Danish Dance Stories (Danske Dansehistorier) (2018) is an initiative by Andrea Deres, Carolina Bäckman, Nanna Stigsdatter og Stine Frandsen that I have been taking part of together with many other danish dancers.

It is based on a desire to strengthen the artistic identity across generations and geographical affiliation. We gather around our personal and subjective stories from artistic influences in the dance story – its past, present and future – and on the artist’s own premises, sharing experiences and dreams, in order to strengthen and inspire future Danish dance art.

October 29th, 2018, 7-9pm at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (link) there will be a presentation of the explorations so far. Part of the presentation are podcasts with a bunch of us telling personal stories of our experiences with dance.

At a symposium at HAUT and a week-long residence in West Jutland’s High School, the Danish Dance Stories 2018 initiative has gathered about 80 people related to the Danish dance environment. Together with generations, geographical affiliation and artistic places of interest, we have remembered, danced, studied, criticized, created and dreamed of a wealth of Danish dance stories, in relation to the past, the present and the future.

The event at Charlottenborg in the program CHOREOGRAPHY IN ACTION marks a point of completion for the project in 2018, giving you an insight into the project. At the same time, it is a starting point for the future, through a common reflection of the initiative’s development and its potential.

Finally we celebrate the (re)launch of DANSKEDANSHISTORIES.DK – a virtual gathering site where images, text and podcasts document the project’s activities and create new contexts, in the form of a fragmented and diverse mapping of Danish dance stories.

Andrea Deres, Carolina Bäckman, Nanna Stigsdatter og Stine Frandsen are interested in investigating what is the basis of contemporary dance in Denmark. Who has contributed to drawing the story and who is drawing it now? And how can we start a joint conversation about the future across the scene?