Dirgy Dancing – Lisen Ellard

Illustration: Tove Dreiman

April 13 – May 26

The tall walls of the large exhibition hall have been covered in black curtains. On each of the bright, almost transparent veils hanging from the ceiling, films of dancers, deeply immersed in personal choreography, are projected.

Dirgy Dancing is a collection of lament dances by local dancers from different places, and is based on the dancers’ own experiences of grief. They are dances dedicated to people, memories, times and places, and a way of dealing with the unmentionable that has been lost. How can grief be accommodated in the body, how can it be translated into movement?

Choreographer Lisen Ellard works through different notions of perception-expanding practices and has a penchant for the crooked and caring, often in relation to slowness and death. Together with the stage artist Mattias Lech, she has worked with themes around death and its rituals for several years, resulting in the performances Funeral and DÖDEN. With the dance anthology Dirgy Dancing, Lisen Ellard continues the investigation of loss, and the relationship between grief, memory and movement. The performance has previously been shown at, among others, Dansens hus in Stockholm, and at Art Lab Gnesta it takes the shape of an exhibition that is activated on special occasions through the presence of the dancers.

In the next room, the curator duo Mourning School presents Sorgebiblioteket, a room for contemplation where visitors are invited to reflect on grief themselves and contribute to a hanging installation that will be further developed during the exhibition period. Mourning School is an artistic investigation into the everydayness of being in mourning, initiated by Lucie Gottlieb and Rosa Paardenkooper.

Exhibition tex (pdf)

The exhibition is open Saturdays and Sundays from 12-16.