develop it in an intimate dialogue that communicates between different media and languages. Most recently Ian Kaler has premiered the piece LIVFE, the first of a new series of works that combine movement with (spoken) language, live music and live video at Akademietheater in the frame of ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, in August 2017. Ian Kaler develops workshops as research formats analog to his choreographic series, until now for DOCH, School for Dance and Circus, Stockholm, ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Tanzquartier Vienna as well as for the Escuela Profesional de Danza in Mazatlán and the University of Sonora in Mexico. Besides giving workshops for professional dancers with mixed abilities he has also transmitted his practice in workshops for practitioners from backgrounds other than dance.

ON THE CUSP
Concept and choreographic framing: Ian Kaler
Musical score: Planningtorock
Set design: Stephanie Rauch
Lighting design and video: Imogen Heath
Costume design and movement input/choreographic assistance: Stephane Peeps Moun
With 14 dancers in Cullbergbaletten
Co-production: Tanzquartier Vienna, Norrlandsoperan Umeå, PACT Zollverein, Essen.
Ian Kaler is supported by Wien Kultur.
World premiere 10 January 2019, Tanzquartier, Vienna
Sweden premiere 30 January 2019, Norrlandsoperan, Umeå

On tour season 2018/2019
Figure a Sea by Deborah Hay, music by Laurie Anderson
Protagonist by Jefta van Dinther, music by ELIAS and David Kiers
The Mental States of Sweden in Dance by Mattias Andersson
NEAR by Eleanor Bauer, music by Jonatan Leandoer Håstad/Yung Lean
ON THE CUSP by Ian Kaler, music by Planningtorock

Press images: www.cullbergbaletten.se

For more information, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR- an Marketing Manager Cullbergbaletten
+46 (0)70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten
Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre.

– We want to do something new for contemporary dance in Stockholm and connect different actors. In an uncertain world defined by globalism, climate change, neo-liberalism, rapid changes of values and technological advancement, we aim to create an oasis for the senses, to offer a place for reflection and conversation. LABO Stockholm wants to offer a place for reflection, dance, sharing and community. Dance should challenge the known and embrace the unknown, says Jane Hopper, Project Manager of LABO and Artistic Co-ordinator at Cullbergbaletten.

LABO Stockholm with amongst others: Ian Kaler and Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock, Dana Michel, Samira Elagoz, Marie Topp, Kenneth Bruun, Olivia Riviere, Dana Casperson, Benjamin Vandewalle, Linda Blomqvist, Eleanor Bauer, Robin Jonsson and Ludvig Daae.
The full program and tickets will be available in the beginning of March. Tickets are sold at the individual venues.

PERFORMANCES
Dana Michel: Mercurial George
In the wake of the acclaimed Yellow Towel, Mercurial George traces and transforms the banal, provoking a certain malaise. Sifting through the heaps of dusty clues leftover in the wake of initializing a cultural excavation, Dana Michel offers a destabilizing solo. The body vacillates as it struggles for balance and a toehold. Stretching out time with minimalist and deconstructed movement, Michel becomes the archeologist of her own persona. Cullbergbaletten has included MDT:s act in the festival.
Venue: MDT, Slupskjulsvägen 30, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
When: 11-12 April at 8:00 pm
Tickets: www.mdtsthlm.se

Ian Kaler and Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock: o.T./Raw Practice
Ian Kaler with music performed by Jam Rostron aka Planningtorock. In a structured and improvised jam-session with live-performed music, Kaler and Rostron explore how music, dance and movement form, alter and play with temporal unions, bonds and alliances. How are we moved as a community and where are we heading towards as individuals and together?
Venue: Scenkonstmuseet, Sibyllegatan 2
When: 14 April at 8.00 pm
Tickets: www.scenkonstmuseet.se

