Dear Stockholm,
Map – Diary – Images – Credits – Invitation – Replies
Map
Dear Stockholm,
Ivar Los Park Thursday the 1st of July 2021 at 13.00
It’s hot today and I’m nervous. The park is alive and I see and know many friendly faces. I’ve just arrived and I’m in the shade of one of your big trees. My hands are led into the dry sandy dirt of a desire path which leads down this steep hill to the edge of this huge cliff falling away and opening up to the north, city, boats, people, and trees. I’m balancing myself with my arms and legs against the ground and very blue sky. I’m not alone as the city jigs with my stomach in my pelvis. These voices let out mmm’s and huu’s and at one moment a song. We are all finding our voice in this invitation, together but Stockholm seems to already have a voice as the gravel makes its presence known and our eyes pass over and follow these listening, searching, pondering bodies we hear, listen, speak and know. I know you, arm stretched out hand searching waving and belonging.
Vitabergsparken Amphitheatre Monday the 5th of July at 12.00
hello again today I’m less nervous. I know these shoes, and they are walking some worn dusty wooden boards who sound their existence into my legs, hips, back, neck and head. We are friends here, we are softly supporting and being supported by the gentle history of the little opening in a somewhat large and uncomplicated park. My arms fling and drift as our bodies twirl together connecting with these old paths and promises. The whole place resonates like the wood supports of a needed bed in the midst of the summer days. Stockholm your circular stage wraps around the little opening of trees and picnic passing glances, for and dance which travels around facing in and out always but continually turn to catch a movement both subtle and large the same and twisting looking over the shoulder with acceptable freeing stillness to let the moment and bodies catch the breath in the comforting embrace of the wood the tree, the grass and breeze on the pleasant day. I don’t leave, I merely extend my embrace.
Obsan next to rådmansgatan t-bana Tuesday the 6th of July 2021 at 13.00
I’m a little nervous again, this place is both busy and calm all at the same time. You hold so many contradictions. We started on the path between the trees, flying around the grass. There is a builders sand or gravel here, is it an addition or an ongoing medicine for something deemed chronic, regardless climbing this pile of stones my spine and balance is informed. The hard stone falling and holding me up your kindness is overwhelming. I stare into the eyes of many faces merged, all are seemingly caught between a beaming smile and concern. Your contradiction pleasures my skin as I roll on grass then on melting tarmac. I feel your body trying to get in closer than is seemingly possible and yet the enforced distance seemingly provides me with a heartfelt connection that disconnected is my body while it is also my charge and force to be in the same body. My legs are wet, the water is cool, it drips from my other legs and hands onto my face. The world is open and closed or rather it’s open and close.
Långholmen Amphitheatre Thursday the 8th of July 2021 at 13.00
I feel relaxed, we are off the beat and track. I’m finding movements I think I love but I know won’t stay, I like what I do and do what I like. We are marking the space, we are making the space, the space is making us. Here groups pass they could be together but so could we. I like this groove, my body is okay, there are places to go there is a show I know. I think this place knows what to do I’m unsure but it’s message is getting through. I’m met. I like it here. This dance is huge and also a punctuation in a much larger dance. That’s okay. It’s okay. I’m okay and that feels amazing.
At the top of Kronobergsparken Monday the 2nd of August 2021 at 13.00
It’s dark, I climb the steep hill to the top of the park, the top of Stockholm, reaching the summit I can see the dark clouds massing together encircling you. While two hands encircle the hill reaching up to the heavens at the wrist. These hands have no body yet as they exist only just above the crest of the summit. My arms are led out of my upper back, all the mussels aching, cractiting and stretching to form a guests which transcends this bodily form. The storm has arrived, I can hear her footsteps across the sky floor. We are alone together. Gathering here we are leaving our mark in the gravel like carving names onto a rock. Birds flutter down as if to sit upon the head of this grave stone. Rest in peace is being inscribed in my body, as the rain reduces my anxiety to perform, and washes the city away at my feet.
Rålambshovparken Amphitheatre Wednesday the 4th of August 2021 at 13.00
Zip zap scoop loop shoop sut tut moop goop root foot. Foot with a oo like tut. Our garden. Our play. Our sweat. Our way. Ripple slipple. Pose. Re-o’s. Coloured beads. Silent footed this place is the reverse of an echo, scream’s and shout’s are muted down here. Pleasure and play canvas’s my body in memories and mementoes for a predictive text which doesn’t predict reality. Let it all out and still there is more to give.
