sat 28 10.00
– Embodied Beginnings

A Gentle Entry into the Festival Journey

This ‘landing’ workshop is a gentle, welcoming space designed to help you transition from the rhythm of daily life into the rich, embodied practices of the festival. It is a liminal space—a threshold—where self-inquiry takes center stage, inviting you to slow down, tune in, and reconnect with your body, mind, and spirit. Here, we create a container for sensitive exploration, allowing you to arrive fully in your practice while beginning to engage with the festival’s overarching philosophy of curiosity, connection, and community.

Think of this workshop as a sandbox: a place to play, experiment, and approach your practice with an open, inquisitive mind. Through guided explorations, we will delve into socially engaged creativity, discovering how our individual experiences can intersect with and enrich the collective. Performance-generating tasks will encourage you to uncover new pathways of expression, while community-oriented thinking will emphasize the importance of shared support and collaboration.

This workshop is more than just a starting point—it is an invitation to ground yourself in the present moment, to listen deeply to your own needs, and to step into a space of mutual care and discovery. Together, we will lay the foundation for a festival experience rooted in deeper connectivity, authentic engagement, and genuine collegial support. Whether you are here to explore, grow, or simply be, this workshop offers a nurturing environment to begin your journey.

Phil Sanger is a doctoral researcher at the Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey, where his work delves into autobiographical dance performance through performance-generating systems which use of life coaching as a creative medium. A dynamic self-producing artist, Phil brings a wealth of experience as a performer, choreographer, teacher, and certified life coach, crafting a career that bridges artistic excellence with meaningful social impact.

Trained at the Electric Theatre and Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Phil has performed with acclaimed companies such as Phoenix Dance Theatre, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, and Slanjayvah Danza, working with choreographers including Hofesh Schechter, Richard Alston, and Aletta Collins. His freelance career has seen collaborations with Rui Horta, Vincent Dance Theatre, and Denada Dance Theatre, as well as credits in BBC productions like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Kit Monkman’s Macbeth.

A champion of representation in the arts, Phil has led numerous projects with support from Arts Council England, earning recognition as the 2021 Transform Clore Fellow for inclusion in leadership. In 2022, he founded Ramped, an inclusive performance company creating opportunities for underrepresented groups.

As a former faculty member at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (2016–2023), Phil developed innovative teaching practices and choreographed extensively for public performances. His workshops blend technical expertise with a supportive, empowering approach, offering transformative experiences for participants of all levels.

Sat 28/2 16.30
– Unfolding the poetics of anatomical language

You are invited to enter the space (of language, of the body). You are invited to enter language as embodied and body as enlanguaged. You are invited to navigate kaleidoscopic unfoldings of language-body through sensation and imagination. You are invited to dwell in slippages of meaning.

This lab explores the poetics of anatomical language, where terminology and etymology become sites of poetic encounter between language, image, and sensation. We will work with some specific tasks that were the starting point for the installation-performance It’s been a while since you hollowed my bones (2023)— a work that explored performative relationships between language, image, and sensation through a series of choreographic invitations traversing text, sound, film, material sensibilities, and the moving body.

I will propose some tasks from the work for us to explore and develop together, perhaps in different directions than they have previously taken. The lab will be held in English. All languages are welcome.

Elise Mae Nuding is an artist-researcher working with choreography, dance, somatics and writing. Her research has a transdisciplinary orientation, and areas of exploration include somatic-linguistic entanglements, improvisation practices, and Contact Improvisation. She is curious about slippages between artistic and pedagogic practices, between practice and theory, and between research epistemologies. Her work has been presented in Sweden, the UK, USA, Portugal, and Germany and her writing has appeared in publications spanning the academic and the creative. She teaches regularly in Sweden and internationally in higher education, professional training, and community contexts. She held the position of lecturer in dance at the University of Gothenburg between 2022-2024 and from 2026 is a PhD candidate at Linköping University.

