Examining the gaze’s potential as a tool of power. Swedish choreographer Ofelia Jarl Ortega creates with StM an opening between performer and spectator. A space that pulses, yields and gives the spectator’s gaze a body. The borderland becomes a place to talk about the evasive. StM is a solo and the latest piece in a series where Ofelia Jarl Ortega examines the dramaturgy of the gaze as choreographic material, where the dancer’s voluntary objectification questions the participation of the observer. She approaches the topic from the singular body and confirms the gaze as a tool of power.

Ofelia Jarl Ortega

Ofelia Jarl Ortega is a Chilean-Swedish choreographer and performer based in Stockholm. Her work centers around vulnerability and femininity, often with a suggestive erotic aesthetic; lately a notion of “voluntary objectification” has been at the core for her investigations. She holds a dance diploma from The Royal Swedish Ballet School (2010) and a MA in Choreography from SKH, Stockholm (2014). Her works have been shown at venues such as ImPulsTanz (Vienna), MDT (Stockholm), Inkonst (Malmö), Arsenic (Lausanne), Black Box Teater (Oslo) and Setu Festival (Elliant, Bretagne).