Gustav Adolfs torg Saturday the 7th of August 2021 at 14.00
I’m wet. I haven’t started but the world has started already. We smile when we meet. one cannot be anything but happy in the rain. I’ve often dreamt of dancing in a shower the size of a car park. Our bodies glide and glisten through the water. Slash and quelsh soundscape the relative lift and fall motions which funnel and fuel my body. There is a skip and hop as joy turns sensational, sensationally, sensorially, perceived. Here the city drags like sticky treacle, peoples bodies are sucked forward by the shops, buses and trains, by wanting to get out of the rain, while its eyes are sticky like glue as our bodies pass in a wet sticky gluey dance made from rain, sweat and freedom. A cartoon dog and laughing gull in a full pandora’s box, containing us like a sponge at the bottom of the sea floor or half price at the gift shop exit.
Stadshuset Monday the 16th August 2021 at 10.00
Do buildings creek, does history creek or is it more like the waves hitting the side of the dock? Things happen here and yet within this dance I feel free from all that goes on. Like the bird who flutters down onto these carefully placed stones. My meaning is transformed. I am not ignorant but free than I was, non-governable. Still reconsiging the real fear of oppression and domination but for a moment without the means of obedience. Meaning the arms that move the legs that flicker are not rebeling they have not met with the power of obedience in order to craft a new order. These limbs are animal, plant, and mineral. I have time to pass undo redo to return again to wiggle.
Fatbursparken Tuesday the 17th August 2021 at 13.00
Meeting in this place, burdened by the rain shifted quickly, as our walking and familiar smiles felt as if we were at once and have always been dancing together. Our stories evolved but the connected feeling didn’t fade. A rhythm emerged in us, like the whole world, rain, passers-by voiced itself through us. Our body connected and vibrant pushing and pulling through the ground and spine, weaving a commonality between trees and puddles. I felt carried by this shared body, safe and cared for.
Wahlbergsgatan Wednesday the 18th of August 2021 at 12.00
Moving in proximity to this place, a city as a whole, a person as a body, an arm, a stone, a droplet of rain, a hair, a movement of air. Closeness has no proximity, we are estranged and feral, but familiar in so much as we move to gain closeness or distance. Today I felt something new amongst the continued approaching and receding, a shore line of; perform or be performed, empty or carry, open and close, inhale exhale…
Lappis Main Square Friday 20th of August at 17.00
Our dance is dramatic. Meaning is entangled with the dance itself. We go and go. The space feels like home. Comforting. The dance’s meaning becomes inherently freeing, it becomes an atmosphere. An atmosphere we are all guardians of. A collective meaning, released from the desire to seek or locate. Atmosphere for me could be similar to that of a forest. It’s calm. Like a forest everything is free to do as it wishes within the chaos of everything else doing what it wishes to do. It mutually cares and cares not, an acceptance, a shared contentment.
Odenplan Monday 23rd of August at 13.00
We are amidst a choreography so complex our bodily presence, reverberates like gossip between familiar acquaintances. We are slow together and passing recognition, subtle tonal shifting amongst the nervous system of the enlarged ecology of sensorial perception. Performing within our bodies, terror cells which coerce the perceived dominant order. Subtle shifts within the structure of our bodies, like temporary autonomous zones collapse the regulatory system of bodily representation. Socially estranged, politically obtuse, we envision a calm trusting vulnerability which opens up in a non-threatening manner, collapsing the violence of order.
