Q & A - with choreographer Pontus Pettersson

An introductory Q & A between MDT's director Anna Efraimsson and choreographer Pontus Pettersson which premieres “MOPA – The Last Stand (Sky)” on December 7, 2023 at MDT.

A: Can you unfold the title? I say unfold because the title contains so much, there are abbreviations and flashes back in time... and then a new parenthesis, a bit like a matryoshka (Russian doll).

P: MOPA came about as a kind of acronym many years ago, it has stood for "My Own Private Army" amongst other things. MOPA Part 1- MOPA – preparing for battle- consisted of six solos where five different dancers got a solo that I did with and for them. Each solo/dancer corresponded with each color of the rainbow, together creating an army of rainbow soldiers. So there were strong queer undertones to this that I think are still there, but maybe don't always have to mean sexual preference. All the solos were done in 2009-2012 and had a joint premiere at Dansens Hus in 2012. 

Now we come to the middle part of the title: "The Last Stand". It could almost have been "The Last Dance". "The Last Stand" is an X-men reference, which is also in the orange solo "x-men-stories" that I did for Robert Malmborg in 2010 as part of the first MOPA. The X-men reference is a sci-fi reference but also stands for what is hidden in us, perhaps that which is actually our superpower. 

For me dance has always been about potential, agency and movement with oneself and with others, but also beyond this. That dance as transformation is an event that carries other possibilities in the world, and which may even be unique to dance. 

Then the last part, "Sky". At the beginning of the project I saw the performance as a situation where the eyes get to go to a spa, or the simple gesture of being amazed when you look up at a cloud that moves and looks like something - simplicity that simultaneously opens up to eternity and the humility that this can bring. As an image, the sky has been included in several works, in my poetry, but also in the cat and poetry performance I did at Weld, "the wind escorts the sky", where there was also a sky and a mirror jacket that the dancers tried to sew together. Most recently, heaven has been featured in batik print on a workwear/job suit for the team at Index 2021 as part of the "EDITORIAL THINKING" exhibition. In other words, "Sky" ties a lot together.

A: “MOPA” was a project that started as a collection of several different solos ten years ago. Now you are six dancers on stage. How do you think about collectivity connected to this work (and possibly about your artistry in general and about the field of dance and choreography at large?)

P: I usually say that 'dance is socially bound', and I think that that sentence opens up an answer about the collectivity, or the collective. The longer arc from the first six solos to part two of the trilogy, the lecture performance "MOPA - I disappear in darkness" from 2013 to this work was always that it would end in "the great dance work". Ten years ago, I probably had completely different ideas than today about how this great dance piece would turn out. But it has to do with quantity, and I relate to quantity in several ways in this choreography. We are six dancers who all have their own ways of looking at the world, their experiences and idiosyncrasies. 

For me, it is always important that in choreography, whatever choreography is proposed, you can see the larger movement - one that is common, while the individuals or singularities that are in the room are also allowed to emerge. This also applies to light and sound and more. I also think the body gives us a fantastic basis for communication and several choreographic threads that correlate with each other. The more complex you make it, or choose to see it, the simplicity also arises. For me, dance is an event that takes place in real time. For this to happen, we all need to come together, and coming together and being together is a process, not just a terminus. This is where ethics come in.

A: You have a wide practice that ranges from visual art via costume/fashion, via curatorial practice to dance and choreography and more. What inspires you in your creation as an artist?

P: Oh a difficult question and fun question! I think I am most inspired by my friends and people around me. But I can also actively look for inspiration from the internet, go to flea markets, read various theory books. For me, it's a lot about actively participating in the environment you want to live and work in. Perhaps Flaggan (nickname for the festival My Wild Flag) which I run with Karina Sarkissova is a good example where we both felt that there were more and other missing proposals around queer performing arts and representation, and we simply started working on an idea for a festival that could accommodate this, even if only for the moment.

A: I know that one thing you are inspired by is cats, and we have that in common. For example, you have developed a choreographic cat practice. Can you tell us a little more about it, without revealing too much, what it's about?

P: Simply put, it involves becoming a cat. A cat in a human body, but that the logic is displaced, the feline in us is raised to the highest level, perhaps you could say. By spending more and more time with the cat in us, we become more and more cat. When I facilitate this practice, I can sometimes also go into the metaphysical, the psychological, the imagination, and so on. Whichever path you choose, more synapses are connected. My experience of doing this practice is that it is extremely "contagious", it activates systems in the body that are otherwise in a slightly more dormant mode. The feeling of gravity, the listening, the body that listens. Glance. The necessary equipment. In a way, cat practice can redefine integrity, body and much else, a kind of recoding. We become softer and faster.