The summer of #CROWDdance 2022 residencies continues with dance artists Ásrún Magnúsdóttir and Amparo González Sola coming together at Dansverkstaedid, Reykjavik, Iceland from 25th July – 5th August. The artists will also come together at Dansateliers, Rotterdam, the Netherlands from 5th – 16th September.
Let’s find out more about Ásrún and Amparo:
Ásrún Magnúsdóttir
Ásrún Magnúsdóttir is a choreographer, based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her work aims to stretch the dominant modes of dance and choreography and has been received well at home and abroad, as made apparent by her numerous festival appearances, awards and nominations.
What are you hoping to explore during the CROWD 2022 residencies?
I hope to explore my artistic practise, develop it further in collaboration with new colleagues and come up with new ideas and projects for the future.
Why did you want to be a CROWD 2022 artist?
I want to meet new colleagues, be inspired and hopefully inspire others. I want to get to know new artistic practises and broaden my own horizon.
What are you looking forward to the most in terms of the residencies and the overall CROWD 2022 programme?
I’m looking forward to travelling to a new community and getting to know that via the local artist and to welcome an artist to my local community.
What made you interested in creating art with the community?
I was sick and tired of seeing the same, perfectly trained body on stage over and over, every time I attended performances. I wanted to see different bodies represented and different stories. I wanted more diversity and didn’t need to see perfectly trained dancers. I wanted bodies with different histories, not your standard dance education history. And the same goes for audiences: I wanted different people in the crowd.
What is the strength of community based work for you?
It is important to see and hear people that are maybe not often on the stage. The strength in community-based work is its inclusivity and anti-elitism.
What are the limitations of working with a community?
Time is often limited when working with a community because people have other jobs and lives that they need to take care of.
Does community dance travel? how?
Yes community dance travels and it’s different how it travels. I have different projects that are currently touring. Often it’s me and a community I bring from Iceland with me and we work with the local community. Sometimes it’s only me that travels and sometimes it’s only the work.
Amparo González Sola
Amparo González Sola is an Argentinian choreographer based in the Netherlands. She researches the intersections between perception, choreography and politics and creates dance works and proposes practices in which people are invited to participate beyond the role of the audience.
What are you hoping to explore during the CROWD 2022 residencies?
I want to delve into which are the practices of commoning and reciprocity possible in artistic projects. I want to deepen ways of bringing to the table questions of privileges and precariousness avoiding essentialist, generalising or patronising approaches. I am interested in thinking about how this could be approached from the specific field of choreography.
Why did you want to be a CROWD 2022 artist?
The idea of “community-based projects” is for me an idea full of prejudices and presumptions. It is an idea that generates many contradictions and dilemmas for me. As an artist whose work is constantly confronted with these terms, I feel the need to rethink and dismantle these prejudices. I believe that this is a task that is not possible to do individually but in dialogue with others.
What are you looking forward to the most in terms of the residencies and the overall CROWD 2022 programme?
I am interested in sharing experiences with other artists whose practices are confronted with questions and experiences that are close and at the same time different from mine. More than working to make “better projects”, I am interested in questioning the ethics and practices that shape them, I am interested in generating a space not ruled by efficiency but by trust in collective work. I would like that from there we create conceptual and practical strategies that allow us, for example, to learn more from the context in which we participate.
What made you interested in creating art with the community?
I have always had the tendency to unfold my practice where it seems not to be possible. I realise that in this instance there is a desire to bring down stigmas about where artistic experience should have a place, where knowledge is created, and which bodies can dance, should think, should talk or be listened to.
What is the strength of community-based work for you?
It challenges my own practice, my way of doing and thinking, and my place as a choreographer.
The question I want to always keep close is: How not to reproduce oppression, appropriation and extractivism in my way of doing, in the relationship with the contexts of which I am part, and the people with whom I work? I know it is a big question.
What are the limitations of working with a community?
While it is true that in this kind of project it can sometimes be more difficult to make plans, predict trajectories or take full control of what happens, I do not see this as a limitation but as potential, as a value.
Across the coming months, we’ll be inviting our ten artists and the host partners to capture elements of their residencies and share insight into their work and the areas they’re exploring within the realm of community-engaged dance. Follow our blog here and #CROWDdance on social media for further updates.
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