KLOFF

- research on female parts in the European folk dances - 

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My choreographic work is a lot inspired by folk traditions. In KLOFF I am continuing my research on female roles in European folk dances and female figures in folk legends.

This artistic project investigates the ways gender is constructed and performed within the field of folk dances. In the centre of this research are the female parts of couple European vernacular dances. Through collecting and categorizing the gathered material of female folk traditions I am curious to see, if and HOW the folk dances entail distinctive masculine and feminine features.

Apart from choreographic «dance anthropological» research, this project is seen as a partly collaborative process with a computer scientist David Samu, who specializes in data-driven visualization, analysis and machine learning techniques, and who will develop the digital and virtual aspects of this multidisciplinary project. 

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By revisiting the folk dance traditions (focusing on the female parts of folk dances), I am interested in the following questions: How does the performance vocabulary affect gender and social identities of the community? How are folk dance gender constructions connected to particular social and cultural interests? Are the folk dancers’ bodies produced and regulated as gendered bodies? Is this process of becoming gendered subject to cultural definitions and redefinitions? Through collecting and categorizing the gathered material of female folk dances I am curious to see if and HOW the folk dances entail distinctive masculine and feminine features. Or if these features are absent, does it imply a total absence of gender distinctiveness or can gender roles still be found in the background?

Furthermore, since masculinity and femininity do not exist as premade categories, do they come into existence through performances as an intersection of discursive and embodied practices? 

 

By analysing the characteristic properties of the various dances and creating the visually rendered digital interface – a «catalogue of comparative dance anthropology» - we would like to open up a reflection space on these questions. In the focus of such dance anthropology would be the closer analysis of (European) partner folk dances for male-female couples.

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15.09 - 28.09.2019

KLOFF residency @Fjelldansen/Frikar SMIA (Valdres, Norway)

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05.11 - 05.12.2019
KLOFF residency @Kulturfabrikken Sortland (Vesteralen, Norway)

with kind support of Goethe Institut

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