We're back!

Ravnedans 2026 will take place from June 16 to 20. Save the dates! You don’t want to miss the comeback!

Picture of Hanna Kushnirenko from the Ravnedans Retreat.

Ravnedans Retreat - picture by Hanna Kushnirenko.

After fifteen years of festivals, we desperately needed time and space to reflect, rethink, and reorganize. To make room for this important work, we felt compelled to take a break from the yearly festival and instead arrange a smaller meeting point, aptly named Ravnedans Retreat. Now we are eager to share our future plans with you and to organize the festival again next summer.

Future Ravnedans

In the coming years, we plan to hold a full-scale festival, similar to previous editions, every other year (2026, 2028, and as long as the wind is in our sails). This means that we are adopting a kind of biennial model for our festival operations. We believe this will allow us to work more thoroughly with both partners and artists, and that it will give us a more sustainable working rhythm. Our goal is for this to create a stronger foundation for a long and healthy life, both for the festival and for us, the artists who run it.

In the years between (2027, 2029, and so on), we will continue to arrange alternative meeting points to share dance, art, and experiences. These gatherings will likely take place in late summer or early autumn. The Ravnedans Retreat that took place in August was our first in-between edition. For this first version, we responded to our own and everyone’s need for reflection and unity, and created a program that offered space for deep and slow artistic experiences in nature. This experiment with a different version of Ravnedans revealed new potential for the future.

In the gentle atmosphere at Bragdøya, we as facilitators discovered that we can create and host entirely different artistic formats, new types of artistry, and a distinct kind of audience participation compared to the more hectic festival format. For future editions during these in-between years, we will remain attentive and flexible, allowing intuition and freedom to guide us as we imagine and plan each gathering. Sometimes we might offer a space to rest, at other times a space to explore or take bold artistic risks. We believe that these in-between editions can take the form of a retreat or an artistic laboratory. They might emerge as a howling choir or a slow rebellion, something shape-shifting with unknown potential.

Raven Family

We continue to work as a collective; thinking together and co-curating. Organizationally, we have taken a step back and returned to the structure from our early years, where we ourselves curated and ran the festival together, this time as a group of four. Each year, we assemble a “four-leaf clover” of internal producers who curate, plan, and organize the festival.

For the 2026 edition, Jean-Baptiste, Michelle, Sunniva, and Irene are carrying this work forward, with the full support of the rest of the board. We will alternate who among us leads the festival and the in-between editions, and we are deeply grateful to have found a shared vision for the future of Ravnedans, one that allows us to remain strong and united in the collective format we love.

Ravnedans Retreat - picture by Hanna Kushnirenko.

Ravnedans Retreat - picture by Hanna Kushnirenko.

We want to thank our financial supporters, local partners, and artists for their understanding and for making it possible for us to take the break we needed.

It truly is possible to take a break.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the comeback, and that we will meet again to dance, sing, scream, swim, and eat together in Kristiansand from June 16 to 20, 2026. Write it in your calendar!

Afterlife – Louis Schou-Hansen in conversation with Runa Borch Skolseg

Afterlife
by Karoline Bakken Lund and Louis Schou-Hansen
Friday 7 July 19:00-20:00 @ Kristiansand Kunsthall
RAVNEDANS 2023
Tickets

Afterlife is visiting RAVNEDANS 2023!
While we wait for Friday 7 July to arrive, here is a conversation between choreographer and dance artist Louis Schou-Hansen and playwright and critic Runa Borch Skolseg, from when Afterlife first premiered. Have a read and learn more about the performance and the themes of the performance.

Photo: Chai Saeidi. Performers (from left to right): Amie Mbye, Elise Nohr, Georgiana Dobre.

Runa Borch Skolseg: Afterlife premieres in just a few weeks and in the program text you describe it as an alternative history. When I saw a rehearsal a few weeks ago I thought a lot about the project in relation to writing history, and how it both rewrites, transforms and negotiates with historical material. At the same time as it is not an archival work, but rather a fabled and speculative "take" on material that is familiar to many. Can you speak a bit about how you have worked to create the choreographic material and the alternative interpretation?

