Residence 2022

Matilda Fleberg

Choreographer Matilda Fleberg and producer duo VAZ explore utopian and dystopian future scenarios in a work where sound art and dance meet in a unique fusion of concert and dance performance.

The work is a circular time travel that, with a metaphorical narrative approach, embodies the thoughts, future scenarios and fears that have become part of our everyday life as society develops. Questions of power, emancipation and identity in relation to the environment and new technology are touched upon; what does it sound like when nature turns against man, how do you translate code into movement and in which BPM does an artificial heart beat?

The music is based on electronic sound worlds inspired by African futurism where genres such as Highlife, Hip Hop, Morna and Zamrock are mixed with Nordic melancholy. The movement language in the performance is a dynamic fusion of styles and expressions with an emphasis on detailed musicality and contrasts in movement qualities where dancers and musicians together form an ecosystem that moves in symbiosis.

"We want to create a work where dance and music take an equal place and enhance each other on stage - by participating and learning from each other's processes at an early stage and letting the exchange lead the creative work forward". 

The collaboration between VAZ and Fleberg is based on the common interest in exchange beyond their own main art form. Through greater insight into each other's creative processes, new working methods for composition in relation to choreography are explored.

MATILDA FLEBERG

Matilda Fleberg has been active as a choreographer since 2013 and is characterised by works created from a group perspective with symmetry, chemistry and synchronicity as key elements where unique dancers meet and move as a powerful unit. She has choreographed works for Dior's fashion campaigns, worked in various TV productions, commercials, short films and worked with a range of artists in contexts such as live performances, tours, music videos and TV. In 2018, she staged her debut performance "OUTLIVE" at Dansens Hus in Stockholm, which has since been performed around Sweden.

www.matildafleberg.com

JENNY & CECILIA VAZ 

VAZ is a Swedish composer and producer duo consisting of sisters Cecilia Vaz and Jenny Vaz. The Swedish-Cape Verdean duo has achieved great success with their experimental afrobeats and cross-genre compositions, and with their Grammy-nominated debut NECESSARY they were awarded SKAP's Producer Award 2019. Together they have founded the non-normative cultural projects Panorama and Studio XX as well as the record label Kinship Music and Nordiska Musikbyrån.

www.vazofficial.com

www.nordiskamusikbyran.com

Mari Carrasco

During spring 2020 Mari Carrasco created a commissioned work for Vällingby Stadsteater - The Heart. Set and costume designer Jenny Nordberg was part of the process and created a room that was 18 square metres for 4 dancers and 40 people to share. A very small stage space. The room became a co-creator of the choreographic expression and a clear tool in the creative process.

Through the dancers' bodies, the group wanted to bring out the ordinary person who dances. Working with rhythm and tempo, they found an expression: contained groove. "Contain the groove, implode the movement while u do what u are doing" (quote by Mari Carrasco). The expression became an "awkward groove", which was neither too close to the club nor too abstract. It was on the borderline between stylish and ugly, comfortable and uncomfortable. It was The Heart.

Together with the house, costume, light and movement, a performance was created that opened a new door for Carrasco to her artistic universe. The Heart became an experience, a dance performance, an installation, a club where the audience can experience the dancers up close. With the dancers' pulsating isolations and Mikael Karlsson's epic musical score with four strings. A world where music and movement are in symbiosis with each other. A world with four characters in woollen sweaters dancing themselves into trance to dramatic strings. A world where lonely hearts can gather and dance together.

The Heart was cancelled two days before the premiere due to the pandemic. The premiere would have been on 3 April 2020. With this residency, Carrasco's goal is to complete the process of the work and premiere it in spring 2023.

Ellen Söderhult

COARSE

En dans om det outhärdligt bitterljuva i kärleken vecklar ut sig genom asmr-ljud, strob, swoshiga hopp och kroppsliga tillstånd. I ett landskap av ljud och ljus möts skrovlig, sträv och len elektroakustisk musik med ljuden av lera, trä och monstruösa ljudeffekter. Arbetet tar sig an begreppen konsistens och textur i formen av en slags ljudeffektsdans som undersöker hur ljud och rörelse kan beröras med ögon och öron.

Grov är en storm av rörelser i ljud, ljus och känsla. Det är som ett ögonblick ur en dramatiskt romantisk dikt, tonsatt och dansad i mycket rök och ljussatt med strob. Hårda ljud och mjuka kroppar. Grov är smäktande ljudeffekter och spänst, pulserande bas och tunga landningar. Ljud av monster blandas med medeltida melodier och kroppar som rör sig till ljudet av knakande trä.

Grov is a performing arts project that seeks to investigate how sound and movement can be touched with the eyes and ears by choreographer Ellen Söderhult in collaboration with several other artists: composer Kajsa Blom, cinematographer Milja Rossi and dancers Jade Stenhuijs and Morgane Nicol. The project seeks to explore slippages between expressions and how the senses of sight, tactility and hearing can merge and overlap. How film, dance, music/sound and light can create slippages between "form and background", object and subject. This in a collaboration based on the interests of the collaborating artists to work with textures, density and consistencies in the different materials of expression such as roughness, intensity, sting, depth and roughness. Grov explores a format midway between electro-acoustic concert and dance performance.

ELLEN SÖDERHULT

Ellen Söderhult är verksam som dansare och koreograf med bas i Stockholm. I sitt koreografiska arbete har hon tagit sig an kollektivet som protagonist i bland annat den sportiga punkbaletten How to do things with Romance och Rudy, samt intresserat sig för textur i ljud och rörelse. I verk som DUNKA DUNKA och Shane et. al har även körsång, tvärdisciplinära samarbeten och vibrerande bas varit bärande element. Hennes arbeten har visats på bl.a Heizhaus (Berlin), Black Box (Oslo), Dansehallerne och Danseatelier (Köpenhamn), Bastun och Båthuspaviljongen (Mariehamn), Ateneum (Helsingfors), Dansstationen (Malmö), Dansmässan/Scenkonstmuséet, MDT, Weld (Stockholm), DansPlats Skog (Stråtjära) och Massmanska kvarnen (Ronneby).  2015 initierade hon plattformen Nobodys business för open source utbyte av konstnärliga praktiker tillsammans med Alice Chauchat och Eleanor Bauer. Ellen är utbildad i dans och cirkus på DOCH/SKH

ellensoderhult.com