’The Audience Club is a guided tour through the STHLM DANS festival where we watch shows together, learn about dance art, and discuss the shows with a group of peers using fun formats.’ Anna Kozonina

Are you feeling inspired or irritated, excited or confused about contemporary dance you see on stage or encounter in the streets? Do you at times lack vocabulary, framework, or a responsive community to express your opinions and bounce back ideas? Then the Audience Club at STHLM DANS is for you.

What is the Audience Club?

Audience Club is a new participatory format that invites festival’s visitors to get deeper understanding of dance art in relation to pressing issues of our contemporary world. It allows you to learn more about the language of dance performance, gain confidence in articulating your opinions and questions, find a community for discussions and immerse deeper into this year’s festival’s program.

In a group of 10-15 people guided by dance researcher and facilitator Anna Kozonina, the Club members will collectively visit the festival’s shows, study dance theory concepts through mini-lectures and explore various formats of discussing the festival’s pieces in a profound and involving manner.

The aim of the Club is to expand the participants’ understanding of the contemporary dance field and its diverse points of contact with our private and social lives while building their confidence in expressing their thoughts and feelings about the art they experience. The Club strives to balance expertise with emotional responses of the spectators and build fruitful connections between feelings and judgments around performing arts.

2024 Audience Club Theme

This year’s Audience Club topic is “Moving Bodies Between the Street, the Theatre and the Faraway Places: Public, Private, Familiar and Foreign Domains of Dance.”

While experiencing the pieces of the festival, we will discuss: 

• how the presence and meaning of dance changes when it moves from an art venue to the street and back; 
• how choreographies deal with dominant social orders;
• how dance negotiates the space for personal and collective expression;
• how we navigate complex identity matters moving between various dance styles;
• and how bodily exposure, vulnerability and ability to transform can become a tool for empowerment and resistance.

Each show of the program will become an entry point for us to dive into all these matters through various discussion formats. By the end of the program, the participants will have concepts at hand to talk about dance as well as enhance their confidence in expressing their ideas about art.

Who is it for?

The Club is welcoming dance, theatre and art lovers of all ages over 16 years old. Artists, cultural managers and people with no previous background in performing arts, are welcome to take part as well.

Eligibility

Age: 16+

Language capacity: fluent English

Availability: you are able to be present at not less than 4 sessions out of 8 (please see the full schedule below)

Price: 350 SEK, which includes access to the whole programme and the participation in all the Audience Club activities

About the facilitator

Anna Kozonina is a dance writer, researcher, and educator based in Helsinki. As well as obtaining an MA in Political Science and Linguistics, she studied dance history and performance theory and holds an arts MA from Aalto University. Since 2017 she has been reviewing pieces by emerging and established European choreographers, and diving into somatic discourses in contemporary dance, which she observes from critical and political perspectives. She currently gives lectures on dance and performance theory, curates educational programs, and conducts research projects. She collaborated with institutions and festivals across Europe including Norrlandsoperan, Impulstanz, Moving in November, Baltic and Nordic Dance Platforms, Rail2Dance, STHLM DANS, etc. She is also a regular contributor at Springback Magazine.

Anna’s participation is supported by Kone Foundation: https://koneensaatio.fi/en/ 

Apply now, before April 26th!

Open Call Google Form: https://forms.gle/ASrvV5QHidsHcnuw8

Schedule

Please refer to the programme for more details.

• Thursday, May (intro)

16:00: ’Pop Up by Cullberg’, Medborgarplatsen, Stockholm

17:30 Audience Club Opening Session 1 and get together: introducing each other and the Club program + “speed dating” exchange

19:00 ’My Own Room’ and Opening Party at Medelhavsmuseet

• Friday, May 3

17:00: ’DaAnnNCeeR’, Midsommargården

18:00—20:00 Session 2: Public and Private Domains of Dance: Right for the City, Hospitality, Connection

• Sunday, May 5

14:00: Session 3: What Does Dance Share with Sirens? Gender, Otherness and Unknown Lands

15:00 — Siren Dance and Public Talk

• Tuesday, May 7

16:00: ’With Love’ + Session 4: Walk and Talk on Dance and Politics, Vulnerability and Empowerment

17:30: ’I Själva Verket’ and Public Talk, Scenkonstmuseet

• Wednesday, May 8

17:30: Audience Club Session 5: Hybrids and Sad Dances

19:00: ’Chest’ at Dansens Hus + Party

• Friday, May 10

17:30: Audience Club Session 6: Social and Protest Roots of Dance Styles Meet Contemporary Dance. Is That a Friendly Meetup?

19:00: ’Cellule’ and Public Talk at Hallunda Folkets Hus 

• Saturday, May 11

14:00: ’I Arbete och Rörelse’ choreographic protest on Sergels torg

15:00: Audience Club Session + Session 7: Choreopolitics and Our Participation in Culture

• Sunday, May 12 (voluntary, outro)

13:00: Session 8: Audience Club Informal Wrap Up and Feedback

14:00 Afro-descendance film programme at Etnografiska museet

Image: ’With Love’ by Efva Lilja