Mette Ingvartsen: Expanded Choreography: Encounters between Human and Non-human Agency in Dance

Abstract

From the beginning of the choreographic work of Mette Ingvartsen, non-human agency and the performativity of things have been key concepts in understanding artistic practice. In this talk she will discuss the most recent experiences and reflections she has had in regard to these themes while working on Moving in Concert, a recent choreography that entangles technology, nature and humans to a point where they are no longer separable. Starting from the idea that technology is still active within our natural bodies, even when all technological devises have been turned off, she will talk about the possibilities of an abstract structure that interconnects human bodies and technological extensions. 

Mette Ingvartsen

is a Danish choreographer and dancer. Her work is characterized by hybridity and engages in extending choreographic practices by combining dance and movement with other domains such as visual arts, technology, language and theory. An important strand of her work was developed between 2009 and 2012 with The Artificial Nature Series, in which she focused on reconfiguring relations between human and non-human agency through choreography. By contrast her more recent series, The Red Pieces (2014-2017) inscribes itself into a history of human performance with a focus on nudity, sexuality and how the body historically has been a site for political struggles. Ingvartsen holds a PhD in choreography from Stockholm’s University of the Arts and graduated from the performing arts school P.A.R.T.S in Brussels. She established her company in 2003 and her work has since then been shown throughout Europe, as well as in the U.S., Canada, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia. She has been artist in residence at the Kaaitheater in Brussels, Volksbühne Berlin, as well as associated to the APAP network. https://www.metteingvartsen.net.