Linda Blomqvist: Circle LUX 9
Circle LUX 9 makes the body into a raw material that can achieve different qualities, capacities and influence. The piece strives to shift the subject and neutralize the social body as we know it, dissolve cultural and social qualities at the same time as it playful merges and uses different expressions without the ambition to belong to a certain identity. Circle LUX 9 is an eternal transformation of the body and the space and relation that are created in between, passes through different spaces, brings on intimacy and fantasy. Circle LUX 9 is an intensification of the presence that leaves traces and predicts the future in an ongoing loop. It’s a show about the body, in time and space. Circle LUX 9 suggest the term ”magic circle” as a place where temporary worlds within the normal world can exist.
Venue: Danscentrum Stockholm, Jungfrugatan 7B
When: 14 April at 6:30 pm
Tickets: www.danscentrumstockholm.se

Dana Casperson in collaboration with The Michael Douglas Collective: The Exchange
Dana Casperson in collaboration with The Michael Douglas Collective invites you to step into a choreographic public dialogue that doesn’t depend on physical skill, has no audience and functions only through your actions. It offers a physical framework from which to reflect and exchange on individual and global violence mechanisms. Participants are invited to consider what they believe about the use of violence, where they learned those beliefs, and how those beliefs focus their attention and actions in conflict.
venue: Scenkonstmuseet, Sibyllegatan 2
When: 17 April at 7:00 pm
Tickets: www.scenkonstmuseet.se

Samira Elagoz: Cock, cock, who’s there?
Samira Elagoz performance is an unsettling, touching and private documentary-performance of a young woman’s research into intimacy and violence. Through online platforms, like Chatroulette and Tinder and close encounters Samira Elgolaz takes the audience on her journey of regaining power, reinventing autonomous expression of sexuality and attempts to relate to men.
Venue: Scenkonstmuseet, Sibyllegatan 2
When: 18-19 April at 7:30 pm
Tickets: www.scenkonstmuseet.se

Premiere! Marie Topp: Liaisons
Liaisons is a choreographic work addressing our sense of sight. In piece the potential and the state of the blurred vision is explored. Marie Topp’s Liaisons is the first performance in a new series of works that are critically reflecting on how our different senses are affected by cultural and political structures. Focusing on the sense of seeing, the power of the gaze and how the way we see affects the way we understand the world. A gaze that is not sharply focused cannot objectify. The work is initiated by choreographer Marie Topp in close collaboration with Julia Giertz (sound), Mårten K. Axelsson (light), Kenneth Bruun (dance), Olivia Riviere (dance) and Igor Dobricic (dramaturgy). Cullbergbaletten has included MDT:s act in the festival.
Venue: MDT, Slupskjulsvägen 30
When: 20 April at 8pm, 21 April at 6:00pm
Tickets: www.mdtsthlm.se

Benjamin Vandewalle: Walking the Line – a choreographed walk through the streets of Stockholm
Benjamin Vandewalle’s creation offers new perspectives and experiences, both within the theatre room as in the streets of the city. Vandewalle accompanies you into the city. He takes the lead in a series of purposeful actions: some are banal, while others are completely unconventional. You leave as a group of individuals and gradually transform into one collective body. Walking the Line is a walking performance that will give you a new perspective on the city around you through a sequence of tableaux vivants.
Venue: Gathering outside Scenkonstmuseet, Sibyllegatan 2
When: 21 April, at three scheduled times during the day. Exact hours while be announced shortly.
Tickets: www.scenkonstmuseet.se

Linda Blomqvist: The Sound – An interactive installation
In Linda Blomqvist’s performance The Sound the audience is invited on a journey. The sounding dance shifts between the sounding and the visual world. It treats sounds as a force and a material to build invisible landscapes to inhabit, to take care of and drive within yourself. Think of sounds as a different type of consciousness that we can learn from if we spend time with it and listen.
Venue: Danscentrum Stockholm, Jungfrugatan 7B
When: 21 April at 8:30 pm
Tickets: www.danscentrumstockholm.se