Sun 1/3 10.00
– HYBRID

 A class  that cross-pollinates aspects of Contact Improvisation with improvisational performance.

Contact Improvisation started as a performance experiment where dancers explored the pure physics of falling, catching, rolling, and softly “bumping” into each other.  Taking inspiration from those early inquiries, we let concepts such as center of gravity, weight articulation, and inertia* become “navigational tools” that help simplify and deepen the improvised moment. 

Balancing the use of touch, vision, and sound opens up to “the big picture”; the sense of ensemble, and of spatial awareness.  Working with timing – the readiness to pause and change pace in the midst of the flow of movements and impulses  – expands the potential for improvisational unpredictability, and the joy of co-creating through dance.

These concepts will be explored in a spirit of collaboration, curiosity, and deep play.

The workshop is open to all levels of experience but will best fit those who like to work with focus and some physical and emotional challenge.

*the natural tendency of objects to stay in motion or rest unless a force acts on them.

Katarina Eriksson has been involved with improvisational dance since 1989, collaborating with artists such as Julyen Hamilton, Cathie Caraker, Bronja Novak Lindblad, and as a member and co-founder of the Swedish improvisational ensemble Floke. She teaches Contact and Dance improvisation internationally, directs performance projects, and freelance as a dancer and performance coach. She is currently tours with Big Wind’s adaptation of The Tempest for young people with special needs, and works on her new  project; Devolution – a piece of dance for the unfittest.

Sun 1/3 14.30
– Improvisation in practice

In this short workshop I share one way of practicing dance improvisation and here above all in working with and in the solo format. I will also add a way of giving feedback and talking about “generated material” that has worked well for me for many years. We begin with a warm-up that I usually use before a performance. Some humble improvisation techniques, applicable from an individual platform, will also be included.

Lisa Larsdotter Petersson, performance and visual artist.  In the performing arts, the focus is on the art of improvisation. Several major national, international cross-genre projects have been created since beginning of the 2000s. In parallel with projects, including, for example the VARIA festival, several solo and duet performances with musicians have been shown in Sweden and further away. In addition to performing arts, visual art work involves exhibitions, public works, layouts and more.

Sun 1/3 18.00
– Moving in Contact

Moving in Contact is magic. Discover your moving engines! Combining tools for moving- using spiraling, pushing, pulling and falling to find a non-muscular way of sharing weight, we can receive a sense of magic touch. Tools and touch that creats dancing together where your motion flies both in an internal and external way. This workshop means training for moving in different levels- from fish to bird and the other way around. Moving in and out of touch as well as playing with weight sharing instead of lifting. We will also practice letting go of control with out losing it. Falling and being up side down with trust. “I like to integrate the unexpected situations in improv through presence, pleasure and playfulness. I dance Contact Impro because i experience the way of mowing together in contact dance as magic. Things happens that i couldn’t dream of…or choreograph. By exploring movement and timing, combined with tools of using surface, weight and lever to find a non-muscular way of taking and giving weight, we’ll receive a sense of magic touch. This leads into dances where we can move others just by moving our own bodies. Dances where different kinds of touch and spiral work can make you a flying sensation.

Måsen Erlandson (SWE) har arbetat som dansare med koreografer och i grupper med officiella stöd sedan 1986. Han har parallellt med det arbetat med improvisation som scenkonst samt gör återkommande communitydansprojekt (inkluderande dans). Han koreograferar sedan 1994 och undervisar modern dans, improvisation, komposition, communitydance och kontaktimprovisation. Måns driver den ideella kulturföreningen Avart dans & rörelse sedan 1994.

MON 2/3 11.00
– Sense of sound

This is a workshop about subtleties, about being aware of nuances, small shifts in tone and tonus. Probably it’s a workshop about space, inner and outer, and how they relate, or not.

It’s definitely about listening.

I am used to rural soundscapes and to orient around subtle differences in smells, sounds and colors of seasons. In this workshop I will share inspiration from these landscapes, and from my curiosity to investigate perception of the boundary between audible sound and silence. Sense of sound, materiality, acoustic spatiality are my artistic starting points, always and for this workshop.

