Dear visitor, reader, artist, researcher, and human being, As I am writing this letter, allowing it to perform the role of an abstract, I am just about to graduate the Masters program in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts. This MA has for me, among many other things foremost been a commitment and engagement in a two-year-long collective project and research on the never-ending wonder and question of what dance and choreography can be and can do. Throughout these two years, my research has been weaving itself from behind the back and backspaces, into the deepest vulnerability and out through the relationality. From there it has weaved further out and found its way to memories and ghosts, that most often have appeared in the middle of everything and everywhere. This research made me dance every day, at home, in the streets, in the studio, on travels, behind others, in front of myself, and in the felt sense of the present moment on our planet. This research also made me make 20+ casts of human backs, write more than 100 letters, take photos, and videos, create a part of a collective ZINE, use my voice (often for others), and engage with Swedish society and its history of individualism and my experience of loneliness. I practiced with my back as my front and I engaged with my own paradox; how could a research based on relationality, backspaces, and vulnerability take shape within a solo? Would it be possible to create a solo that is also a group piece? On May 4th and 5th 2024, the dance performance All those things left behind, for now, was performed at MDT Moderna Dansteatern in Stockholm, Sweden, as a result of this research. A solo performance in which I aimed for a dance where several bodies would take place in my body. As if my body could be shaped by other bodies in the moment of dancing. I made a solo that takes a step back and shifts its focus from forward-oriented to backward-oriented. A solo in which grief is taking place, honoring lost loved ones, as well as forgotten futures. A vulnerable solo? A solo that deals with the present moment and the fact that everything is and will always be in the process of change. A solo that delves into all of this through dancing. Because I believe in dancing. And so the letters, a format I have been engaging with as a writing practice from within my dancing practice. There are a lot of strong correlations between these two practices. They're both relational. They hold movements; close small ones as well as bigger stretches overseas. They hold time, meaning a present, past, and future. They deal with a sender and a receiver. They involve, presuppose, and evoke a relation, conjure up the other, and guide us into conversation. Just like dancing. To write, send, and receive letters is for me procedures of intimate acts, acts of care, and a wish to share. Just like dancing. The letters can hold fantasies, facts, friction, fiction, fantoms, and fantastic movements. Again, just like dancing. I find that fascinating. I collected 50 letters, written between August 2022 and May 2024. They perform the role of an essay and documentation of my Master’s degree project. The letters are written mainly from me, but also from other beings and things, performed by me. They are addressed to living and non-living beings and bodies of materials, written from different places and dance spaces on our earth. And from times of study, movement, crisis, war, grief, labor, hope, despair, love, and joy. What’s public here on Diva is a smaller collection, which was part of the collective Zine that I and my classmates did. If you are interested in reading and viewing more, you are more than welcome to contact me. All the best, Matilda Bilberg
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uniarts-1853 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Bilberg, Matilda |
| Publisher | Stockholms konstnärliga högskola, Institutionen för dans |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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