performance

Booklet, 2008,
In collaboration with Tijana Miskovic
A booklet on dance / clubbing used as a healing tool as well as a guideline on how to heal a city using these tools. Including historic perspective on dance as a political and spiritual medium for changing a situation, advice on how to set up an event in the city space.

Copenhagen, 2007
In collaboration with Arendse Krabbe
Workshop participants and collaborators: Aino Junka alias April, Honey Biba Beckerlee, Marie Plum, Elisabeth Victoria Friis, Emil Lykkegaard Hansen, Agnete Krogh Vinkler, Ole Kristensen, Louisa Yaa Aisin
Photographer: Daisy Løvendahl

A project and workshop on pole dance, gender and stripclubs that resulted in a one-night event called Open Pole Copenahgen which took place in a strip club where people were free to pole any way they wanted.

One night out of pure curiosity, my colleague and I decided to go to a stripclub. Disgusted and attracted at the same time, we were eager to find out what a strip club actually was. But defeat, and shame!! No one would let us through the door:
Doormen quotes

- Females aren’t allowed. You must be in the company of men – those are the rules

- You won’t be spending any money in the bar

- The strippers don’t want to dance in front of women

- No, you’re not allowed to enter

- I can’t let you in. We have seen some women assaulting strippers - they were jealous because their
boyfriends had watched them dance

- you will take too much attention which will affect the strippers income



These rejections spurred us to unearth what was going on behind the closed doors and red curtains.Therefore we started a project on strip, Burlesque, strip clubs and gender roles. We also worked and discussed with a professional stripper and set up a work shop.
All the participants were collaborators in the mission to uncover what this is all about? And how do we feel about it?
The group discussed, took strip lessons, practiced pole dance and tried to develop other ways than the classic lap dancing, even using light poles and traffic signs to perform on.

As a result of the research, Arendse Krabbe and I rented a strip club for one night. The idea was to make an open pole night (like the “open mike” concept), and this night everyone – women as well as men– were welcome. We were curious to find out how people would behave in this room with strong connotations, whether they would be eager to perform or eager to watch.
It turned out to be a great success – people were queuing for more than an hour to get in. But for the first couple of hours, the atmosphere was awkward – no one approached the pole – there was a sense of disappointment and shyness in the air – everyone expecting “the other” to entertain. Later, people started fooling around in the private rooms doing gymnastics and giggling. Then tourists and random visitors, unaware of the evening’s particular concept, started showing up, and in the end these were the ones opening the scene…
What was the outcome ofthis evening? Were we just boosting the ­­– at that time – emerging pole fitness trend? Whether we rocked the boat in this or that direction depends on the person who looks at the project, and on her or his opinion of the gender roles and the strip club concept – what we hoped for ourselves – and maybe even for our visitors, was to approach an understanding of the mystery of the intense power relations exhibited in this red velvety room.

Rundgang, The Royal Danish Academy of Art, 2008
In collaboration with artist Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld
Under the title “Keep Up Good Chi”, chi meaning energy in Chinese, and using Eastern health philosophy and Feng Shui, this was an attempt to improve the energy of the academy as a farewell gesture to the institution before graduating.
A banner with the words ”Keep Up Good Chi” was fastened to the front of the school building, a plastic paddling pool was placed in the yard ”to make the energy flow” and last but not least, the exhibition visitor had the possibility to help heal the institution using acupunctural needles on a model of the building.