Louis Schou-Hansen: Yes, in Afterlife we’ve travelled back to the origin of the ballet in the Renaissance, when it was a social dance for Europe’s wealthy and powerful. So, before these social dances had the aesthetic that we recognize as ballet today. The idea with this was trying to enter the history of the ballet at its roots or, one could argue, where it all went wrong. The rehearsals started with a workshop led by renaissance expert Elizabeth Svarstad who helped us to reconstruct and learn original dances. This was both a technical starting point, since I didn’t know much about these materials, but also a place to form a shared understanding in our team of what we are potentially moving away from. From there we’ve been trying to disturb these dances, to pull them apart and reassemble them. A lot of remixing of various references from contemporary culture and the Renaissance is involved, manipulating the time and theatricality of how these were performed and altering their symbolic gestures. So almost all of the materials that one will see in the piece take their starting point from dances and various social activities from the Renaissance. By we I’m of course referring to the performers Elise Nohr Nystad, Amie Mbye, Georgiana Dobre and close visual collaborator Karoline Bakken Lund.

Photo: Chai Saeidi

RBS: I'm a little bit interested in the Renaissance myself, and was thinking while reading this, if you know how the ballet positioned itself in relation to the other artistic and philosophical movements that originated at that time? Even though a lot was happening in visual arts, music, and philosophy, society kept a lot of the mediaeval and conservative values, and writers tend to call the Renaissance more of an intermediate period than a turning point, which people sometimes forget.

LSH: Without being an expert on this, I think there are some easy parallels to be drawn between court dances (pre-ballet) and other contemporaneous art movements in terms of class and access. Art usually depicted the rich for the rich and so did the pre-balletic dance forms. In order to take part in court dances you had to be wealthy, powerful or born into a certain bloodline, which is a tradition that can still be seen in ballet today. Dance during the renaissance was largely divided into two genres, country dances and court dances. Country dances could be danced by anyone and aren’t really the ones we immediately go to when talking about the history of western dance (as far as my knowledge goes). They aren’t unknown, but in the same way as for example with painting; when we picture prime-time renaissance art now, it isn’t the countryside arts that we focus on.

RBS: As I understand it, you have been interested in counterfactual speculation, which is a thought experiment that must be said to have had a renaissance (haha) in connection to the years when Trump was in power. In short, it is about imagining an alternative route that history could have taken. Can you tell us about the fantasies and routes you have imagined for the ballet and those which appear in Afterlife?

LSH: For me the starting point of the project has been to imagine a less rigid and less violent ballet that would be able to queer itself. One that demands less personal suffering and less assimilation in order to be recognised. In Afterlife we try to re-imagine the origin of the ballet, but it doesn’t necessarily imagine a historical route further from there. It centres the origin as the counterfactual point and suggests that the work needs to be continued in other projects. Something that strikes me when researching the ballet is that it hasn’t changed much. It’s a history that just moves along in time but without evolution. It still reproduces the same oppressive and exclusionary structures from the renaissance, but has only become better at covering them up. For me there’s a degree of pessimism and disbelief in the ballet being developed any further from where it is now. My ultimate fantasy is more about turning European ballet institutions into historical museums, go back and imagine something new. I'm not convinced by a queer, feminist or decolonial project which can't imagine such fundamental change.

When thinking about the aesthetics of Afterlife, what it was going to look like and what new narratives it could potentially produce, I tried to avoid visualising before starting the process with everyone in the studio. I’ve instead tried to imagine a shift in power and who this space is being produced by. We’re entering the work through a subtle fiction and through irrationality. We’re messing with, and to a degree ridiculing, parts of a history, and I hope that will be visible in the piece. 

Photo: Chai Saeidi

RSB: This is very interesting, I feel that the field in Norway has been very naive in how they work within the institutions and also about how much power they have to define and reproduce structures that can be very violent, for both the artists and the work, and it hasn’t seemed to change in like forever. But there is also something easy in saying “I'm not convinced by a queer, feminist or decolonial project which can't imagine such fundamental change.” Can you try to elaborate further your thoughts on this?

