KAREN ARNFRED VEDEL
Geopolitics, Historiography & Dancers’ Knowing in Motion
What is the role of dance research in times such as the present, with its excess of largely human-made disasters on planet earth? How can we – as dance researchers (practitioners, artists, and activists) – engage with the accompanying crisis of epistemological truths? And how do the materials and practices of archival institutions, on which dance historians rely, play into the larger scope of these questions?
Dance historiography has long since challenged the colonial scripting of historic time as a singular line of progression. An important tenet in this research has critically engaged with the role of dance archives in the monolithic centring of some dance genres at the expense of others. Looking at African-American derived movements in the Nordic countries in the 1900s, Lena Hammergren (2011) coined ‘movementscapes’ as a concept with which to discuss the flow of artists into the region from the largely marginalized genre of jazz dance in the history of dance in the Nordic countries. My own research into dance as a performing art form in Denmark points to the temporal overlay of ‘dancehistorical pasts’ that continue to be active in the present (2008). More recently, the research project named Knowing in Motion. Dance. Body. Archive (2023-2026) brought together dancers of diverse backgrounds with selected archival materials as a frame for the exploration of dancerly knowing IN and ABOUT dance. In this project, carefully facilitated workshop encounters enabled the activation of material traces of choreographic ‘pasts’ and the reciprocal activation of the dancers’ knowing in motion.
In the keynote, I will address the centring of ‘choreographic notes’ as a specific material category of archivalia with which the dancers engaged in the project workshops. Towards the end, the paper will open a discussion of how critical insights from the dancers’ interaction with these and other forms of dance archival objects may contribute to a redress of dance archival practices.
Karen Arnfred Vedel is Associate Professor, Section for Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Copenhagen and PI of the research project Knowing in Motion. Dance, Body, Archive (2023-2026). Her research interests include dance historiography, dance infrastructures, and site-specific performance. As member of the research project Dance in Nordic Spaces 2006-2012, Karen edited Dance and the Formation of Norden. Emergences and Struggles (2011) and co-edited with Petri Hoppu Nordic Dance Spaces. Practicing and Imagining a Region (2015). Moreover, she has served on the board of NOFOD and on the board of directors of Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). vedel@hum.ku.dk
LOVÍSA ÓSK GUNNARSDÓTTIR
When the Bleeding Stops: Artistic Research on Menopause, Aging & Participatory Performance
The performance When the Bleeding Stops emerged from a deeply personal lived experience and has since evolved into an international artistic and social movement. Following an injury that forced her to reconsider her relationship to dance and her aging body, dancer and choreographer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir became increasingly aware of the silence and stigma surrounding menopause in Western society. What began as a personal inquiry developed into an artistic research process centred on aging, menopause, connecting with the body, and the intimate practice of dancing in one’s own living room.
As part of this research, Gunnarsdóttir invited menopausal women from her local community to participate in workshops, engage with her artistic practice, and share their stories and dance videos. The project quickly expanded beyond Iceland, with women from more than 32 cities worldwide participating in workshops and joining the performance on stage. Through this evolving participatory practice, When the Bleeding Stops has become not only a performance work, but also a platform for dialogue, visibility, and empowerment. The work continues to evolve through each encounter with a new local community, allowing the performance to shift and grow in response to the experiences and cultural perspectives of the women involved. In this way, the project also functions as an ongoing exploration of the social and cultural dimensions of menopause across different societies.
Drawing from her artistic research and international touring experience, Gunnarsdóttir reflects on how artistic practice can transform intimate experience into collective engagement. She traces the development of the work from its earliest stages to its current international format, while addressing collaboration with professional and non-professional performers, the power of shared vulnerability, and the role of humour, empathy, and honesty in creating meaningful connections across cultures and communities. At its core, the project seeks to challenge public narratives around aging and menopause, opening space for conversations that are often marginalized or silenced.
Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir is an award-winning dancer and choreographer based in Iceland, who has danced all her life. After a 16-year career with Iceland Dance Company, touring internationally and collaborating with a wide range of artists, an injury at the age of forty led her to rethink her relationship with dance, the body, and her artistic practice. This experience sparked her research into menopause and inspired her acclaimed performance When the Bleeding Stops, which has toured extensively internationally over the past five years. Gunnarsdóttir holds master’s degrees in Performing Arts and Project Management and is currently the Artistic Director of Iceland Dance Company. lovisa.osk.gunnarsdottir@id.is
SAUL GARCIA-LOPEZ, aka LA SAULA
Meditative Rant 3.0: Languaging to the Four Directions
Meditative Rant 3.0: Languaging to the four directions dives into activating differences and binary associations to decenter the colonial chronicle of knowing and question hegemonic creative methods. The body translates the sound beat of words as a tool to displace inert primary-hand knowledge into embodied knowing. This embodied rant activates the resonance of the written page to displace literacy; it places indigenous contemplation side by side with institutionalized studies. The meditation moves in between staying and migrating, the fluidity and rigidity of identity, and the wandering dance between the margins and the centre.
“I often think about how theory and my brown queer body interact. When viewed through the lens of whiteness, my actions disrupt dominant institutional creative narratives, I think. But I sometimes feel that I am seen only as a generic colonized figure required to embody the history of racial objectification to validate Eurocentric performance methods and their related theories. I still imagine performance technology that recognizes my body and moves beyond difference-blind or difference-tokenism in creative methods.”
Languaging is the process of activating words to shape knowledge, experience, and meaning. It treats language as dynamic instead of a fixed set of words and rules (text). Languaging is verb-oriented—”doing language.” It emphasizes how we build, create, and share understanding through social interaction and dialogue. This creative idea is inspired by the forms of knowing of the Cree, Ojibwe, Nahua, and Mayan peoples on Tuttle Island (North America).
Saul Garcia-Lopez, aka La Saula, is a performance artist, professor and coordinator of the MA in performance at the Norwegian Theatre Academy and former co-artistic director of La Pocha Nostra (2012-2023). La Saula focuses on Indigenous and Eurocentric performance-making pedagogies and Artistic Research addressing ethnicity, gender, and decoloniality. Saula currently leads the research Radical Elders: Transgenerational Performance Knowledge, supported by Hk-dir/PKU in Norway (2023-2026). Publications: La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for The Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society (Routledge, 2021) and A Meditative Rant on the Importance of Addressing Ethnicity While Teaching Eurocentric Performance Methods in Latinx Actor Training (Routledge, 2023). saul.g.lopez@hiof.no