I am curious to speak with you about the entanglement of your choreographic practice with visual art and poetry. Additionally, I’d like to hear about your interest in creating social spaces for gathering, such as using a self-made mini golf course as a setting.
I think I’ve always been what you say in Swedish “Allätare”, meaning that I eat everything. I think my background has a large impact on my approach to dance and performance. I started dancing quite late and when I was younger, I took a lot of photos, and during the nighttime and early mornings, I would sew a lot of clothes for example. Also, I’ve been very influenced or already embedded in the concept or idea of what has been referred to as “expanded choreography”, thinking in terms of movements, entanglements, practices, and performativity, and how these can extend beyond the traditional notion of dance. I’ve always been fascinated and drawn to art since I was very young, and I have this sort of need to try and do everything.
In terms of visual art, I think my approach is very much influenced by thinking about visuality, materiality, and space, which are integral to dance. I do not think of objects in dance as mere props or set pieces; rather, I consider them as integral components of the dance itself. Since I started making pieces, I’ve been drawn to the idea that objects are not just props—they are part of the dance, even if they are not necessarily art objects or theater objects. Perhaps they fall somewhere in between. I’ve always been interested in how visual art deals with objects in space, temporality, and context. This interest led me to study Fine Arts, and I pursued both a master’s in Fine Arts and a long-term project at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm.
Clothing is another area where objects, visual art, and dance intersect for me. I started making clothes early on, before I got into dance, and I find that creating clothes allows me to play with form, texture, shapes, and the feelings evoked by different materials. There is a line connecting clothing, objects, visual arts, and how they influence the production of dance, or if you will the emergence of a dance.
In terms of poetry, I think both poetry and dance are mediums that open up a space rather than narrowing it down. At least, that was my ambition when I began working with poetry during my master’s in choreography between 2012-2014. I realized how much poetic material, in the form of poems, was already present in my work, even if I hadn’t previously explored it as a larger research area. I then began to explore how poetry and dance are intermingled and how they relate to each other. I believe that both poetry and dance unfold moments into plurality or proliferation. This ability to open up space while still maintaining direction, and the intimacy that comes with it, is something I hold close to my heart.
I think a lot about dance as a social phenomenon and as part of the human experience. Therefore, all social aspects are counted for and are part of my dance-making process. This makes me also think about the structures that uphold spaces and create the segway into dancing. For me, it’s not merely about creating steps that are then reenacted; it’s really about the conditions for dance. This is perhaps why I am interested in practices rather than only the sculpting of a dance even though that is also part of the work. form is also important.
In relation to the miniature golf course, I think it’s one way for me to include the audience as participants in the event itself. It’s an easy score, an easy program in the sense that you follow along, go down a lane, and try to hit the ball into the hole. There’s a shift between being very concentrated and then relaxing or releasing into something else, which I think relates a lot to the cat practice itself. It also makes them move and creates a certain kind of agency, which is interesting and important to me.
A lot of the work I do as a choreographer sometimes crosses over into curating. I also have a festival in Stockholm together with my colleague, Karina Sarkissoba, and I do other events where my ambition as a choreographer is to gather people, meet, and do things together. Sometimes, yes, that looks like a dance, but for me, the social aspect is really what’s important. I think objects can help us to be social. For example, asking someone, “Could you help me carry this chair?” establishes a relationship. We don’t need more than that somehow. There’s something about how materiality and objects help us be in a space together, even if we’re not here on the same grounds or without previous relations, so we know what to do, what to say, and how to interact with each other.
You have been working with and developing the cat practice since 2012. Can you speak about the origins of this idea and interest, the practice itself, and its role as a choreographic strategy? Also, what are your thoughts on the frequent association of cats with otherworldliness?
The cat practice, like my work with poetry, began during my master’s in choreography. I was doing an inventory on what I had already been doing, and I noticed that, just like poetry, the concept of the cat kept reappearing in my work, as score, images, texts, and ideas. Around that time, there was also a moment in contemporary dance when people were looking beyond the theater, considering other ways of being performative, including drawing inspiration from animals or children, who could be seen as performers in their own right, even if their performance was different from that of a dancer on stage. This period also coincided with the emergence of the “cat phenomenon” on the internet. This is the context I would say.
I began to think about the cat practice as a way to embody the behaviors and mindset of cats, rather than merely mimicking their movements. Over the years, I’ve experimented with what the cat practice could mean, and it has continued to fascinate me. I think what still captivates me about this practice is its unique approach to being present in time and space. The cat practice creates a different kind of embodiment and placement, which I find deeply connected to dance.
As a choreographic strategy, the cat practice provides a method or practice for performers to be fully present in the moment. This presence is not necessarily about stage presence, but rather about the ability to be genuinely in the moment. When one is truly in the moment, other kinds of agencies come forward, and through this, new political and poetic expressions, and ambitions can emerge. I believe that this presence also influences the audience, creating a collective experience in live performance. The cat, as a vehicle for presence, offers radical shifts of focus and intention, which can reorient the social fabric within a space. Furthermore, I have experienced on a bodily plane that it rewires my attentiveness, sense of weight and gravity as well as very strong softness appears through this kind of dis-attachment and attachment, interest and wandering.
Regarding the association of cats with otherworldliness, I think this connects to the way cats seem to warp time or the time-space continuum. In recent years, I’ve come to see the cat practice almost as a form of energy work, and through that, I think we can access or at least play with the idea of accessing different dimensions or other worlds. This concept resonates with the idea that cats are seen in many cultures as guides to other places and worlds. I find this association beautiful and fitting for the practice because, in a way, art itself is a journey to other dimensions through the artist’s vision and work.
The cat, as both a practice and an image or mythology, continues to fascinate me and plays a significant role in my work.
Thinking of Pancor Poetics, the performative installation you are presenting in Moving in November, how does the cat practice merge with poetry writing?
Pancor Poetics, which I’m presenting as a choreographic installation at Moving in November, I describe as a continuous entanglement of various events.
These include the cat practice, miniature golf, poetry readings, poetry writing, the performers, and the audience members, and of course the space of Kunsthalle—all entangled in a continuous happening.
The connection between the cat practice and poetry, for me, is about presence. There’s also this almost cliché idea of the poet and their cat, an image that carries a certain romance or mystique, which I find appealing. Even though the piece doesn’t explicitly enact this image, it offers this atmosphere as something present in the space.
Both the cat practice and poetry involve deep listening—listening to the space, to the dance, to the poetry. I started working with poetry because of my interest in listening, and I think of dance as something you listen to rather than merely observe, this also link dance and dancing to ethics.