LSH: It is way too easy to say it like that and I don’t mean that things can’t get better within the institutions as they are now. But if we take the Nordics as an example, the general approach to “fixing” inequality within art institutions is to add a few “minority-projects” to the program each season, and then the work kinda stops there. This reduces these social issues to an empty form of representation that eventually leads to what some would call tokenism. There’s a lack of institutions being able to meet the projects on their own terms. A basic example could be how a project is disseminated. Say for example that I’m working on a piece where to verbalise it through a program text isn’t the right way to present it to the public. I don’t remember ever having been in a theatre where I think an alternative to “the program text” would have been an option. It might seem like a banal example, but it’s one of those things that affects how the work is being contextualised and perceived.

The critique goes beyond the personal and isn’t about attacking anyone for being amoral. It can’t be fixed by just one ambitious employee but needs a much bigger collective effort. Most bigger institutions that are supposed to support the freelance art field operate within very standardised structures that everyone more or less has to fit into. These are the types of problems I refer to when saying that we need to think about a more fundamental change. It isn’t just about curating a few minority projects, but all about how the institution as a whole meet, support and nurture the work of whoever has been curated into their programmes.

RSB: After I saw one of the rehearsals a few weeks ago, I was walking home and my imagination was running wild, and I started thinking about Lacan, who writes about how desire is always desired for / for the other, and how being a desired subject means becoming confronted with the social world as inheriting, shaping, and limiting, and as an extension of that, Andrea Long Chu's book Females, that I know you have read and been inspired by, which inscribes itself in a materialistic tradition with Fanon, Silvia Federici and David Harvey. Whatever. Anyway, I came to think of Chu's contribution to theorising the experience of being eroded for another's goals and freedom of action, and your project of trying to create an alternative space to the established classical ballet. I don’t know if these threads are too far out, but I wonder if there is something coinciding with your project. Have you thought about that or do you want to continue this vague train of thought?

LSH: This question goes quite hand in hand with what I mean when talking about assimilation in this context. The current project of many ballet companies is to include bodies and identities that they’ve previously excluded. The intention is probably nice, but I think it’s a misunderstood way of thinking about inclusion. It becomes pretty empty. Inviting a queer body or a racialized body into the institution of the ballet, is in most cases to invite them into a culture that has never offered a sense of belonging. This space isn’t shaped by minorities of any kind and will most likely demand some level of cultural assimilation so it can continue to function. So, where Chu describes the experience of being shaped for someone else’s desire, or through the gaze of someone else, most minority identities who are being invited into the ballet, will sooner or later have to re-shape themselves to satisfy the balletic gaze. This is also one of the mechanisms that I refer to when talking about violence in classical ballet. It’s basically a world of violence and I don’t even think that this experience is exclusive to minorities. Even the straight, white and abled person is doomed to suffer. Especially women. There are just different extremes of how it’s felt.

Photo: Chai Saeidi

RSB: I Agree, I think this applies for many institutions, and it reminds me of this quote by Elizabeth Grosz. I can’t find it, so it’s a bit fresh from my memory but I think she writes something like; “We must not only ask ourselves what positions we occupy in space, but also how we occupy them and at the same time turn our attention to the intimate relationship between knowledge and power.”

As I understand Afterlife, you want to deconstruct the ballet's hegemonic hierarchies and mono-culture. The ballet has fairly simple understandings and interpretations of gender and structures, can you say something about how you have worked on creating counter-narratives and other fantasies/desires?

LSH: Yeah, the ballet is a super purist tradition, meaning that it has been developed and structured through a very exclusive segment of western culture and still is to this day. Afterlife is kind of the opposite. Almost everyone who’s been active in the process of making this work would have been excluded for various reasons back in the renaissance. What the product of this process and what new desires might be visible or not in the performance itself, becomes almost secondary. My guess is that most desires visible in the piece will be relatively familiar to most. The work doesn’t really seek that kind of originality. We haven’t been looking to discover something “new”, but rather tried to place our already existing desires into a context where they’ve previously been unwanted or unable to exist. We’ve tried to spend time together in a way that stands in opposition to the objectifying and robotic way in which ballet normally operates. More care, conversation and failing, a sort of anti-perfectionism. From this, various materials have appeared, and there’s an ongoing process of finding ownership and agency within those. The performance doesn’t as such try to fix anything, it rather represents or visualises a process that has only been started.