We will explore all this together through movement, touch, sound and dialogue. No prior knowledge is required.

My work is grounded in the somaAc approach of Body-Mind Centering®, guiding towards a deep listening of inner sensaAons and outer manifestaAons, toward a body-mind interconnectedness. In my understanding, somaAcs offers a way of perceiving the world from an embodied process of ongoing tuning and finding of resonance.

For more info about BMC® https://www.bodymindcentering.com/

Anna E Weiser is a Swedish composer-choreographer, sound artist, vocal improviser, writer, BMC® Somatic Movement Educator. Based in the countryside of Gotland she is the artistic director of Vibrationsverket. Her artistic focus is spatial sensibility and listening. Working from a somatic perspective she produces/composes-choreographs/performs works for children and adults, creates comprehensive artwork, writes, and teaches. She holds a Master’s degree in Music, and diplomas in SME and IDME.

MON 2/3 13.30
– Basic Balance

Aligning in relation to space and matter by using the principles of the Alexander Technique

This practical workshop will provide you with new ideas and experiences about balance, habits, co-ordination and movement. The basic idea is to re-engage in the sensory notion of ourselves by working with the principles of the Alexander Technique as mind-body education. Regarding the abilities of the participants, we will explore balancing whilst moving with or without objects.

Participants are invited to recognise the very deep-rooted problem that arises when we want to master body mechanics and make technical considerations. But the task as Alexander Technique practitioners is not to master certain actions. We ask ourselves the question of improving the general use of our self by comprehending the current situation, as an embodied learning of our sense of balance

tue 3/3 09.00
– Material For the Spine

It is a system for exploring the interior and exterior muscles of the back, and aims to bring the light of consciousness to the dark side of the body.

Material For the Spine concentrates accumulated knowledges from Paxton’s study of walking, Contact Improvisation and Aikido practice to explore the movement possibilities in the spine and the connections between the head, pelvis, and vertebrae. This solo practice is a meditative study of a series of exercises, body puzzles and ideokinetic imagery.

“With Material For the Spine, I was interested in alloying a technical approach to improvisational results. It is a system for exploring the interior and exterior muscles of the back, and aims to bring the light of consciousness to the dark side of the body, the dark side of the body, that is, the sides not much self-seen, and to submit sensations to the mind for consideration.” Steve Paxton

Otto Ramstad, is a dance artist who makes performances, video works and installations for theaters, galleries, museums and different site and context specific encounters. He has an MA in Choreography from KHiO.

For twenty years he has been collaborating with Olive Bieringa as BodyCartography Project. The mission of BodyCartography Project is to engage with the vital materiality of our bodies to create live performance that facilitates a re-enchantment of embodiment, relationship, and presence. BodyCartography has been creating performances, films, installations, and festivals internationally in urban, domestic, wild, and social landscapes. He has toured throughout North America, Europe, Brazil, Japan, Russia and New Zealand.

Thur 5/3 09.00
– Skinner releasing technique

Skinner Releasing Technique™ is a pioneering approach to dance, movement and creative process that has evolved from the simple principle that when we are releasing physical tension, we can move with greater freedom, power and articulation. In SRT classes, spontaneous movement evoked by guided poetic imagery, supported by music and sound, enables a creative and easily accessible exploration of technical movement principles such as multi-directional alignment, suppleness, suspension, economy and autonomy. SRT was developed, from the 1960s onward, by Joan Skinner, who had danced with the Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham companies before embarking on her own exploration of movement as a somatic process. Since then, it has become a significant influence on dance training and creative practice, as well as on leading choreographers and dance-makers across the world.

