Third year in a row, Spinn and Spinnstudion will be part of Danscentrum Väst’s summer residency for dance artists working in Region Västra Götaland. The idea with the residencies is to give a number of artists access to studios to develop their artistry or to work on a specific production. During this summer, choreographer and dancer Carmen Olsson will be working at Spinnstudion with her upcoming performance echo of f.

During the residency weeks, Carmen Olsson will dig deeper into thoughts and ideas that her previous performance Flesh Being resulted in. Flesh Being was created and presented in the artistic research project Unpredictable Flesh, created by Malgorzata Zobrinska. In the project, a group of architects and designers investigated the encounter between the mechanical and the human.

Flesh Being, which took shape from Carmen’s reflections on the thoughts and feelings that the questions of the project brought up in her, will now be further developed. Both in the form of the new performance echo of f, and as a film that will be part of a bigger project revolving around artificial intelligence that you can read more about here. Carmen will be working with the artist Zeppa, who also helped out with Flesh Being. The bigger project also involves photographers Patrik Gunnar Helin and Leif Eriksson.

Even though a lot of stuff are currently up in the air in terms of autumn, some things are starting to fall into place.

As we write this, it’s not 100% confirmed as to the exact date, but please already now mark week 44 in your calendars. Because towards the end of that week, we’re premiering our new duet Hannah Felicia at Göteborgs konstmuseum! The duet is choreographed by Lára Stefánsdóttir, featuring new music by Icelandic composer Högni Egilsson. During the end of June/beginning of July we’ve been invited to a two-week residency at Kungsbacka Teater to continue work on the performance. The residency is part of Region Halland’s dance initiative Rum för Dans. At the start of August we will take images for the performance with photographer Anna Ósk Erlingsdottir. More information will be shared during autumn!

In November and December we will perform Miramos in Olofström, at Världskulturmuseet in Gothenburg and in Västerås. We are currently waiting for more confirmations about additional performances during autumn 2020 and spring 2021.

In October, Spinn’s artistic director Veera Suvalo Grimberg and dancer Emilia Wärff will visit Småland and Blekinge to host workshops in Växjö and in Karlshamn. In November Veera and Adam Henriksson will be part of a community project along with Jämshögs Folkhögskola and we’re also starting to notice an interest in our new workshop Klot & Klimat which feels great! On November 20th we’re part of this year’s DansFunk at Skånes Dansteater. More information to come during autumn.

Spinn were originally meant to be part of the closing seminars for the project Scen:se in September. But since there are still great uncertainties regarding larger crowds, this will be presented in the form of pre-recorded presentations. The website with the presentations will be released on October 19th, and on November 2-3 there will be live-workshops divided over two afternoons. More information about this will come as soon as we know more.

Spring 2020 has treated us to both ups and downs, and looking back at what’s happened is sweet and bittersweet in equal measures.

Moby Dick
We started the year with two amazing rehearsal weeks at Spinnstudion and at Redbergsteatern. There we worked with Italian choreographer Chiara Bersani and movement coach Marta Ciappina on developning the material for the performance Moby Dick. We were also joined by lighting designer Emily Lavebäck and technician Jonathan Fischhaber. Moby Dick were set to premiere at this years’ edition of the Italian dance festival Oriente Occidente Dance Festival in Rovereto. But due to the Corona pandemic, the premiere has been postponed until next years edition in September 2021.

Hannah Felicia
During spring we’ve rehearsed the upcoming performance Hannah Felicia choreographed by Lára Stefánsdóttir who has joined us via link on one occasion. In May we also received the wonderful decision that Kulturrådet granted us funding for a collaboration with Icelandic composer Högni Egilsson, who will be creating music for the piece! Högni is one of Iceland’s most renowned artists and has released music on the highly acclaimed record label Erased Tapes Records and we are so excited about working with Högni on this duet. We are also extremely glad and thankful for the two-week residency that we’ve been awarded at Kungsbacka Teater as part of Region Halland’s dance initiative Rum för Dans at the end of June and beginning of July!!

Att skriva dansen och dansa skriften
During week 22 we did the final activities within the project Att skriva dansen och dans skriften that was started during 2019 together with Författarcentrum Väst. We presented live-streamed performances at Konsthallen in Trollhättan and from Världskulturmuseet in Gothenburg, and it became a beautiful encounter between movement and text.

Miramos
We presented the performance Miramos at Dunkers kulturhus in Helsingborg at the end of January and at Barnens scen in Malmö during a few days at the beginning of February. We also presented Miramos at the Salto! showcase at Kulturhuset in Hässleholm in February and at Scenkonstdagar barn och unga at Folkets hus in Vänersborg in March.

Skirtpower
The Skirtpower tour in March, that were to include performances at Teater Sláva in Huddinge, at Gummifabriken and at the Expo: Scenkonst showcase in Skövde was unfortunately cancelled. But we were able to hold a workshop at Värnamo Folkhögskola, which was great. We are now looking for replacement dates for Spring 2021.

Klot & Klimat
When so many things were cancelled, we had time to finally work o some new workshops. During April and May we held test workshops at Karl Johansskolan in Gothenburg, and as part of Skapande skola we hosted workshops in Kungshamn and Hunnebostrand in preparation for the new workshopen Klot & Klimat. The workshop deals with issues about the climate and how we together can make big changes, even with small actions. Read more about Klot & Klimat here.

And finally…
As way of making the art accessible when more and more people chose to stay at home and when the big venues are closed, Spinn – along with 13 musicians from Göteborgs Symfoniker – made a recorded version of Relaxed Performance from last October, at the main stage of Göteborgs Konserhus. Click here to watch it at GSOplay!

During spring we’ve also – with funding from Gothenburg city – run an internal development process where Barbro Olsson has taught Alexander Technique and Helena Östblom Berg has done group coaching with us. At the beginning of June we also had an improvisation course lead by Katarina Eriksson and Stina Hedberg.

Well at this point and given the circumstances, it may not come as a massive surprise… but we have been forced to postpone both the premiere of or new performance Moby Dick – that were set to premiere during this years edition of Italian festival Oriente Occidente Dance Festival – as well as the lab that were to take place at Vara Konserthus this August as part of the international collaboration project Spark.

We were looking forward to gathering and working together with our European colleagues during the week-long lab in Vara, and to be able to open up parts of the process for the public. And then head down to Rovereto to finally present Moby Dick for an international audience. But we will have to wait and yearn until next fall, when there will be both lab and premiere. More information on new dates will be shared during spring 2021!