RSB: You have chosen to show Afterlife at Mimosa, a studio that is not much like a black box. You have a group of performers with very different backgrounds, both formally trained and untrained dancers, and you work with Karoline Bakken Lund who works between different disciplines. Can you say something about how these choices play into the imagining and/or the rewriting? How have you worked together?

LSH: Karoline and I wanted to move the ballet out of its traditional environments which is often opera houses that represents a class and an economy, that feels alienating to probably even most Norwegians. The dances in the renaissance was mostly performed in courts and semi-private spaces. So, the idea with performing at Mimosa, an artist-run workspace organised by Karoline, is to go back to a semi-private but more communal and less pretentious space. We have been discussing the project since very early on, and she’s in charge of the costumes and the making of the space. I’ve always preferred working with mixed groups. It creates more friction and disturbs everyone’s standardised way of performing, producing, and so on.  It makes it harder to assume or predict what directions things will take and forces you to somehow be very present in the work. If I were to work with a group of performers all trained in the same tradition, I think the project would automatically be set up for failure. It would end up as this “pseudo work” where we don’t really do the practices that we’re claiming to do. It would just be stupid.

Photo: Chai Saeidi

RSB: In a preface you sent to me, Jack Halberstam writes; “if we do not try to fix what is broken then what?” I don’t know, at its core, it feels like Afterlife tries to rewind time, to compose an alternative fantasy where you take responsibility for expanding our understanding of the ballet, something I feel very touched by. After the rehearsal, I also thought of Helen Cixous idea of ‘Écriture féminine’, when she says: “I am not trying to create a feminine writing but to let into writing what has been forbidden up to now” which also resonates for me in relation to what you are trying to achieve in Afterlife. I don’t know exactly what the question is, but maybe to go back to Halberstam, if we do not try to create another narrative, or more narratives and alternative routes, what then?

LSH: Well, some of the ideas that Halberstam writes about in that preface I sent you are definitely present in Afterlife from the perspective of practice. For example, the notion of not trying to fix something that can’t be fixed. Afterlife assumes the thought of the ballet is so deeply rooted in its own complex oppressive systems, that unless it is torn completely down and rebuilt, nothing can ever be truly fixed. So, instead of “fixing” the ballet, Afterlife goes for a space of ‘opposition at a distance’. To go back to your question about not creating other narratives, I would say that we are trying to create other narratives, we just don’t do it inside of the ballet or its already established institution. In the work we adopt some materials from the ballet, like some of the dances and gestures, but we don’t really engage further than that. After all, it isn’t our job to try to fix the institutions that have deemed us unfit to be a part of them in the first place.

  • Afterlife will be performed Friday 7 July 19:00-20:00 at Kristiansand Kunsthall (Rådhusgata 11, 4611 Kristiansand), as part of RAVNEDANS 2023.

    Tickets are available online – click here to get directly to TicketCo.
    Welcome!


    If you want to read more about the performance, click here.

  • Louis Schou-Hansen (it / they) is a dancer and choreographer who’s work is situated at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Its practice encompasses various formats such as performances, performing, writing, organizing, and at times curating. Louis' work dives into speculative fiction as a tool to investigate, dissect, and denaturalize how bodies have been molded through violent western fairytales, utilizing queer and trans-feminist modes of knowledge production. Louis have studied dance at Oslo National Academy of the Arts and the Royal Danish Ballet School, as well as undisciplined fine arts studies at The Dutch Art Institute.

    In 2020, Louis was nominated for the Norwegian Critics Asscociation Prize for its performance Shine Utopians together with Harald Beharie. It is currently shortlisted for Sandefjord Kunstforenings Art Prize 2023.

    In 2016 it started its collaboration with Norwegian choreographer Ingri Fiksdal, working as a performer in several of her works. Louis has also collaborated with and performed in the works of Runa Borch Skolseg, Edhem Jesenkovic, Goro Tronsmo, Andrew Amorim, Janne Camilla Lyster, & Ingun Bjørnsgaard to name some. Between 2020-2022 it co-founded and curated the discursive, platform Brakkesnakk together with Ines Belli.

