This Sunday, October first at 16.00 we will be presenting the performance Gård av träd (Garden of Trees) at Nordiska Akvarellmuseet in Skärhamn on Tjörn. We are so happy to have been invited to this amazing house to present the performance!

Gård av träd is about living together and about growing old together.
About getting closer to another human being and sharing your loneliness. To live without judgment and learning to accept both each other and yourself. But how do you do that?

With a bittersweet humor and a mix between physical theatre and dance, Finnish choreographer Tanja Eloranta takes on aging and old age. Tanja is part of Teatteri Metamorfoosi in Helsinki, where she teaches, participates in performances and choreographs. In her work, she often mixes dance and physical theatre.

Ticket price 150 sek, 100 sek for members/Scenpass, 100 sek under 25 years

Buy your ticket here.

Read more about the performance here.

Is there really a good way of combining two such disparate artistic fields like crochet and Dancehall? Apparently so, because this is exactly what SpinnUnga dancer Billie Hammarberg and artist Berith Stennabb is doing in Spinn’s latest workshop Virkhall that is being presented this week at Aeroseum, Angeredsgymnasiet and Spinnstudion in Gothenburg.

“A large crochet artwork hangs at the workshop space and the students all contribute so it grows even more. Everyone can leave an impression by crocheting, attaching colorful threads and recording their own voices. Can you crochet with your entire body? Together we find new ways in, we climb over and we shuffle under the large textile artwork. Stories big and small, life changing events and every day hilarities are collected. How can stories be told through movement? In a meeting between crocheting and Dancehall we explore and find new ways into story telling. Dancehall is a creative dance form, originally from Jamaica. A large portion of inspiration comes from everyday life.”

The workshop Virkhall was developed in connection to the project Tidslösa that we did in Sörmland in collaboration with Scenkonst Sörmland during 2016. Read more about Virkhall here.

Right now we’re in northern Italy in a small city called Rovereto, approximately 70 kilometers north of Verona. The reason we’re here is to take part in Rovereto Choreographic Lab, which is part of the EU project Moving Beyond Inclusion. The project started during autumn 2016 with the lab that we hosted in Uddevalla.

With Moving beyond Inclusion, we want to display diversity and create equal opportunities for everybody in practicing the art of dance. Because we believe in and are willing to fight for everybody’s equal right to express themselves artistically, regardless of physical, mental or other obstacles. The project is about creating a supporting network of companies, artists and programmers. In a long-term perspective it is also about broadening the European work force and the artistic work. At the core it’s about the development of professional performing arts both in terms of dancers, choreographers and audiences.

For us in Spinn it’s about the right to express ourselves artistically and to be able to create high quality art. But there’s also a democratic perspective: we can’t have a society that actively shuts out people just because they have a disability. If we don’t have the right tools to “take care” of certain people and their unique needs, then we just have to create new tools right?

Joanne Lyons who work for Candoco Dance Company who is the lead part for the project, has written a great article about what we do within the framework for this project and why we do it. The article in its entirety can be found here..

Here you can also see a short film about Moving Beyond Inclusion, shot on location during Uddevalla Choreographic Lab, autumn 2016.

Read more about Moving Beyond Inclusion and about upcoming activities here..

On September 11-15, Spinn along with dancers from SpinnUnga and Producentbyrån, will be in Rovereto, Italy to participate in Rovereto Choreographic Lab, which is similar to the lab that we hosted in Uddevalla during autumn 2016. The trip to Rovereto is also about participating in meetings with the other project partners in the EU project Moving Beyond Inclusion in order to discuss dissemination of the project, how we discuss and asses the term quality in performing arts and to discuss the project in general. The lab and meetings in Rovereto is presented in connection to the festival Oriente Occidente where we performed the piece Trio last year.

The lab collects participants from England, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany and Sweden. The Swedish team consists of Veera Suvalo Grimberg and dancers Emilia Wärff, Soledad Howe, Celia Berndtzen and Aloun Marchal, along with dancers Billie Hammarberg and Felicia Sparrström from SpinnUnga. Joining from Producentbyrån is Malin Enberg and Dag Rosenqvist.

During the lab, the dancers will work with choreographers Michael Turinsky, Chiara Bersani and Anouk Llaurens. Michael focuses on the individuals own movement vocabulary and how other dancers engage with and develop principles of applying this to their own body. Chiara has more of a performance focus, with a particular interest in the political and the socially constructed body. Anouk works with a physical approach and strongly emphasizes the documentation of work.

Read more about the EU project Moving Beyond Inclusion here.