Hållning

Banner of the event Hållning

Th 10.6.2021, 11:00-20:30, MDT

Fr 11.6.2021, 11:00-20:30, MDT

Sa 12.6.2021, 11:00-20:30, MDT

Su 13.6.2021, 11:00-20:30, MDT

Today, at a moment in time marked by deep transformations, the call for ‘Hållning’ pierces through the most diverse debates on how to live and act together on a global as well as local scale. This call comes as a reminder of values and norms that can both hold us together and tear us apart, as an invitation for action and resistance, motivating participation and change. However, ‘Hållning’ can also be in danger of entering slippery ideological grounds, exhausting itself in moralism and claim-making, sometimes being used (and misused) to install empathy but also otherness, creating fear and hate based upon generalising and stereotyping terms.

‘Hållning’ is a Swedish word and holds the meanings of posture, position and attitude offering bodily, political and ethical implications. It is also our chosen name for this body-based platform of collective learning and action, at the intersection of dance and performance, education and civil society.

Hållning is grounded in collective learning, and has an international and trans-disciplinary ambition and is evolving in exchange with an international group of guests and their respective practices. It takes on the question of what it takes to stand up, to stand in for something, from a practice- and body-based perspective: how is the social and political stance that we take, individually and collectively, made by performative and aesthetic means? How are the norms and values that hold us together or tear us apart related to how we imagine, experience and sense ourselves, others, and our environment?

Hållning addresses various publics in face-to-face and online encounters over a period of several months. Taking up different approaches from collective learning, activities unfold on different scales and offer different types of engagement. They include a freestanding course in collaboration with Stockholm University of the Arts/The Dance Department, two study circles in collaboration with ABF Stockholm, the online research community ‘Porous Bodies’ and June Encounters a concentrated digital programme of workshops , lectures and performative proposals that take place from June 10-13 at MDT.

Hållning is initiated and curated by Sandra Noeth. With: Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Emily Beausoleil, Natasha A. Kelly, Mahmoud Keshavarz, Steffen Krämer, Jessie McLaughlin, Kevin McSorley, Gunilla Lundahl, Sandra Noeth, Magnus Nordberg, Chrysa Parkinson, Amanda Piña, Hero Rashid, Jenny Richards, Andrea Rodrigo, QUARTO (Anna Mesquita and Leandro Zappala), Liz Rosenfeld, Farah Saleh, America Vera-Zavala (more to be announced).

Hållning takes place in various formats and places along the spring of 2021 ending with a focused digital program June encounters 10–13. These are the activities.

Freestanding course Performative Strategies and Collective Learning in collaboration with Stockholm University of the Arts led by Sandra Noeth and Fareh Saleh.

Two study circles in collaboration with ABF Stockholm:

Performing Bodies, Rehearsing Citizenship
Circle leader: Sandra Noeth
Start 11th of March + four coming Thursday evenings 6-8.30 pm (video meetings at distance, in English)

Bodies of Care
Circle leaders: Jenny Richards & Gunilla Lundahl
Start 29th of April + four coming Thursday evenings 6-8.30 pm (video meetings at distance, In Swedish and English)

June Encounters – June 10-13 2021 – digital programme

Hållning holds a concentrated digital programme that offers different formats to engage in the overall thematic. See hallning.se for the full programme.

Curator and concept: Sandra Noeth. Curatorial partner: Anna Efraimsson, MDT. Production: Jessie McLaughlin, Masha Kotlyachkova. Pre-production and development was made in collaboration with Nordberg Movement. Hållning is a production of MDT and Goethe-Institut, supported with special funds from the German Federal Foreign Office in collaboration with ABF Stockholm, Stockholm University of the Arts/ Department of Dance, The International Dance Program/Swedish Arts Grants Committee and Iaspis, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Artists. MDT holds structural funding from Swedish Arts Council, Stockholm stad and Region Stockholm.