    Louis' work has been presented at Copenhagen Contemporary, Black Box Teater Oslo, Dansens Hus Oslo, My Wild Flag Stockholm, PUBLICS Helsinki, Palmera Bergen, Godsbanen Aarhus, Entrée Bergen, and RAS Sandnes, among others. Its writings have been published by Situations New York, Understory UK, & Scenekunst.no.

  • Runa Borch Skolseg is a playwright, author and critic. She holds an MA from Oslo National Academy of Arts (KHiO) and runs Dionysian Corporation alongside costume deisgner Fredrik Floen. She has worked for Mette Edvardsen, Verk produksjoner, Ingvild Holm amongst others, and was associated artist at Black Box Theatre as part of the interdisciplinary collective Carrie. She is resident playwright at Dramatikkens Hus in 2022-2023 and publishes the novel Renessansefeminin Horror at Kolon Forlag in autumn 2023.

Ledig engasjement som prosjektleder

Oppdragsgiver: Ravnedans
Søknadsfrist: 20. juni 2023
Oppstart: September/oktober 2023 
Omfang: Totalt omfang fordelt på årshjul er tilsvarende ca. 40 prosent stilling
Varighet: Til og med oktober 2024
Honorar: Etter avtale 

Om Ravnedans

Ravnedans er en festival for samtidsdans og performancekunst som ble etablert sommeren 2010. Festivalen finner sted i Kristiansand i juli hvert år. Programmet strekker seg over fem dager og inneholder forestillinger, fagprogram, workshops, arbeidsvisninger og sosialt program. I tillegg til gjestespill for blackbox programmerer festivalen ulike formater slik som scenekunst utendørs, i gallerier og andre mer utradisjonelle scenerom. Festivalens formål er å bidra til formidling av lokal, nasjonal og  internasjonal samtidsdans og performancekunst i Kristiansand. Ravnedans skal bidra til kompetanseheving i det frie scenekunstfeltet i regionen og legge til rette for faglige møtepunkt for regionale og tilreisende kunstnere.

Ravnedans baserer seg på kollektiv tenkning i avgjørelser knyttet til programmering og kuratering av festivalen. Administrativt er festivalen organisert med et produsentteam bestående av prosjektleder og produsent som jobber i tett dialog med en arbeidsgruppe med representanter fra styret og kunstnerisk utvalg.

Mer om Ravnedans: www.ravnedans.com

Ansvar og arbeidsoppgaver

Prosjektlederskap for Ravnedans 2024 og etterarbeid.

Arbeidet skjer i samarbeid med representanter fra Ravnedans styre og kunstneriske utvalg, se https://www.ravnedans.com/about

Det er fordelaktig om du bor eller er tilknyttet Kristiansand, men det er også mulig å ha base andre steder. I forbindelse med avvikling forventes det at du kan jobbe i Kristiansand i en periode på ca to uker. Noe reising til Kristiansand i forbindelse med co-produksjoner må påregnes.  

Oppgaver:

  • Hovedansvar for fremdrift, planlegging og gjennomføring av festivalen

  • Utforme avtaler og være i kontakt med festivalkunstnere og samarbeidspartnere

  • Utforme planer for gjennomføring

  • Søknadsskriving, budsjettutforming og løpende økonomiarbeid

  • Festivalavvikling

  • Etterarbeid i form av rapportering, utbetalinger,  økonomi og kontakt med regnskapsfører/rådgiver

  • Eventuelt andre løpende admin oppgaver

Kvalifikasjoner: 

Ravnedans søker deg som har engasjement for å være med å bygge scenekunstfeltet i Agder. Det er fordelaktig om du har erfaring og/eller utdanning innen prosjekt-, produksjons- og administrasjonsarbeid eller ledelse  innenfor kunstfeltet. God skriftlig og muntlig formuleringsevne i engelsk og norsk blir vektlagt. Gode datakunnskaper og erfaring med digitale plattformer og verktøy. Personer med scenekunstfaglig bakgrunn oppfordres til å søke.

Egenskaper: 

  • Jobber systematisk og strukturert

  • Er driftig og selvgående

  • Trives med å jobbe under høyt tempo med mange arbeidsoppgaver på samme tid.

  • Har gode kommunikasjons- og samarbeidsevner.

Personlig egnethet vektlegges.