Stadium Spökparken Humlegården Friday 27 of august 14.00
I recommend everyone meet in dance. We couldn’t dance because of bad timing, planning, lack of money, dying phones, anxiousness, and confusion. Cycling around the city waiting and searching for the dance, being interrupted and doubting the dance. But once we found the dance, we met in ways I can’t explain, in ways which speak a thousand words. I often feel in conversations the pauses and silences which are left between the words, open an ambiguous and yet extended space of meaning. A space which is infinite and yet holding. The dances do this too. I feel I can “say” things I can’t with words. It is closer to the truth but less vulnerable than expressing it verbally. And to not only search for these meanings alone in a studio but to do it amongst people, a public, with a friend, and with the city, these meanings normally felt implicitly are shared explicitly. These meetings have been increasingly meaningful, I lack the ability or possibility to give justice in documenting them, they are true only unto themselves. Which is probably why they are true. So if you really want to know what happened when I met Stockholm the summer of 2021, then I suggest you meet a friend somewhere public or outside and don’t speak just be together physically. It can be dance but truly it can be anything you need it to be, and after that it doesn’t matter if we call it dance or not, because we have met.
KTH main entrance Thursday 9th of September 18.00
I’m joyful, I’m full of questions, I’ve been challenging my values of dance, I’m inviting Stockholm to do the same. We are exposing what we can think of and imagine to physically exist here. I am clumsy, I am nervous, I am reluctant. We are playful, we are joyus. Kids are dancing, the world is moving, time is shared, this place is common. Dance is a funny thing to value in a world of productivity and utilitarianism. Just like those you walk across the square transferring themselves as efficiently as possible. Or using the square as an ideal meeting point, proximally positioned for all wishing to meet and socialise. But of course value arises in the dance like crystals from a rock. The values which construct our norms are challenged in our dancing bodies, and the space seems to release a sigh of relief. Unproductive, transcendental, anarchist we are valued because we are not valuable.
Credits
9th September with Hanna Jönsson and Jutta Sulkala.
27th August with Nellie Björklund
23rd August with Alice Mackenzie
20th August with Yari Stilo
18th August with Sunniva Vikør Egenes
17th August 2021 with Hanna Strandberg
16th August 2021 with Benjamin Pohlig
7th August 2021 with Robert Malmborg
4th August 2021 with Pontus Pettersson
2nd August 2021 with Lisa Schåman
8th July 2021 with Eleanor Bauer
6th July 2021 with Robin Dingemans
5th July 2021 with Emma Tolander
1st July 2021 with Siriol Joyner
Invitation
Replies
Ivar Los Park Thursday the 1st of July 2021 at 13.00
Dear Peter!
Thank you for your message and this writing
Evoking strong memories
City jigs yes!
And waving
And beautiful to keep addressing Stockholm
It was a warm and windy day
The vibe was of a dispersed attention- holiday focus- with the occasional bee line of a child or another dancer. Mostly soft horizon gazes. Dancing on a slope with grass and dust. I had an entrance and a few exits. To dance at a viewing point. Where we are invited to look into the distance. The city jig was joyful. There was almost a city tango on the chess board, do you remember?
Siriol Joyner
Wahlbergsgatan Wednesday the 18th of August 2021 at 12.00
Dear Peter,
thank you for such a lovely invitation. The dance made me think of dancing as wasteful in a very positive way: something that is so easy to toss around, and spill in any moment, really. “Have some”! It is precious because it can so easily exist, and not precious because it is “good” and even “interesting”.
Hope to catch you soon. Rest well!
Warm knus,
Sunni x
Sunniva Vikør Egenes
Wahlbergsgatan Wednesday the 18th of August 2021 at 12.00
Thank you to Peter and Sunni (and Benni) for a beautiful neighbourhood experience, it really made my day.
I love how people kept appearing, German bicycle friends, Lotta the lonely neighbour, and Hugo at the end there. Dance makes a place.
I guess it makes things strange in a kind of feral, heathen, here we are now kind of way. And I mean strange not as in alien but as in estrangement, I really like this definition of it:
By making things strange, the artist does not simply displace them from an everyday context into an artistic framework; he also helps to “return sensation” to life itself, to reinvent the world, to experience it anew. Estrangement is what makes art artistic; but, by the same token, it makes life lively, or worth living.
Boym, Svetlana. Architecture of the Off-Modern (2008) Buell Center/FORUM Project & Princeton Architectural Press, p. 18–19.
Thank you again my dance friends.
bx
Rebecca Hilton
Lappis Main Square Friday 20th of August at 17.00
Thank you for sharing your experiences with me and Stockholm! “it mutually cares and cares not” sounds something will stay with me to find its meaning! Lappis square is asking for more duets, let’s go as soon as you fell ready 
PETER 