Moving through Choreography – Curating Choreography as an Artistic Practice

Marie Fahlin

The purpose of the artistic research, Moving through Choreography – Curating Choreography as an Artistic Practice, has been to consider choreography and curating in their similarities and differences. Thus, at different phases of the working process, choreography and curating were treated as one and the same artistic practice; while, in other moments, as practices that are distinct from each other. Curating has been implemented as a ‘taking care’ principle and a relational activity impacting the production, presentation and documentation of choreography. Choreography has undergone a process of self-reincarnations, or rather, of trans-carnations, whereby the entire body of work has been scrutinized and altered. Key figure/body/agent of these trans-carnations has been the horse, or rather, the assemblage of human and horse, women and horses, here called ‘Centauring.’ Curating and choreography have been integrated to a scrutiny of the art of riding, specifically, the choreography of dressage. In dressage, the research has identified the rigor needed by the research to both steer and unleash the working process. The research has been pursued by purely artistic means, within a circumscribed field. Different perspectives and the making use of ramifications and loose ends, has proliferated into a plethora of intra-related works, objects and choreographies within which research result and artistic result coincide. The research har proceeded in consecutive phases. Each phase has developed its own specific artistic methodologies. The overarching methodology has provided for a clear navigation of undetermined directions and dramaturgies. The concept of ‘One’ has produced and collected both core outcomes and residual manifestations. The exhibitions and the exhibitor have carried, pursued and embodied the works and otherwise choreographies, throughout the research process.

Acknowledgements

I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share the final exhibition of my research project at Marabouparken konsthall, thank you from the bottom of my heart Helena Holmberg. I have learned so much from you and have immensely enjoyed working on the exhibition Centauring with you.

Thank you Cecilia Wallman for all your help with the installation of the exhibition and for being so supportive.

A big thank you also to Elin Magnusson, Karin Bähler Lavér and Fredrik Holmqvist at Marabouparken art gallery for all the work you've put into this exhibition.

I also want to extend a huge thank you to all the participants in Centauring: Cristina Caprioli, Weld Company, Anna Koch, Litó Walkey, Frédéric Gies, Rebecca Chentinell, Maria Öhman, Lena Oja, Pernilla Zetterman, Paula von Seth, Carl-Johan Malmberg, Aase Berg and all the contributors in Koreografisk Journal #7 and performers at the release.

A warm thank you to all the participants in Manège: Shiva Anoushirvani, Caroline Bergvall, Jeanette Bolding, Julia Bondesson, Jonna Bornemark, Cristina Caprioli, Christina Drangel, Moa Franzén, Signe Johannessen, Anne Juren, André Lepecki, Lena Oja, Weld Company and Anna Koch and all the contributors in Koreografisk Journal #6, Dressage.

I want to thank the former director at Marabouparken art gallery, Bettina Pehrsson and curator Jenny Richards for initially taking on the project Manège, and also a big thank you to Karin Hauptmann who was of such great help in the production of this event.

For all the support, discussions and feedback on the research project I want to thank Kristine Slettevold, Martin Sonderkamp, Frédéric Gies, Anna Grip, Ingrid Redbark-Wallander, Chrysa Parkinson, John-Paul Zaccarini and Jennifer Lacey, the students of the MA-program in choreography and many more at the departments of dance, circus and pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts. A big thank you to the former head of department of dance, Anna Efraimsson, for your support and trust in the process of curating Manège.

Thank you to all PhD-colleagues that have supported and taken part of the project in various ways: Kerstin Perski, Jonathan Priest, Ester Martin Bergsmark, Eleanor Bauer, Nils Claesson, Alex Nowitz, Marius Dybwad Brandrud, Mette Ingvartsen, Malin Arnell, Mareike Dobewall, Vanja Hamidi Isacson, Mia Engberg, Anna Pettersson, Tove Dahlberg, Carolina Jinde, Kersti Grunditz Brennan, Marcus Lindeen, Marie-Andree Robitaille, Johannes Maria Schmit, Josephine Rydberg, Lina Persson, Linn Hilda Lamberg, Paz Rojo and Carina Reich. A special thank you to Bogdan Szyber and The Stampede!

Another special thank you goes to Stacey Sacks who has been of enormous help in the final phase of the making public, thank you for all the mails, phone calls and editing of video!

Anne Juren, you’re the best colleague I could ever have wished for. You were the first one I told about my idea of thinking of dressage as choreography and since then you have supported me, in times of despair as well as in moments of relief and joy. The emotional support you have provided, as well as the professional, is incomparable, thank you Anne, you truly helped me manage all these years.