Det er nødvendig at du har mulighet til å være fleksibel med tanke på arbeidsmengde i forhold til årshjulet til festivalen.

Vi tilbyr: 

  • Mye selvstendig ansvar og fleksibilitet store deler av året

  • Erfaring innen produksjon av scenekunst og festivalavvikling i et positivt, hektisk og engasjert arbeidsmiljø med fokus på etisk tenkning.

  • Muligheten til å være med å bygge opp et profesjonelt scenekunstfelt i en region med positiv utvikling og offensiv kulturpolitikk.

  • Tett dialog med styre, AU og kunstnerisk utvalg med høy kunstfaglig og administrativ kompetanse og stort engasjement.

  • Faglige utfordringer og varierte arbeidsoppgaver.

Det kan være mulighet for noe annen løsning vedr. omfang/prosent.

Alle kvalifiserte kandidater oppfordres til å søke, uansett alder, funksjonsevne, kjønn, religion eller kulturell og sosial bakgrunn.

 

Hvordan søke?  

Søknad og CV med referanser sendes elektronisk til ravnedans.sunniva@gmail.com.
Spørsmål vedrørende engasjementet kan rettes til samme e-postadresse eller til Michelle Flagstad (styremedlem og tidligere prosjektleder) på telefon 913 62 366.

Bevegelig Uenighetsfellesskap

OPEN CALL FOR 2-DAYS WORKSHOP DURING RAVNEDANS

When: 7 July 10:00-13:00 and 8 July 13:00-16:00
Where: Kristiansand Kunsthall
Application form: Here
Deadline: 9 June 2023
Language: English or Scandinavian language
Free, but limited capacity

Bevegelig Uenighetsfellesskap is a new concept initiated by Ravnedans. Bevegelig Uenighetsfellesskap is a search for new ways of reflecting and working with a theme, through combining artistic and theoretical practices. For this year's first edition, we have invited choreographer and dancer Louis Schou-Hansen and theater critic and dramaturge Mariken Lauvstad to host a two-day discursive workshop. 

Mariken Lauvstad / Louis Schou-Hansen. Photo: Erika Hebbert (left), Julie Hrnčířová (right)

  • For this very first version of Bevegelig Uenighetsfelleskap, we have decided to mold the program into a collective study group. Throughout the two days we spent together, we will touch upon various modes of discussion, sharings, and soft introductions to theoretical content. For the workshops, we will propose concrete structures in which we want to engage with topics surrounding decoloniality and queerness. These engagements will happen within an informal atmosphere, through shorter speculative exercises, mind mapping, reading, listening, and collective discussions.

    The program will be split in two days. Mariken is facilitating the first day, while the second will be hosted and led by Louis. Participation requires no preparation or former engagement with theory, but we ask you to attend both days.

    Professional artists from any artistic discipline or background are more than welcome to apply (e.g., dance makers, visual artists, opera singers, etc). The study group will be minded toward "relatively" newly educated artists (in their establishment phase) or more established practitioners curious to engage with theory with little or no prior knowledge.

  • Louis Schou-Hansen (it/they) lives and works in Oslo. While moving between various contexts, its practice spans dance, choreography, writing, and sometimes curating, often revolving queer and trans-feminist epistemologies. Louis’ performances have been produced by and invited to Copenhagen Contemporary (Copenhagen), Black Box Theater (Oslo), PUBLICS (Helsinki), Dansens Hus (Oslo), My Wild Flag (Stockholm), among others. Its writing has been published by SITUATIONS (New York), UNDERSTORY (London), and Scenekunst.no (Oslo). As a dancer, they have performed in the works of Ingri Fiksdal, Runa Borch Skolseg, Edhem Jesenkovic, Janne Camilla Lyster, and Ingun Bjørnsgaard, to name a few. Louis’ work was recently nominated for Sandefjord Kunstforening’s Art Prize (2023) as well as The Norwegian Critics Association Prize (2020)

    Mariken Lauvstad has over the years worked as a theater writer, dramaturg, instructor, actor, singer and theater teacher. Currently, she is most active as a writer, teacher and dramaturg. She is a regular theater critic for Morgenbladet and teaches the subject Contemporary Art at Kristiania College. As a dramaturg, she has among others worked for Tigerstadsteatret and Riksteatret.