WORK IN PROGRESS
Robin Jonsson: The Most Human
The choreographer Robin Jonsson presents a work in progress of the new performance The Most Human. Ludvig Daae is a Norwegian human dancer who grew up in Nesbyen and Maria is a humanoid robot dancer who grew up with IDA at Linköping’s University. Guided by the choreographer Robin Jonsson and the robot developer Fredrik Löfgren they are presented equally but with their own unique predispositions in a dance piece that explores what is human, presence and authenticity. The piece reflects on the radical change of society, in particular with service occupations, the industrial world and in health care, where robots takes over the work from humans but also work together with them. In the Most Human a robot replaces a human dancer and works together with another human. The robot is a humanoid, intelligent and autonomous which affects the pieces process and result.
Venue: Scenkonstmuseet, Sibyllegatan 2
When: 19 april at 6:30 pm
Tickets: www.scenkonstmuseet.se

Louise Dahl and Philip Berlin
Venue: MDT, Slupskjulsvägen 30
When: 20 april at 7:00 pm
No tickets required.

TALKS
Eleanor Bauer: Proto Talks
Eleanor Bauer proposes a replacement for the conventional after-talk. Instead of trying to explain what we just saw with the already known, rehearsed, and press-released talk, Bauer talks to the artist whose work we’ve just seen about what remains yet unanswered, and perhaps yet to come. Proto Talks depart from what the artist doesn’t know for sure, making public discourse and shared imagination out of nascent ideas that are usually reserved for notebooks, dreams, or conversation with cohorts. Talking about things that aren’t yet fully understood, haven’t yet been realized, or don’t yet have a fully articulated justification, Proto Talks are an exercise in negative capability, in speculative theatre, in thinking together, in sharing the creative and imaginative space of uncertainty where artistic process fumbles around in the dark searching for form. Sometimes we don’t entirely understand things even when they’re finished and performed, so talking about the show we’ve just seen is not off-limits, but Getting all the answers is not the point of Proto talks. After-talks, publicity texts, program notes, and reviews can talk about what we think we know, but Proto Talks S are an opportunity to talk about what we know we don’t know.
With: Dana Michel, Samira Elagoz
Venue: Dana Michel (MDT), Samira Elagoz (Scenkonstmuseet)
When: Adjacent to the performance. No tickets necessary.

Open workshop for the public:
Rachel Fuller: Dharma meets Art, Meditation workshops at Moderna Museet
Doorways to Freedom is a guided meditation focusing on the different concepts of Time, Space and Sensitivity. After an hour of meditation, the participants are requested to take their own reflections to the artworks in the museum’s collection. The meditation is based on basic Buddhist teachings about the nature of the senses.
Venue: Moderna Museet, Exercisplan 4, Skeppsholmen
When: 19-21 April at 11:15 am, open for the public, maximum capacity: 25.
More information at www.modernamuseet.se

Other workshops arranged for professionals:
Theo Clinkard: Shifting perspectives to consider private and public spaces
Dana Casperson: Choreographic decision-making in the creation of participatory events
Eroca Nicols: Aggressive Snuggling: From the Politics of Touch to the Poetics of Touch
Rachel Fuller: Dharma meets Art – a Pop-up Retreat at Moderna Museet, Doorways to FreedomEssential Buddhist teachings on the nature of mind, for the modern world.

