Paulina Rewucka, in collaboration with Sissel & Janne Weidinger
Music designer:
Dave Black
This work is about chosen solitude and feelings which occur in the realm between a child and becoming a grown up. It is an attempt to approach the rollercoaster of a lifetime.
“Number 1 girl.
The pump is out of order.
These hands are made for walking.
Is there anything you would wanna say to your surroundings or to the world if you would have space and they would listen?
No matter what you’re going through, it’s gonna get better at some point. Well… we’ve all gone through something tough before but you will find your way again.
What do you say when I say fan-club?
K-pop. Korea…
…here I come!
Stay yourself. Don’t care too much what other people say. Don’t change for other people.”
Welcome to the Normal People party - a swing with power structures
Welcome to the Normal People party – a swing with power structures
Facts
Welcome to the Normal People's Party:
IDE/FIMD's first performing arts performance
Background for the performance
IDE has investigated the historical echoes of how people with disabilities have been excluded from and shunned by society over time. The performance stages the way we interact with people who deviate from the norm, highlighting how we all carry the historical burden.
Testimonial:
“Welcome to the normal people’s party is a touching story that through dance gives insight into some of the personal struggles one can face in the realization of living with a disability.” Signe Daugaard
The performance was produced in 2014-15 with dancers: Cath Borch Jensen & Annika Kompart, and was restaged in 2020 with Josefine Bjørklund & Clara Wärme
Line and Thea are both young women in their 20s who have found joy and each other through dance. Line lives with Down syndrome and the two met through the Association for Integrated Modern Dance, which aims to create spaces and dance communities for people with and without different physical abilities.
The performance highlights how dance can be an important and safe outlet for self-expression and acceptance of those who deviate from the norm – in one way or another. Those who deviate from the normative body, the normative mind.
And what we can all learn by making room on the dance floor for those who are not normally invited onto it.
In a relationship between an able-bodied person and someone with a visible disability, there is usually a clear expectation of who is providing care and who is receiving it. But in dance, we meet and exchange it as equals.
Testimonial:
“In August 2024, a small group of young people from Levuk went to Christians Havns Torv to experience the dance performance Holding the Line, where Line, who attends Levuk club, together with her dance partner and companion Thea showed how dance and movement can embody the story of your own identity.
We also saw how a relationship between two people can be communicated non-verbally to an audience. The performance was both touching and funny. With Line and Thea’s powerful and talented expressions, we got caught up in seeing who they were individually and together. The strong bond between the two dancers became clear to us as an audience.
At the end of the performance, we were invited to the floor where we were all connected with some amazing sweaters with very long sleeves, keeping us together in groups that could influence each other’s movements. It was hard to stop again, because it was as if what we had experienced between Line and Thea had spread like ripples in the water; in dance there is room for all of us and we are created in relationship with others. Thank you for a powerful experience!” Lotte Skovdal, Theater educator at Levuk
Bjarke Østergaard (People Like Us) & Cath Borch Jensen, Lisa Dahlkild, Bettina Stoholm, Malene Becker (FIMD)
Choreographer:
Janne Weidinger Kristensen
music:
Gotan Project - Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)
MangoTango (duration 7,5 min)
A fusion between modern dance and Tango, in collaboration between FIMD and Mikrobryggeriet PeopleLikeUs (PLU)’
The performance was shown 5 times; in Dansekapellet and at Friday Night Sharing, at Folkemødet on Bornholm for DUOS and PLU and at the opening of a Mikkeler branch in Kødbyen
Where do we go from here? -is a performance that makes room for the bodies that stand out from the body we normally see on stage and in society, and gives the audience an experience of what it is really like to live with a limited body.
About the show: Where do we go from here? led the audience on a physical walk in an audience costume where the audience was tied together. The audience started at Bispebjerg Cemetery and wandered through Dansekapellet, where studios and corners of the house take the form of personal stories from performers, many of whom live with a disability.
Where do we go from here? gives those we don’t normally see and hear on stage space, room and narrative time, and the audience is put in a limiting situation while touching on topics that for many people can be uncomfortable.
Where do we go from here? -is a socially critical dance performance from those who are not normally welcome on stage.
Throughout the traveling performance, the audience got insight into the personal stories of the dancers; Bettina who fell off a horse in her mid-20s and was revived, Sandie who is plus-size and takes up more than one seat on the bus, Lisa who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for 25 years, which has suddenly been put on hold. What they all have in common is that being able to express and develop themselves through dance has had a huge impact. Lisa attributes her recovery to dancing and persistent training.
These are just some of the stories we will tell through the dance performance Where do we go from here – and which will help open up the bodies and stories you can see and experience in Danish performing arts.
The performance took place in and around Dansekapellet in week 15 2024, with around 150 paying audience members. We welcomed everyone, including people in wheelchairs, visually impaired, blind and caregivers. If you are hearing impaired, you can request to have the text transcribed.
Testimonials:
“This is one of the most powerful things I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you.”