Sally E Dean (NO/UK/USA) is an international performing artist, teacher, and improviser with over 25 years of experience integrating the fields of dance, somatic practices, and costume design. She is currently a PhD Research Fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, where her research further develops her long-term collaborative Somatic Movement, Costume & Performance Project (2011–present). This body of work focuses on co-creating Somatic Costumes that generate psychophysical awareness and immersive sensorial performances. Her PhD research redefines choreography as the `art of attending´, challenging ocularcentrism to foster embodied reconnection through Somatic Costume and the prioritization of touch.Sally is a dedicated advocate for somatic-based methods, with foundational training in Skinner Releasing Technique, Amerta Movement, Environmental Movement (Helen Poynor), and Scaravelli Yoga. In addition to her own work, Sally has performed for choreographers such as Stephanie Skura (US), Joan Davis (IR), and Katrine Kirsebom (NO). Her site-specific and theatre staged works—ranging from Javanese traditional markets to London’s The Place—have been supported by Arts Council England and the British Council. Her publications interrogate the meeting of somatic practice and costume design to transform the sensorial experience for both performer and audience. www.sallyedean.com

Sat 7/3 09.00
– BodyMind Centering

Olive Bieringa works at the intersection of creative practice and pedagogy in dance, performance, somatics and media.  Born in Aotearoa, she is a first generation New Zealander of European Jewish descent based in Oslo.

She holds a BA in Dance from European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands and an MFA in Performance and New Media at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. She is a doctoral candidate at Uniarts, Helsinki.

She is Certified Movement Therapist (ISMETA), Infant Developmental Movement Educator® and Body-Mind Centering® Teacher and Program Director of Somatic Education Australasia. She is also a Certified Shiatsu practitioner and DanceAbility® teacher, working with performers of all abilities. She has extensive experience working with groups with/without disabilities, youth, and scientists.

Her work has been profoundly influenced by teachers and collaborators including Otto Ramstad, Lisa Nelson, Margit Galanter, Steve Paxton, Eva Karczag, and founder of Body-Mind Centering® Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.

She was a recipient of Kulturrådet artist stipend 2022, Oslo Kommune stipdend 2020 & 2024, Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship 2015 and McKnight Foundation Fellowship 2010.

Olive teaches in dance programs and festivals such as Cullberg Ballet, Stockholm, Carte Blanche, Bergen, TanzFabrik, Berlin, Norwegian Theater Academy, Fredrikstad, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Impulstanz, Vienna, Movement Research, NYC, Independent Dance, London and for Body-Mind Centering® certification trainings internationally.

Since 2018 she on the board of PRAXIS Oslo where she curates and produces local dance programming. Past curatorial projects include art, and science collaborations such as St Paul’s City Art Collaboratory and SEEDS Festival, improvisational performance events and festivals, and dance film festivals.

Her writings appear in numerous publications including the first two books about site dance internationally: Site Dance, the Lure of Alternative Spaces and Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance published by Routledge.

mon 9/3 10.00
– Dansande bebisar // Dancing babies

– an educational play workshop for greater joy of movement in your baby and you.

How can you mirror your baby and move together with them?

What expressions are there in your baby and where do their movements begin?

Can you improvise a duet together, in full presence?

What does your baby sound like, and how can you communicate with each other through voice?

Through educationally-guided play and creation with your baby’s movement and voice, you dance with each other very close or far away. As babies develop in such quick phases, this is a workshop to stop and pay attention to exactly where your baby is, through movement, sound, and improvising together. 

Here you get to go on a journey of discovery with each other in a welcoming room that celebrates and encourages the development that the children are in right at this moment.

This is a workshop that encourages the joy of movement, playing with free creation and expression. Dancers, artists and children are experts in play and curiosity. In this workshop we pay attention in a playful and simple way to how movement, play and curiosity develop together. 

We use the body’s budding potential in a playful and simple way to show how movement, play and curiosity develop together, where all expressions are welcome.

Mon 9/3 18.00
– bodymind centering©

pavleheidler (they/them)(adhd-autism)

What is the use of anatomical knowledge for dancers? What difference can knowing we’re experiencing seeing with our brain and not our eyes make? Or that sensing isn’t something we do, but something that happens spontaneously—whether we like it or not?