About Life Long Burning
Life Long Burning (LLB) is a project supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union and dedicated to the sustainable support of the European contemporary dance and performance field and the enlargement of its audience. It is implemented throughout a five-year period: July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2018 by a wide-spread and highly professional network of dance associations, companies and production houses: 4Culture (RO), CCN Montpellier (FR), Cullbergbaletten (SE), danceWEB (AT), Het Veem Theater (NL), Lokomotiva (MK), Station (RS), Tala Dance Center (HR), Uferstudios (DE), Ultima Vez (BE), Workshop Foundation (HU) and workspacebrussels (BE). Through its various activities, LLB strengthens transnational cooperations, fosters the mobility of artists and their works, contributes to career development, cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue and promotes knowledge transfer, audience outreach and the public display of dance. It comprises of 10 activities: Prix Jardin d’Europe (European dance prize for emerging choreography), Dance Radar Europe (virtual PR platform), Dance Works! (co-production of dance productions), Critical Practice (training program for emerging dance writers), danceWEB Scholarships (training program for emerging dancers), Wild Cards (support of artistic development through residencies and workshops), Performance Situation Room (research and knowledge-sharing modules), teachback (research on dance education), Dance fiction (open source documentation/publications on project activities) and SuSy-Support System (education and development of young dance administrators).

About Cullbergbaletten
Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre.

LABO Stockholm is curated and produced by Cullbergbaletten and arranged within the EU-financed culture network Life Long Burning. In collaboration with Scenkonstmuseet, Danscentrum Stockholm, MDT och Moderna Museet.

It is the first time ever that Cullbergbaletten participates in the prestigious international biennial, and the first time in almost 40 years that the company performs in Venice. Festival Internazionale di Danza Contemporanea was hosted for the first time in 1999. Up until then dance had been a part of the biennial’s music program. The dance department is directed and curated by the Canadian choreographer and dancer Marie Chouinard. The 12th International Festival of Contemporary Dance of the Venice Biennale will run from 22 June to 1 July, showcasing several daily events.

“It is of course an amazing honor for the company to be invited to such an important international festival with this choreography. It is the crown’s jewel after last year’s 50th anniversary, and it marks the company’s position and ever growing international status as a leading contemporary dance company, says Gabriel Smeets, artistic director of Cullbergbaletten.

Figure a Sea was created for 21 dancers and premiered at Dansens Hus in Stockholm in September 2015. Audiences and reviewers around the world have consistently described Figure a Sea as a masterpiece.

“Figure a Sea is a meditation on seeing. Seeing music, fleeting incidences and synchronicities, unbelievable unexpectedness and, most surprising seeing the unnamable. It is a space for seeing oneself seeing”, says Deborah Hay on Figure a Sea.

Deborah Hay (born 1941 in Brooklyn) has achieved icon status among choreographers. Her work was formulated in 1960s experimental Judson Dance Theatre in New York, one of the most radical and influential post-modern art movements. Hay’s dances center on undoing the body’s reliance on learned behavior by enlarging the field from which a dancer can resource movement. She spent many years choreographing solo works for notable artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov. The choreographer William Forsythe helped influence her international career after seeing the premiere of her quartet The Match in 2005 at the Montpellier Dance Festival. She has been awarded many grants and awards including the inaugural and groundbreaking Doris Duke Artist Award in 2012. May 5, 2015 France’s Minister of Culture and Communication awarded Hay the title of Chevallier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Laurie Anderson (born in 1947 in Glen Ellyn) began her career as a sculptor and performance artist in the late 1960s. Early in her career she worked as an illustrator and art critic. She is a pioneer in electronic music and has written both popular and art music and collaborated with, among others, William Burroughs, Peter Gabriel and Lou Reed. Since 1975, she has recorded seven albums. Anderson plays several instruments, variations of the violin being her main one. O Superman, from 1981 is one of her most famous songs which also reached as high as second place in the British charts. Her film Heart of a Dog was screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2015.

Co-commissioners
Zodiak, Center for New Dance, Helsinki, Finland
Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA
Balletto di Roma, Rome, Italy
Centro per la Scena Contemporanea – Comune di Bassano del Grappa, Bassano del Grappa, Italy
CCAP, Stockholm, Sweden

Press images and more information: www.cullbergbaletten.se

For more information, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR and Marketing Manager, Cullbergbaletten
+46-70 602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it is still part.

