Do you ever feel moved, inspired, confused, or frustrated by contemporary dance and performance—whether on stage or in the streets? At the same time, do you struggle to find a community to share your ideas with, a space for a critical conversation, or even the words to express your thoughts? If so, the Audience Club at STHLM DANS is for you.
What is Audience Club?
Audience Club is an interactive educational and mediation programme that invites festival visitors to explore dance more deeply and connect it to pressing issues of today’s world. It offers a space to engage in meaningful critical discussions, explore the language of dance performance, gain confidence in articulating opinions and questions, and process the collective experience of going to the theatre. Guided by dance researcher and facilitator Anna Kozonina, a group of 10–15 participants will collectively attend festival performances, explore dance theories through mini-lectures, and experiment with different mediation formats to engage with the works on a profound level. The goal of the Club is to provide a forum for open, engaging and critical discussions around the festival, help participants better understand contemporary dance and how it relates to both personal and social life. It also encourages confidence in expressing thoughts and emotions about performances. The Club seeks to strike a balance between expertise and emotional response, creating connections between feelings, critical thinking, and theory.
Audience Club Theme
From Rhythm to Rhetoric: A Critical Conversation on How Dance Moves Us
The 2025 festival is full of rhythm-based performances—stepping, beatboxing, raving, moving in waves, and responding to structures of power and order. These works won’t just move our blood and lymph—they’ll also stir our emotions and thoughts. But what truly happens when we share these intense, collective affective experiences? What lingers after the strong bodily responses fade? And which discussions do these affects provoke? What does it mean to be moved by deconstructed flamenco or a DJ set? Is there a difference? How do we make sense of these strong physical and emotional reactions? Each show will serve as a starting point for deeper conversations, explored through different discussion formats. By the end of the programme, participants will have new ways to talk about dance, greater confidence in sharing their thoughts on art, and, hopefully, a community to continue the conversation.
As we experience the festival, we’ll explore:
- how different rhythmic systems move us, and what conversations they inspire
- what we can learn from the rhythmic traditions of different cultures and their approaches to dance
- how performance descriptions shape our expectations, and how they align with what actually unfolds on stage
- how we can process and discuss the shared, collective experience of dance
- what aesthetic, social and political promises this year’s performances make, and how they deliver on those promises
Who is it for?
The Club is welcoming dance, theatre and art lovers of all ages over 18 years old. Professional dancers and choreographers, artists, cultural managers and people with no previous background in performing arts, are welcome to take part as well.
Eligibility
Age: 18+
Language capacity: fluent English
Availability: you are able to be present at not less than 4 sessions out of 6
How to take part
Please fill in this Google Form by April 17, and secure your participation by purchasing your ticket. You’ll get the ticket link via email within 72h after filling the application form.
(Note! The AC ticket includes the performances from the program below as well as all the AC activities.)
Prices
500 SEK — regular ticket
400 SEK — students, people under 26 yrs, unemployed
Programme
Session 1: Tuesday May 6
17:00 WELCOMING AUDIENCE CLUB SESSION: Introductions: Audience memories + “From affects to reflections”: introducing the AC program
19:00 SHOW: Francois Chaignaud & Aymeric Hainaux (FR) – Mirlitons
20:00 HANGOUT REFLECTIONS: From rhythm to rhetoric
Session 2: Thursday May 8
17:15 PRE-TALK/PRACTICE: Promises of rave performances + Dichotomies Game
19:00 SHOW: Renan Martins / Cullberg (BR-SE) – Guerrilla
20:30 POST-TALK: Expectations vs. reality: What has been moved inside and among us? What has been left intact?
Session 3: Saturday May 10
12:00-14:30 (come anytime) SHOW: caterina mora (ARG-SE) – Dancing the Many
14:30 WALK-and-TALK: Finding common ground through dance in the age of media bubbles: a possibility or an illusion?
16:00 SHOW: Norrdans (SE) – Crowds & Power
17:00 POST-TALK: Moving to and against orders: social comfort and resistance
Session 4: Sunday May 11
13:00 SHOW: La Chachi (SP) – Taranto Aleatorio
14:00 POST-TALK: Being moved by other cultures’ rhythms. What is tangible, and what is (non)readable?
Session 5: Monday May 12
12:00 (TBC) SHOW: Lukas Karvelis (LT) – Theo
12:45 FREE REFLECTIONS OUTSIDE
Session 6: Tuesday May 13
17:00 PANEL: Meet the Audience Club
19:00 SHOW: Lukas Karvelis (LT) – She Dreamt of Being Washed Away To The Coast
20:00 POST-TALK and OUTRO
EXTRAS:
Opening party, May 6 – free entrance
Flamenco Party, May 10 – free entrance
Cinema Queer – extra fee
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 theories, 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 and more. She is also a regular contributor at Springback Magazine.
Anna’s participation is supported by Kone Foundation
Anna’s website
Audience Club website
Photo: Audience Club 2024