“It is such a loss not knowing how wide the variety is of ‘what is a body’, how a body can look and function. It is only ‘abled-bodies’ loss. Thank you for this beautyful performance”
“Highly captivating show that deeply captures you as an audience. I´m in awe of the cast and what i have withnessed”
“I am moved. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for your courage. My body takes care of me. My body is a good body. I take that with me. Thank you”
“Beauty has many aesthetics”
“Intense and beautyful and full of love”
“A tribute to humanity, in all its places and times. Feeling very greatful. Feeling generosity in a shared space”
“Moving, touching, powerful, beauty in emotion, hurt in limitation, gently and with sharpness pointing to my privillige….. it was such a touching experience, and it is so powerful”
“Thank you for taking us through this beautiful and touching performance, with all its unique parts. It was heartfelt, playful, fragile and brave. I am cheering on all you artists, and please create more integrated and accessible art pieces”
Some of Anybody With Any Body’s photos have been turned into an EXHIBITION with support from Bispebjerg Bydelspulje.
In collaboration with Culture employees Anna Klarlund and Mette Gamst, 5 beautiful photos by Bahadir Badi Berber have been carefully selected and edited and text has been created so that the exhibition can stand alone from the solo dance performance Anybody With Any Body.
The exhibition can be viewed:
2022-23; Rentemestervej library, Copenhagen. Nv.
2024: In Dansekapellet during festival PÅ TVÆRS
2025: Folkemødet, Bornholm
“I was drawn to the representation of real bodies and the activist tone behind it. EXHIBITION makes me think because of the personal insight into the dancer’s body, emotions and vulnerability. It creates reflection, and probably also questions for the individual who experiences it” Lærke
“I was attracted to a woman (Dancer Sandie) who dares to stand by herself. EXHIBITION encourages us to look like and be who we are. It sets thoughts and reflections in motion” Dorte
Foreningen for Integreret Moderne Dans i Danmark (FIMD)’s dance performance Anybody With Any Body is aimed at young people and focuses on a diverse expression in movement with a different body on stage.
Anybody With Any Body invites you to experience a dancer who challenges normality and questions the idea of the aesthetically perfect body.
Where are the fat bodies? The slow bodies? The scarred bodies? …
…Who fits in? What is normal?
Anybody with Any Body was created out of a need to highlight all bodies as valuable and to show that bodies are different.
The audience gets an insight into, and perhaps a new perspective on, which movements are valuable and which bodies have the right to be shown on stage… and maybe even a newfound acceptance of their own body?
One of FIMD’s goals is to demystify taboos around different bodies, thus helping to break down the distance between people.
The following talk touches on topics such as; doubt, fear, vulnerability, shame, norms, prejudice and lust for life – in a world of constant editing and striving for perfectionism.
Lars Tagensbo School:
“What courage Sandi has to be so open and vulnerable in front of her audience”
Dorte Østergaard
“It’s the most beautiful show FIMD has created so far”
Janne Weidinger Artistic Director “As an artist and citizen of Denmark, I miss diversity. Integrated dance initiates change that can inspire our society collectively. We can help break the current normative and give the audience ‘a new leg to dance with’”
Dancers: Malene Becker, Lisa Dahlkild, Cath Borch, Bettina Stoholm & Jerry Jensen
“WHO AM I? WHO ARE YOU? -WITHOUT ME…”
-is a dance event and an artistic exploration of who we are as people and what we initiate and mirror, how we act and react when we encounter each other’s differences and similarities. The event focuses on the integration and joy of diverse expression in movement, with differently functioning bodies.
On stage there are 4 dancers with different abilities, a walker, a wheelchair and a prosthetic hand. ….
On August 23, 2019, FIMD performed at the Culture Night in Kolding, and it was a great experience for us Koldingers.
A few minutes into the performance, I thought that the group deserves both attention and great recognition for what they can do.
A dance performance consists of many elements: the choreography – the dancers’ skills – the music – the stage – the audience’s participation. For me, it all came together in a beautiful and higher unity.
The 4 performers each filled their own space on stage, and they performed with the calmness and confidence that characterizes very well-crafted performances. The performance has a fine choreography that kept our attention. The fact that the audience was invited onto the stage and briefly given the opportunity to dance themselves was received with enthusiasm.
FIMD dancers have different abilities. The performance immediately convinced us that you can perform dance even if you have a disability. But…
The show is much more: It is an aesthetically beautiful performance with a high artistic level.
And – yes. Our boundaries and expectations are being pushed. We’re not used to seeing a prosthesis being taken on and off and a wheelchair user being out of the wheelchair for periods of time, but here it seems natural and in no way awkward. Nor should we underestimate the courage it took for the dancers to put themselves at the center of everyone’s attention – perhaps especially in the beginning.
As I said: A great performance with a high level.
If you get the chance, I would recommend everyone to see FIMD’s performance.
“Who am I? Who are you? – Without me…”
You will have a great experience.
Henning Laursen, Kolding
Performances of “Who am I?” in 2019:
December; Frederiksberg City Hall’s Volunteering Award on International Disability Day
Tagensbo school
Sydhavns Compagniet
BLU for TV2
Strandparkskolen
November; Utterslev school Kbh. Nv.
October; Hjernesagen conference; Move the brain
Nyager school; Theme weeks Total Normal
Haslev Sports Efterskole
Egmont Folk High School in Hou
September; “Sct. Hans race” in Roskilde
The Compass/IF Giants
Christianshavns Torv
HF Aftermath
Geelsgårdskolen
August; Kolding Culture Night
June; “Store Torv” in Rønne, Bornholm
May; Grundtvig Church’s Parish Council party, Bispebjerg
April; “Friday Night Sharing” in Dansekapellet
February; Bispebjerg Hjemmet
Performances with “Who am I” in 2018:
December; On International Disability Day, Rentemestervej Library
September; Copenhagen Fusion Festival
August; Christianshavns Torv, for Christianshavns Library