This workshop revolves around the question of use. The question of use is meant to narrow down our field of vision such that neither somatics nor dancing can escape critical reflection. The way I understand it, it is when we assume either somatics or dancing to be useful – or not useful – “just because” that we start running into trouble. So how do we stop assuming value and begin developing new approaches to practicing somatics as dancers or dancing as somatic practitioners?

pavle heidler
– like many professional dance artists, i started dancing early on in life. through long-term exposure, dancing’s become an integrated part of my life. more than a profession, it’s how i’ve learned to approach and appreciate being in the world. professionally, i operate as a movement-and-word artist and activist, an educator, curator, and a queer critical thinker who specialises in developing research-oriented performative practices within the expanding fields of dance and choreography. my work-ing is meant to be encouraging of the continual re-form-ing in and of the intersectional and the emergent field of queer critical practice.

i am currently touring in two productions in Sweden and abroad, one made for neurodivergent younglings by dalija aćin thelander, and one discussing the value of laughter (in this economy?!) made by jannine rivel. most notably, i’ve worked with the 2024 recipient of the prestigious golden lion, choreographer Cristina Caprioli, for the better part of my late twenties and early thirties dancing, writing, speaking, choreographing, book-making, video-editing, etc.

the practices i am developing and engaging, i think, are first and foremost embodied practices, which necessarily makes them emergent practices, which necessarily makes them liberatory practices; in as much as working with the body, creating space for the body–or: body–necessitates critical study and the re-thinking of the existing structures that currently create and organise spaces for bodies.

tue 10/3 16.30
– Bartenieff fundamentals through neurocellular patterns

Through guided movement improvisation and structured exercises, we explore Bartenieff Fundamentals™ and the neuro-cellular developmental patterns that underlies them. We will explore the notion of weigh and how we relate to gravity through stillness and movement. An inner outer relationship that allows for groundedness and vitality. The Bartenieff Fundamentals™ are practiced slowly and gently, supporting stress recovery, rehabilitation, effortless movement and embodied awareness through repatterning.

wed 11/3 18-20.00
– Shiatsu into Movement

In this workshop, we will explore how Zen meridians can inspire dancing. Zen meridians are pathways of energy that run through and across the body, mapped by Zen Shiatsu founder Shizuto Masunaga. Each meridian connects to an inner organ and one of the five elements in Chinese Medicine.

We will explore qualities, dynamics, and experiential connections through movement, touch, improvisational scores and play with how meridians can invite new pathways and directions in dancing. Together, we will investigate one meridian and its connections in depth.

SAT 14/3 13-15.00
– Improbable lifts

Improbable lifts is a research practice developed by Katarzyna Paluch and Aaron Lang.

The research stems from the curiosity about what happens when two bodies collide within contextualized physical partnering practices.

Improbable lifts is a partnering practice built on the body’s constant shift between tension and relative relaxation. It explores how two bodies can become one absurd unity, how physical tension constructs relationship and space between us. What possibilities and desires do connected bodies evoke? What support and space can we find within this uneasy structure? How do we navigate the balance between ourselves and the other? What strategies arise, and what difficulties emerge?

We call this practice “improbable lifts” because, even when the partners’ intentions don’t align, moments of poetic power appear – small redefinitions of success emerging from the skewed beauty of a failing collaboration.

Katarzyna Paluch is an artist-researcher specializing in movement improvisation and dance partnering. Her research focuses on the decision-making process, blending analytical thinking with the spontaneity that arises during improvisation. She seeks tools to navigate the complexities of improvisation, balancing control with letting go, and uses these dualities to enrich the creative process. In 2024, she completed an MA in Contemporary Performing Arts at the University of Gothenburg, defending her ongoing research in movement improvisation.