  • Fill out this following simple application form, via Google.
    Deadline: 5 June 2023

    For questions, please write to ravnedans.sunniva@gmail.com

LAB for unge dansere med Amie Mbye

Utlysning for dansere 16-25 år – LAB med Amie Mbye 4.-8. juli

Amie Mbye. Foto: Rayan Amu

Søknadsfrist: 20. april 2023
Påmelding: https://forms.gle/QEUZTGAonetDFufj8

Hvor: Ravnedalen, Kristiansand, Norge
Når: 4.-8. juli kl 13-17, visning 8. juli kl 17
For: Dansere 16-25 år. Laben tilrettelegges for dem som har en aktiv dansepraksis, både ved vgs-danselinjer, på profesjonelle forstudium og høysskoler, så vel som dem som arbeider på et høyt nivå utenfor utdannelsesinstitusjonene. Sistnevnte kan være kveldsskoler, kulturskoler eller ungdomskompanier. 

Hvis du er i tvil om nivået passer for deg, ta kontakt!

  • Ravnedans inviterer til performance LAB for unge dansere i aldersgruppen 16 til 25 år. LABen tar sikte på å gi dyp innsikt i et spennende kunstnerskap, og tilbyr profesjonelle strategier for både utøvende og skapende praksis. Søkere bes om å sende et kort motivasjonsbrev med noen linjer om seg selv og bakgrunnen for at de ønsker å delta på LABen. Utøvergruppen vil bli satt sammen av Ravnedans i samarbeid med Amie Mbye. LABen er en del av festivalprogrammet i Ravnedalen.

    Performance LABen gir mulighet til å bli kjent med Amies kunstnerskap, og innsikt i hvordan det kan utarte seg å arbeide som utøvende og skapende dansekunstner i Norge. Ikke minst gir LABen også mulighet til å stå på scenen som del av festivalprogrammet til Ravnedans.

    Amie er en erfaren utøver, og har samarbeidet med kjente koreografer i det norske frie feltet, og i utland. Nå ønsker Amie å bruke hennes erfaring som utøvende danser og bevege seg inn i et mer skapende landskap hvor det lages arbeid som er forankret i hennes personlige erfaringer, med nysgjerrighet i kroppens fysiske potensiale.

    På Performance LABen for Ravnedans 2023 vil hun dele av sin personlige praksis som både utøver og koreograf. Lab-en vil inneholde daglig oppvarming i form av rytmiske og somatiske øvelser. I møte med gruppen vil det legges opp til både freestyle (improvisasjon) og satt koreografisk materiale basert på hennes tidligere arbeid med dansekollektivet B16.

  • Amie Mbye (f. 1993) er en norsk-gambisk dansekunstner og koreograf med base i Oslo og jobber mellom Oslo, Barcelona og Dakar. Hun har en BA fra Høyskolen for Dansekunst i Oslo, hvor hun ble uteksaminert i 2019 med en bachelorgrad i dans og koreografisk tenkning.

    Amie er aktiv som utøvende og skapende dansekunstner i ulike kunstneriske sammenhenger og konstellasjoner. Fra 2009- 2017 var Amie fast ansatt i kompaniet Tabanka Dance Ensemble og har siden vært aktiv i streetdance miljøet og jobbet som utøver og medskapende danser for kunstnere som Ingri Fiksdal (NO), Solveig Holtet (NO), Aida Colmenero Diaz (ES), Sandra Mujinga (NO), Alesandra Seutin (BE), Harald Beharie (NO), Louis Schou Hansen (DK), Ludvig Daae (NO), Inés Belli (NO) m.fl.

    Hennes kunstneriske praksis omfatter ulike formater som performances, dance-gatherings (dancejams, open practises, cyphers etc.), dj-ing, undervisning, kuratering og tilrettelegging av workshops og diskursive rom. Amie sitt kunstnerskap er fundert på en delingspraksis, på å skape tilhørighet og plass for ulike stemmer i det profesjonelle feltet, blant annet gjennom kunstkollektivet B16 og dansekompaniet SEAA.Company.

  • Fyll ut digitalt spørreskjema for å søke om deltakelse!

