The Art of Dance in a Frozen Landscape

2002–2003

Why would a choreographer go to the Arctic to work? Why expose a dancer’s body to the cold she would otherwise try so hard to avoid? Why stage dances in surroundings where there is no audience?

The Arctic has always had a strong attraction on me. A dream I haven’t been capable to unveil. This endless area surrounding the pole consists mainly of water, frozen water, incredible deep water. In this deep frozen outmost white there is a constantly continuing imperceptible movement. The ice is drifting, gets moved by the wind, brakes by the tide and gets colored by the ever shifting light. Nothing is fixed. No solid ground beneath one‚s feet. Even so, there is a strong expression of stillness.

A feeling of mysticism awakens within. A feeling that attracts both mind and body. The mystical easily get glorified or in some cases approaches with agony. Seductively enticing, threatening, deterrent thoughts and feelings get occupied by this ”something” and demands both will, intelligence and remembrance to approach. I get seduced. I meet with sensual experiences, with anger, with happiness when focusing on the issue awakened by the ice. I work in the atmosphere of mysticism of the intangible that is present in this landscape and I create a dance!

The project was presented in the performance The Outmost White, in a dance film for the Swedish Television, in a documentary film and in the book Danskonst i fruset landskap. Some chapters from the book is translated and can be read in Words on Dance (see Artwork, Books).

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