Protagonist is choreographer Jefta van Dinther’s second big stage production for Cullbergbaletten. Elias, 2015’s major breakthrough artist in Swedish music, whose debut single Revolution was a big hit, provides recorded singing and voice-over, accompanied by sound design and music from David Kiers, set design by artist duo SIMKA and lighting design by Minna Tiikkainen. Protagonist premiered at the international dance festival Julidans in Amsterdam, summer 2016.

Voices from the media in Europe:
“Rare is the totally surreal atmosphere in which this other-worldly Protagonist unfolds its themes.” Libération

“The longing for a better world has found its scenic counterpart.” Neues Deutschland
“It is a pretty cool Holy Mass that they are pulling off here.” Berliner Zeitung

“The dancers of Swedish Flagship Company are very strong individuals.” Der Tagespiegel

Tour plan spring 2018:
Berlin, HAU 11-13 January
Paris, Chaillot Théâtre National de la Danse 17-21 January
Barcelona, Mercat de les Flors, 2-4 February
Sevilla, Teatro Central 9-10 February
Madrid, Teatros del Canal 14-15 February
Sandnes, Kulturhuset 16 March
Villeneuve d’Ascq, La Rose des Vents 4-5 April
Breda, Chassé Theater 17 May

Protagonist is a contemplation on mankind. Songs of revolution and dances of evolution tell a tale of how people congregate, take on and are given roles. All the while instinct, resistance and compulsion become evidence of the battle each and every individual is fighting. Struggling to belong, in search for a common meaning or belief, a community takes shape. Protagonist is a parable about care, kinship and alliance as well as isolation, control and estrangement.

Press images and more information: www.cullbergbaletten.se

For more information, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR and Marketing Manager, Cullbergbaletten
+46-70 602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it is still part.

“With this piece, I want to emphasize the joy of winter in Scandinavia. Even though it is freezing cold, and at times exhausting, life goes on during these darkest months. So does the dance in this new piece. As it moves through and on top of the melancholy and harshness of winter, it insists on energy and light”, says Ludvig Daae, choreographer.

Donna Winter
Choreography: Ludvig Daae
By and with: The dancers in Cullbergbaletten Agnieszka Sjökvist Dlugoszewska, Eliott Marmouset*, Eszter Czédulás, Eva Mohn, Gesine Moog, Giacomo Citton, Katie Jacobson, Suelem de Oliveira da Silva, Unn Faleide
Cover: Camille Prieux
*Apprentice from ArtEZ, Arnhem
Music: Lisa Långbacka, Antonio Vivaldi
Costume designer: Tove Berglund
Visual advisor: Joanna Nordahl
Rehearsal director: Lisa Drake

Ludvig Daae
Ludvig Daae, born 1987, is a Norwegian choreographer and dancer, educated at The Royal Swedish Ballet School and at P.A.R.T.S, Brussels. He has worked with choreographers such as Deborah Hay (US) and Mårten Spångberg (SE), and his own productions have been presented across Europe. Ludvig is currently touring two of his own shows; HYPERFRUIT, a dance and film collaboration with film director and visual artist Joanna Nordahl, and his latest performance Dance To Dance To that premiered in February 2017 at MDT in Stockholm and on which tonight’s piece for Cullbergbaletten is based. In December 2015, Ludvig celebrated 100 shows in 10 different countries of his solo performance MM in Sophiensaele in Berlin. MM was named top 10 stage performances in Portugal in 2014, and earned Ludvig the title of one of the “young hopes for European dance” by German dance magazine Tanz.
For more information on Cullbergbaletten’s performance at The Nobel Banquet, please contact:
Erica Espling, PR and Marketing Manager
+46-70-602 27 91, erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten
Cullbergbaletten is the leading repertoire company for contemporary dance in Sweden. The company is an important contributor to the international presentation of dance and choreography with tours all over the world. Cullbergbaletten works with a range of international choreographers and artists. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries, and guest dancers are continuously invited to various projects. Since its inception the individual quality of each dancer has been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristic. By collaborating with choreographers and directors who are rooted in the contemporary field, Cullbergbaletten contributes strongly to the development of performing arts and dance as an art form. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures. The directors are Gabriel Smeets and Stina Dahlström. Cullbergbaletten was founded in 1967 by Birgit Cullberg under the auspices of Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre.

Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir (IS), living and working in Berlin, has created her first work for Cullbergbaletten with four of Cullbergbaletten’s dancers. The new piece HYPER will premiere at Inkonst in Malmö 8-9 February.

In HYPER Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir considers the embodied effects of the social political landscape we live in. The work dwells on and inside the deep tissues both of this reality and of the bodies trying to cope with it. HYPER conveys the essences of this grand human drama as a cry from the body to a viewer who is offered to experience extreme internal and sensorial states through the bodies of four dancers. As a performance, it silently creeps under the skin and slides around in spaces within, confronting the bodily surface as a gateway to what lies beneath and beyond our superficial facade. HYPER disarms with its crisp stillness, and gives access to the healing aspects of confronting the inner reality of the de-bordered body, providing an alternate reality of pleasure and pain that comes with diving into the hyper states.

Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir
Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir was born and raised in Iceland. She studied dance at the Artez University of Arts in Arnhem and Amsterdam. Alongside working as a performer with Gisele Vienne, Erna Ómarsdóttrir, Jan Fabre, Constanza Macras DORKYPARK, Nir De Volff /TOTAL BRUTAL. Margrét Sara co-founded the production house Panic Productions in Reykjavík (IS), with dancer and choreographer Sveinbjörg Þórhallsdóttir, which was active from 2004–2009, and focused on producing and initiating collaborative performance works with international artists.

Margrét Sara has toured internationally with her own work since 2010 and currently lives and works in Berlin. Displaying the politics of intimacy is a core theme within her choreographic work while working with and exploring pathologies of the social political body within our own bodies. Margrét Sara has collaborated with a consistent team of performers over the last five years and the soundscapes which accompany the works are exclusively created by and with Peter Rehberg (PITA), electronic composer and director of the record label Editions MEGO, Austria.

In 2014 Margrét Sara restaged her critically acclaimed piece Soft target installed in a speciel version for four of Cullbergbaletten’s dancers. In 2015 Margrét Sara became artist in residence at Cullbergbaletten in Stockholm. HYPER is her first work created directly for the company. She teaches periodically at the Icelandic Dance company, dance department of the Art University of Iceland, BA dance program at DOCH in Stockholm and choreography department of the Art University of Helsinki.

Margrét Sara’s work has been supported by network platforms and dance organizations across Europe, including: Wilderness residencies, Nordic-Baltic contemporary dance community organization keðja, Life Long Burning co-productions fund, Cullbergbaletten dance company Stockholm, Aerowaves, ICEHOT! Nordic performance platform, SLINGAN Swedish Performance Network, Tanzfabrik Berlin & Advancing Performing Arts Project (APAP) Production Studio Berlin / EU Culture Programme, WP Zimmer Antwerpen, Sommer.bar–Tanz im August Berlin, Barney’sCrossing Cologne, Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Senat fund Berlin, The City Funds of Reykjavík and the Cultural Ministry of education and science in Iceland, Kulturekontakt Nord

For the last seven years Margrét Sara has focused her professional research on physical doorways into physiological and emotional sub worlds association with myofascial release and beyond. Through this research she began the process of mapping out a new category of performative body language, ways of developing it further, and transferring this knowledge to others. The working methods directly inform the theme of the artistic works, and extend beyond the limits of professionalism and performance making. The first three years of research were done privately 2010-2012, whilst the performance works created during this period did not engage with this new physical language. The first artistic work created from this ongoing research where performers were included in the process was Step Right To It in 2013. Followed by the Blind Spotting Performance Series, in 2014, which was launched with the aim of continuing the research and creating working conditions which would make it possible for the group to dedicate a longer period of time to work in-depth on a specific artistic topic and develop the ambitious and detailed physiological language necessary to convey it. A new cycle in this ongoing research has already begun in 2015 and will extend over a period of 2 years, accumulating in a new performance work due to premiere in 2017.

