Divine

Dear audience,

All of a sudden, Aino, Anni, Aymara, Inka, Julia, Linnea, Lucien, Malla, Maria, Maya, Mira, Natalia, Riikka, Saga, Sarah, Tovalisa, Ulrik and Zosia are no longer at the beginning of their journey in the BA Programme in Dance Performance. 
All of a sudden, they are in the middle of the middle, a little bit more than halfway. 
All of a sudden, they command the stage and the audience with a commitment, an intensity and a playfulness that I have previously only seen glimpses of.
 
I have been observing Halla’s work on and offstage for many years now. As a performer, a maker, a conversationalist and a figure in the Nordic dance community, I have a deep respect and admiration for her capacity to transform a room, a performer and their person. I was so very curious to see how her practices and aesthetics would encounter specifically this group of students and tonight is your chance to see, feel and hear the magic. 
 
In the second semester of the second year of the Bachelor’s Programme in Dance Performance, the students work and perform a piece of repertory, i.e. a dance work that has already been composed and performed. I invited Halla to question together with me what repertory is and to explore her archive of practices, scores, approaches and necessities together with the students in a performance form that will meet the audience 12 times. 
 
Thank you for being here. Tell all your friends. Dance matters.
Until next time, 

/Zoë Poluch, Head of the Bachelor Programme in Dance Performance

Credits

Choreography: Halla Ólafsdóttir in collaboration with the dancers

Dancers and magic:

• Anni Koivusalo
• Aino Vartiainen
• Aymara von Borries Bisbicus
• Inka Keränen
• Julia Christoffersson
• Linnea Johansson
• Lucien Rault
• Malla Aaltonen
• Maria Arkouli
• Maya Giraudet
• Mira Buus Rasmussen
• Natalia Perea Santana
• Riikka Lyra
• Saga Ivéus Wenglert
• Sarah Hanses
• Tovalisa Delin
• Ulrik Ørsnes Jansen
• Zosia Krzyszycha 

Lighting design: Mali Dönmez and Halla Ólafsdóttir

Sound design: Halla Ólafsdóttir

Costume design: Halla Ólafsdóttir in collaboration with the dancers.

Technician: Mali Dönmez

Music: Futö by Shida Shahabi

Vocals: Zosia Krzyszycha with choir of the dancers, "Jutros mi je ruža procvetala" by Petar Tanasijević.

Photographer: Nicklas Dennermalm

All texts in the performance are written by the dancers, the students. 

Halla Ólafsdóttir 

Zoë called me about a year ago and tried to get me excited about doing something she called repertory. I said to her, what do you mean by repertory?! For me, repertory is a very specific crystallization of people, ideas and space. A complete work. I, alone, didn’t have anything to offer to her request as I never work alone and all of my artistic practices were born and colored by my partners in crime and collaborators who are Amanda Apetrea, Eliisa Erävalo, Erna Ómarsdóttir, John Moström and Franz Edwards Cedrins.

But meeting the group of 2nd years on my own was a condition to work with. So, Zoë and I started to deconstruct what repertory could be and kind of liberated it from the idea of it being embodied by a precise form or duration. We decided that it could be a visiting, an activating, a ‘dragging’ of my archive of scores, obsessions, practices, performativities. 

We are pleased to present a divine dance, a divine narrative, a divine, repertory, a divine aardvark, a divine shapeshifting, a divine copying as adding and not as stealing, a divine deer, a divine spiraling, a divine syllvia, a divine pose, a divine reading, a divine crow, a divine friendship, a divine rockstar, a divine coven, a divine winding willie, a divine dolphin, a divine composition, a divine shaking infinity, a divine diva, a divine grace a divine trajectory, a divine imagination, a divine feeling, a divine love, a divine choreography, a divine translation, a divine transmutation, a divine lake, a divine mirroring, a divine ace of cups, a divine writing, a divine screaming, a divine channeling, a divine choir, a divine diagonal, a divine ripple, a divine forest, a divine disgusting and cute diva.

Biography

Halla Ólafsdóttir is a dancer and choreographer with an MA in choreography from SKH (formerly DOCH). She always works collectively in various constellations, looking for ways to expand the notion of choreography. A big part of her work revolves around inventing new formats for dance performances and how politics and gender are projected onto body movements. Halla often uses recognizable material from art and popular culture in order to explore what happens when it is put in the context of contemporary dance.

Together with Amanda Apetrea she has toured and created the pieces Sälkvinnorna (2022), DEAD (2017) and Beauty and the Beast (2011), winner of the Prix Jardin d’Europe Awards in 2013. Halla and Eliisa Erävalo have a communal practice called bitchcraft and together they have created the works Granddaughters (2022), Bitch (2021) and BITCHCRAFT (2017). Together with Erna Ómarsdóttir Halla created The Juliet Duet (2022) and Romeo <3 Juliet (2018) which was nominated for “DER FAUST Awards” in 2019. Halla premiered the piece Sylph (2023) together with Cullberg at Dansens Hus and has an upcoming tour in spring 2024.

Halla has choreographed various international dance companies such as Cullberg (SE), Iceland Dance Company (IS), Böler Samvirkelag (NO) and Gärtnerplatztheater company (DE). As a dancer she worked with choreographers and collectives including Samlingen, Dorte Olesen, Inpex, Nadja Hjorton and The Knife. Halla experiments with various art forms and expressions and has acted in films by Ester Martin Bergsmark, Sidney Leoni and Joachim Koester.

The Bachelor's programme in dance performance 

The bachelor’s programme in dance at SKH experiments through practice and reflection with what “contemporary dance” could be today. Throughout the three year program, you will nurture your dancing and thinking in a context that actively examines the genre – its histories, capacities and limitations.