Download Koreografisk Journal #6 here!
Theme #6: Dressage
Within the fields of dance, choreography and dressage we find concepts and practices that negotiates questions around control, discipline, intimacy, ethics, power, communication, language, responsibility and agency. To tame, foster, form, train, to dressage ourselves, as dancers and artists, each other, the audience and the field at large is all part of our common schooling, as is our various critical responses to that. We dressage our bodies, our thoughts and our aesthetic and ethical stand. We look for form and control, we discipline ourselves in relation to pre-formulated ideas around dance and art in a continuous negotiation within us in relation to the expectations, promises, ideas, demands and hopes from institutions, authorities, co-workers, contexts and communities we are part of, as well as society at large.
Through repetition, rigorous frameworks and regulations, both in the dancer’s and choreographer’s education, professional practice, artistic craft and vision, bodies and works are produced to be a part of a cultural exchange economy. These bodies and works in turn continues to dressage the choreographic discourse and context. Also horses are trained and formed to become part of different economies; sports, cultures, recreational/tourism centers, shows and equestrian performances and in therapeutic work. In riding, this is done by the rider’s aids, which shapes and trains the horse through physical communication in a system of pressure, suspension and release. The horse in turn re-shapes the human being. In dance as well as in horse dressage the idea of freedom as a result of the disciplined body still prevails.
The sixth issue of Koreografisk Journal publish contributions by: Jessie Bullivant and Elliot Lundegård, Cristina Caprioli, Marie Fahlin, Moa Franzén, Josefin Gladh, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Lena Oja, Anna Pehrsson, Lina Selander and João da Silva.