I am deeply grateful to Stockholms Konstnärliga Högskola (Stockholm University of the Arts) for supporting and helping out in so many ways during the whole period of the PhD-project, among many others I want to thank Jenny Tyllström, Sissel Behring, Olof Halldin, Johanna Garpe, Lin-Christin Berentzen, Bodil Lagerås, Johan Andersson, Fredrik Heimdahl, Orlando Ravandoni, Mats Lindberg, Maria Stålhammar, Jimmy Svensson, Adam Woodward, Monica Engdahl, Elisabeth Möller, Helle Zimmerman, Kay Artle, Anna-Carin Stymne, Juliette Mapp, Daniel Peltz, Annette Arlander, Rolf Hughes and Paula Crabtree.

Camilla Damkjaer, thank you for taking so good care in the beginning of the PhD-process and for being such a sensitive reader of my work in the early stages.

Thank you Lena Hammergren for sharing your knowledge and your thoughts on the work and its proceedings. Your precision and your engagement in the project through all these years have meant a lot to me.

Efva Lilja, thank you for your engagement and curiosity and support, your questions, proposals and reflections.

Thank you Robin Dingemans for sharing the lectures by Nick Cave and for being such a fabulous artist, friend, intelligent being and beautiful dancer.

Cecilia Roos, thank you for always being there, for your ability to always find solutions, for your care and for your enormous support in the turmoil of the last weeks preceding the making public.

Ellen Røed, thank you for all your support, your wise words, your intelligent reflections and overall super smart artist/researcher/being, and thank you for your patience with all my repeated questions about forms and procedures!

Anna Koch, my dear friend and colleague, who has been such a brilliant discussion partner, both in rough times and in the more exuberant ones. I’m so grateful for having had you so close during this whole process, you have been invaluable. Thank you, also, for hosting REACHER at Weld, a public presentation of the artistic research in choreography at Uniarts that I curated in 2018.

Thank you to all the riding instructors and friends on horseback and in stables; thank you for sharing your knowledge, reflections and thoughts on dressage and riding, on horse-human relations and on the relation between artistic practice and riding.

Thank you Sanna Koivuoja for everything you’ve done, shared and given, and for all the rides!

Thank you to all the horses that I have met and through whom I have learned to overcome fear, to turn my shoulders, adjust my position and my eyes, and through whom I have gotten a glimpse of what a horse-human relation in riding can be. Thank you Landregen.

Thank you Jonna Bornemark and Mari Zetterqvist Blokhuis for introducing me to the Equine Cultures in Transition conference and for your interest in my project.

I'm also very grateful to the opponents that accepted to be part of my seminars and for engaging in and reading my work, Marta Dziewanska, Mara Lee, Noémie Solomon and Karmenlara Ely Seidman, I deeply appreciate your support, valuable comments and feed-back.

Thank you Joanna Sandell for accepting the role of opponent and thank you Theodor Ringborg, Gabriel Smeets, Rebecca Hilton and Imri Sandsröm for accepting to be part of the examination committee of the research project.

Thank you André Lepecki and Cristina Caprioli, my supervisors, who have followed and guided me all these years. The way both of you co-think, co-work, co-compose and co-write have been a tremendous support in so many ways. For your insights, engagement and critical reflections I’m forever grateful.

Thank you Marit Shirin Carolasdotter, Andrea Svensson and Tyra Wigg for being a part of this research at the very first exposition, it was a joy to work with you. Thank you Hanna Strandberg for joining with such short notice as a ’documentarist’ at the writingriding exposition. Thank you Manon Santkin and Christopher Engdahl for our discussions and your input in the side project of the research, The Documentarists, that I unfortunately wasn’t able to carry through.

Thank you Sybrig Dokter, you entered in to the work with such elegance with all your profound experience and presence.

My close collaborators Cicilia Östholm, Maria Öhman and Rebecca Chentinell, thank you for contributing to such an inspiring and meaningful work milieu. You’re an amazing group of women, all brilliant, super smart and professional to the finger tips, with individual strengths and skills. You’re problem solving, generous, funny, beautiful, daring, ironic, blasphemous, serious, poetic, engaged, understanding, patient, responsible, this project is unthinkable without you three. Your way of finding solutions and opening up new doors within the work have been so valuable. A special thank you to Rebecca Chentinell, with whom I started the first process within this research, it’s been a blessing to have you by my side for all these years, to share, think and work together, it’s been a true gift.

My unfathomable gratitude goes to my family. Micael Bäckström for having endured all these years, the support, all the listening hours and, not least, for the graphic design and production of the books and other printed material that have been part of parallel work during the PhD-period.

My biggest thank you goes to my daughter, Elsa, you are a true inspiration and the reason for it all.

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