Currently, she is engaged in a research practice on improvised partnering Improbable lifts which she conducts together with Berlin-based artist Aaron Lang. Katarzyna works as a freelance performing artist and teaches workshops from partnering, contact improvisation, floorwork, and movement improvisation. Most recently, in 2025, she has taught at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador), Danscentrum Syd (Malmö, Sweden), Studio Nieznane (Poznań, Poland), and No Limits Dance School (Wrocław, Poland). She is a member of Collective Nest and co-organized 5 editions of international contemporary dance festival, DO Festival, in Poland, which provides professional education and supports the freelance dance scene.

SAT 14/3 16-18.00
– ALL ABOUT THE SOUP: INTEGRATION WORKSHOP

This integration workshop thinks about the meaning of the phrase “You can’t take the onion out of the soup”. This phrase is often used to describe a situation where a core ingredient or element is so thoroughly blended into the whole that it cannot be removed without destroying the dish (or situation) itself.

This workshop is a welcoming space where self-reflection and creative exploration help us to engage with the festival’s themes through our own practice.

—

Phil Sanger is a doctoral researcher at the Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey, where his work delves into autobiographical dance performance through performance-generating systems which use of life coaching as a creative medium. A dynamic self-producing artist, Phil brings a wealth of experience as a performer, choreographer, teacher, and certified life coach, crafting a career that bridges artistic excellence with meaningful social impact.

Trained at the Electric Theatre and Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Phil has performed with acclaimed companies such as Phoenix Dance Theatre, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, and Slanjayvah Danza, working with choreographers including Hofesh Schechter, Richard Alston, and Aletta Collins. His freelance career has seen collaborations with Rui Horta, Vincent Dance Theatre, and Denada Dance Theatre, as well as credits in BBC productions like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Kit Monkman’s Macbeth.

A champion of representation in the arts, Phil has led numerous projects with support from Arts Council England, earning recognition as the 2021 Transform Clore Fellow for inclusion in leadership. In 2022, he founded Ramped, an inclusive performance company creating opportunities for underrepresented groups.

As a former faculty member at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (2016–2023), Phil developed innovative teaching practices and choreographed extensively for public performances. His workshops blend technical expertise with a supportive, empowering approach, offering transformative experiences for participants of all levels.

wed 18/3 18-19.30
– Sense & Sensibility

Contact Improvisation

Thur 19/3 18-20.00
– Authentic Movement

SKÅNES DANSTEATER

Authentic Movement is a practice where you allow the unconscious to take shape through movement. You listen inwardly and express what wants to unfold in the moment. You move with closed eyes, without music, and let your body and your own movements guide you toward a deeper connection with yourself.

During the session, a witness is always present, supporting the inner witness of the mover, without judgment, projection, or interpretation. After moving, you have the opportunity to integrate the experience verbally and through writing or drawing.

The core of Authentic Movement is to expand consciousness—movement that arises from inner impulses, takes form through the body, and is integrated into awareness.

The simple form creates a safe space built on trust. The mover, with closed eyes, follows their inner impulses and allows themselves to be guided by the body’s innate wisdom. At the same time, the witness/witnesses, with open eyes, observe both the mover and their own internal experiences.

Authentic Movement requires no prior knowledge—only a curiosity about your inner experiences and a willingness to learn more about what it means to be human.

Celine Orman (SE/TR) has a background as a dancer and has been involved in somatic practices for the last 15 years. With an educational background in dance and movement therapy Celine has focused mainly on the practice of Authentic Movement, deepening her practice with the likes of Irmgard Halstrup (Ger), Mandoline Whittlesey (Fr) and Fran Lavendel (Scot).

Besides study and teaching Authentic Movement, Celine leads movement workshops together with Tuva Hildebrand, involving an exploration of the body as an Archive through somatic and creative interventions. Currently she is co-leading a dance initiative for elderly with dementia with dancer and physiotherapist Laura Lohi. 

Celine recently finalized the project Maintaining Movement (Bevara Rörelse) at Skånes Dansteater. This began as a research and developmental project for preservation of dance as intangible cultural heritage, and is now an archive practice part of the institution’s ongoing activities.