Choreography: Margret Sara Guðjónsdóttir
Sound design: Margret Sara Guðjónsdóttir in collaboration with David Kiers
Lighting design: Martin Beeretz
Dancers: Adam Schütt, Anand Bolder, Eleanor Campbell, Vincent Van der Plas
Premiere at Inkonst, Malmö, 8-9 February 2017 at 19:00.
Duration: 35 minuter

HYPER will be presented at Inkosnt in a double bill together with the solo Against the Current, Glow choreography by Cristian Duarte, with the dancecrs dansarna Samuel Draper (8 February) and Daniel Sjökvist (9 February).

Press images are available from Tuesday 7 February.

For more information contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullbergbaletten
+ 46-70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten has performed all over the world and is an important contributor to the international presentation of contemporary dance. The company also engages in national outreach through its tours within Sweden. Cullbergbaletten collaborates with a variety of national and international choreographers and performing artists who create works for large as well as small stages. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including collaborations with dance training programs. Cullbergbaletten was founded by Birgit Cullberg in 1967 under the auspices of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it still is a part. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries. Since its inception, the stage personalities, creativity and technical strength of its dancers have been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristics. Gabriel Smeets is the artistic director since 2014.

Cullbergbaletten tours this fall in the US with Figure a Sea, a project by Deborah Hay and Laurie Anderson. It is the first time since 2002 the world famous Swedish dance company performes in the US, and the tour is made possible with support by The Embassy of Sweden, Washington, DC, The Swedish Arts Council and Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

“There is a great interest in Swedish and Scandinavian dance in the US, a sort of positive buzz. The fact that Cullbergbaletten collaborates with two American icons raises the temperature even higher. And what also seems to be inspiring here is how big creative space the dancers of Cullbergbaletten are given, in terms of research and developing solo performances such as Against the Current, Glow that will be performed at the House of Sweden in Washington”, says Linda Zachrison, Cultural Counselor, at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington.

Figure a Sea has been performed successfully during the summer in Montpellier, France, at the outdoor theatre Parkteatern in Stockholm, Bassano, Italy, in Cologne and at Tanz im August in Berlin, Germany with brilliant reviews throughout. The piece had its world premiere at Dansens Hus in Stockholm, last September. The tour in the US goes to Montclair 6-9 October, Los Angeles 15-16 October and Berkeley 22-23 October. Talks, solo performances, panel discussions, workshops and master classes will be arranged in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Berkeley in connection to the tour.

“A creation by Deborah Hay for a big dance company, using all the advantages of a big machine, challenging seize, scale, resources just had to be there. Her ongoing reflection on dance, what it can be and how it can be perceived, is a crucial link in the development of this art form. I felt like being in a museum where the Jackson Pollocks or the Rauschenbergs were missing. This piece just had to be made. And it is of course extra special to show a piece by Hay with a Swedish dance company on her home base in the US”, says Gabriel Smeets, Artistic Director, Cullbergbaletten.

Deborah Hay, American icon dancer, choreographer, and author, was born 1941 in Brooklyn. She trained with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska and danced with the Cunningham Dance Company in 1964. Hay belongs to a generation of choreographers who were at the base of Judson Church Movement in New York in the 1960s, where daily life movements became part of the choreography and untrained people became dancers. This was a change in the history of dance. The group, known as the Judson Dance Theater, became one of the most radical and explosive postmodern 20th century art movements. Hay focused on large-scale dance projects and later almost exclusively on rarified and enigmatic solo dances based on her new experimental choreographic method. She also choreographed a duet for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Single Duet in 2000.