    Spørsmål kan sendes på DM til @ravnedans på instagram, eller på mail til ravnedans.anders@gmail.com

    Søknadsfrist: 20. april 2023

    STØTTET AV TRAFO
    Gratis deltakelse!

Performance LAB with Rosalind Goldberg

Apply to take part in this year’s performance LAB, led by Rosalind Golberg!

Photo: Iselin Linstad Hauge, from Dark Dynamite (2022) by Rosalind Goldberg at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter

Where: Kristiansand
When: 2-6 July 2023. Every day 13.00-17.00. Showing at 6 July at 18.00
Price: Free but limited spaces
Application deadline: 11 April 2023

The lab days will be up to 4 hours long, so that it's possible to take part in the rest of the festival program with morning baths and performances.

  • In this choreographic LAB, we will take as a starting point the upcoming work DIM. In DIM, a realm of numbness will steer the dancer’s relations and pathways, where care, violence, indifference, boundlessness, and desire are quivering in an uneven path. Numbness is thematized from the perspective that it comes into being through taking part in an over-aestheticized, accelerated, and information-rich society. I’m interested in a wide range of numbness and its physical implications.

    Approaching this theme, we will be working with a practice I use as a method when creating choreographies called multi-attentiveness. With that practice, we are working with how attention, loss of attention, and searching and regaining attention, can propose and access movements in both abstract and direct ways, and as a presence in space. In this lab, we will delve into a perceptual, and speculative practice of embodiment and dancing. By using imagination, images, and physical instructions, we will create structures and surroundings to see how they stimulate our perception. Further, we will work with the senses and with sensemaking, looking for where they intersect and what they perform, informed by the theme at its inspirations.

  • Rosalind Goldberg is a choreographer based in Oslo. She is currently a research fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Oslo with the Ph.D. project Choreography as a meaning-generating aggregate.

    Rosalind’s work explores processes of change and is characterized by a physical and conceptual approach to choreography, where the entanglement of the two directs the process. Central in her work is the question of what we can expect from the body - to what extent the body can change, and what sides of the body we hide away from, examined through a social, economic, cultural, and environmental perspective. She is interested in the unknown, uncomfortable, leaking, fantastic sides of bodily life and explores the murky water where biology and nations of the body are rubbing against each other. Drawing on inspiration from neurobiology, philosophy on plasticity, new materialism, and notions around the unknown, she creates practices to challenge the habitual in the dancer as a method to stir around with the body’s representation on stage.

    In 2022 Rosalind premiered the new production DARK DYNAMITE at Henie Onstad Art Center in Norway. Previous works are, The Field (2020), Rut (2018), Immunsystemet (2017), Jump with me! (2016), MIT (2013), Fake Somatic Practice (2011).

    Rosalind’s work has recently been performed at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna, Tanz Im August in Berlin, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Sophiensaele in Berlin, Schauspielhaus Chemnitz, Uferstudios in Berlin, TanzFabrik Berlin, Dansens Hus in Stockholm, Inkonst in Malmö, Dansens Hus in Oslo, BIT-Teatergarasjen in Bergen, Henie Onstad Art Center, Rosendal Teater in Trondheim, Black Box Teater in Oslo, RAS – Regional Arena for Samtidsdans, Weld in Stockholm, Skogen in Gothenburg, et al.

  • Who can apply

    The LAB is aimed at professional dancers, but other performing artists can also apply. Open to students if places are available. The LAB will lead to a work in process showing as part of the festival program. It is therefore expected that LAB participants show some flexibility on the day of the sharing and the hours leading up to it.

    How to apply

    To apply, send a short motivation letter together with a brief biography (in total max 1 A4 page) to ravnedans.anders@gmail.com by 11 April 2023.
    The application can be written in English or a Scandiavian language.
    Mark the e-mail with Performance LAB.

RAVNEDANS 2023

We have started counting down for this year’s iteration of Ravnedans, happening from 4-8 July 2023. Save the date!

We are putting together an exciting program, with many opportunities to experience, take part in, and be surprised by, moving art in many shapes and forms all over the city in Kristiansand.

If you want to find out the news, you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or subscribe to our newsletter via this link.

We look forward to seeing new and old faces at the festival this summer!