Laurie Anderson, composer, born in 1947 in Glen Ellyn, IL, is one of today’s premier performance artists. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. As a composer, she has contributed music to films by Wim Wenders and Jonathan Demme; dance pieces by Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, Molissa Fenley, and a score for Robert Lepage’s theater production Far Side of the Moon. She has created pieces for National Public Radio, the BBC, and Expo ’92 in Seville. Anderson’s awards include the 2001 Tenco Prize for Songwriting in San Remo, Italy, and the 2001 Deutsche Schallplatten prize for Life on a String as well as grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Co-commissioners:
Zodiak, Center for New Dance, Helsinki, Finland.
Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA.
Balletto di Roma, Rome, Italy, Centro per la Scena Contemporanea – Comune di Bassano del Grappa, Bassano del Grappa, Italy
CCAP, Stockholm, Sweden.

The tour is made possible with support by The Embassy of Sweden, Washington, DC, The Swedish Arts Council and Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.

For more information contact:
Erica Espling, Marketing and PR Manager Cullbergbaletten
+ 46-70-602 27 01
erica.espling@cullbergbaletten.se

Cullbergbaletten has performed all over the world and is an important contributor to the international presentation of contemporary dance. The company also engages in national outreach through its tours within Sweden. Cullbergbaletten collaborates with a variety of national and international choreographers and performing artists who create works for large as well as small stages. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including collaborations with dance training programs. Cullbergbaletten was founded by Birgit Cullberg in 1967 under the auspices of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it still is a part. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries. Since its inception, the stage personalities, creativity and technical strength of its dancers have been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristics. Gabriel Smeets is the artistic director since 2014.

The restaging of Birgit Cullberg’s Eurydice is Dead from 1968 will be in collaboration with choreographer and former artistic director Mats Ek and dancer Ana Laguna.

“We are delighted and excited to present Eurydice is Dead and to show it alongside our latest creation Protagonist by Jefta van Dinther. Both pieces explore the need for, and the aftermath of a revolution. To present these two art works on the same stage on one evening is more than just a way of connecting the past with the present. From this encounter of two monumental choreographies from Cullbergbaletten’s repertoire a new energy will emerge that allows us to see the intrinsic artistic quality of each work”, says Gabriel Smeets, artistic director.

Eurydice is Dead premiered in January 1968. A political creation at the time, the piece focused on the individual’s fight against power and oppression, inspired by the movie Battle of Algiers (directed by Gillo Pontecorvo) and the Greek mythology. Protagonist by Jefta van Dinther was created with fourteen dancers from the company and premiered at Julidans in Amsterdam in the summer of 2016.

In addition to this artistic encounter, the dancers of Cullbergbaletten will be invited to create choreographies inspired by or based on Birgit Cullberg’s works. These unique interpretations will be presented in a smaller stage context in Stockholm during the spring.

During the celebration week, Cullbergbaletten will organize an international seminar about the relation a contemporary dance company has with its artistic legacy. Just like every dance company that was founded by a dance innovator who turned into a legend in their own days, Cullbergbaletten has a strong legacy. How does Cullbergbaletten relate to the legacy? Is the historical frame necessary in order to define the contemporary explorations? These and other questions will be answered in the seminar About dance legacy, heritage and dancers’ archives in April 2017 at Dansens Hus in Stockholm.

Cullbergbaletten has performed all over the world and is an important contributor to the international presentation of contemporary dance. The company also engages in national outreach through its tours within Sweden. Cullbergbaletten collaborates with a variety of national and international choreographers and performing artists who create works for large as well as small stages. Cullbergbaletten’s activities encompass different projects and productions including collaborations with dance training programs. Cullbergbaletten was founded by Birgit Cullberg in 1967 under the auspices of Riksteatern – The Swedish National Touring Theatre, of which it still is a part. The company currently has 16 dancers from nearly as many countries. Since its inception, the stage personalities, creativity and technical strength of its dancers have been Cullbergbaletten’s defining characteristics. Gabriel Smeets is the artistic director since 2014.