introduction

My desire is to talk to people - over the course of the next couple of years (for example), who are currently involved with making dance, teaching dance, studying dance, thinking dance - about the work they do on a daily basis. I wish to understand (as much as I can) where does their drive (inspiration, need, calling) come from, how they discovered it and learned to nourish it; and what does that specific relationship between a dancer and their dance have to do with what dance supposedly is. Most importantly, I want to ask them how; or where they think they learned about dancing the most. In other words, I want to draw for myself and yourself a map (as clearly as I can) of the territory which stands between what is theoretically known or thought about dance, and what actually goes on in dance on a daily basis. In yet other words: I want to get to know, first hand, what is dance in the body-mind of the dancer and what are the actual every day needs of a dancer.

When I first came up with the idea of conducting these interviews, I immediately thought of Ulrika. Because I admire her work, because I know something about how she's working (the two go hand in hand, don't they?), and because she is currently affiliated with a number of local institutions and freelance organisations that are in different ways responsible for the becoming of contemporary dance in Stockholm (some make them, other teach people who will). Ulrika's experience with different institutions I though could prove valuable because of what I am interested in eventually getting at: which is an analysis of the institution from the point of view of the user, and not from the point of view of the person in power. (...but more on that in my next introduction.)

In the context of the Local Meetings I thought it interesting to talk to three women of three different ages. With each I talked about what brought them to dance, what dance made possible that other activites they engaged with didn't and what of dance was the most interesting to them.

The interview(s) you are about to read are edited from two or more hour long conversations.

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 interview with Ulrika Berg (pictured left) was conducted at Danscentrum Stockholm on March 29, 2015.

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pavleheidler: I wanted to start by asking you about your childhood. Where did you grow up?

ulrikaberg: I’m from up north, but not from far up north. I’m from a small town called Sandviken. Sandviken is considered to be a part of the North, even though it’s only about two hours away from Stockholm. It’s an industry town. My parents are not from there. They come from other small industry towns. They moved to Sandviken after they met, the year I was born. I have a bigger brother. We were brought up in the industry—working class surrounding. I think about that a lot, about the working class body; there’s something there for me in how that culture, you could say, cares about doing things physically. My family found that taking care of your body was important. My first physical interests were running and jumping; they were in these “plain” sport-like activities.

pavleheidler: Did you play sports?

ulrikaberg: No, not so much. Sports were not important. Running, skying, spending time outdoors. Being athletic - that’s what was important.

pavleheidler: Did you grow up in a house or an appartment?

ulrikaberg: In a chain-house. It’s a bunch of connected houses that come along with a community house. The community house is where the laundry room is, and the community room. When I was eight, we moved to a different area. To a pair-house. That’s where my parents still live.

pavleheidler: It was easy, then, for you to spend time outdoors.

ulrikaberg: Yes.

pavleheidler: Did you spend a lot of time with other kids?

ulrikaberg: Yes. And alone! I had always spent a lot of time alone. And I had always enjoyed that. But yes, there were always these groups of kids around, kids my age. People had kids my age.

pavleheidler: What was your relationship to your brother like?

ulrikaberg: He was very much somebody that I looked up to. I followed in his traces and in return, he took care of me. I’m sure he was not always nice to me, but… I thought very highly of him.

pavleheidler: Did he talk to you a lot? Did your parents talk to you a lot?

ulrikaberg: Yes.

pavleheidler: Did they read you bedtime stories?

ulrikaberg: I remember singing, and having somebody sit with me when I was getting ready to fall asleep. I don’t have a memory of reading bedtime stories, although we generally read a lot in my family, especially together with my mother. But yes: singing songs. And small talk. My favourite thing was when my parents told me stories from when they were kids. Both of my parents valued sitting down and talking — together. We always had these talks after breakfast, and in the weekends; we had these long conversations. And we talked about important things. Democracy. And politics. My parents were always politically engaged, and feel strongly about it.

pavleheidler: Did you stay that close as a family growing up?

ulrikaberg: Yes. We are a bit of an example of a strong nuclear family. In the same time as each one of us is very independent and has their own interests. Also, we can function equally well in different constellations. As two pairs, or a three and a one.

pavleheidler: How did you discover that you liked being alone?

ulrikaberg: When I was a kid I used to spend my summers at my family’s summer house. The way I think of it now is that summers stood for “endless time”. You spend all this time going to school and doing things , and then suddenly there is this huge amount of time at your disposal. Hangout time. We didn’t really do anything. We were at the summer house and there was the lake, and there was the forest. And there were other kids, and we sometimes played together — but then, there was just like nothing on the schedule. I think it had to do with my parents being quite good at floating. They would do their physical activities and then they would just sit around and read and talk and… Our neighbours at the time always had projects going on for themselves. They were building things and they were organised. Not us. I can imagine that that’s where I found my way of spending time with myself and activating myself in relation to nothingness. Over time, the nothingness became something.

pavleheidler: You said you moved house at the age of eight. How was that?

ulrikaberg: It was sort of organic because it was just as I was starting school, and a friend my age moved to the same area at the same time. It was not long before we had a social network developed around our friendship. I was mainly excited during that whole process.

pavleheidler: When you think back to those environments in which you grew up, how do you remember space?

ulrikaberg: I have very specific memories of the actual house, the first one I lived in. When I read books, for example, most of the time I place the plot inside that house. Unless I make a conscious choice to do otherwise, it’s that house that the story takes place in. That whole area in which I grew up — in it was a whole world. If I go back now, though, I’m surprised at how small, tiny, tiny the actual neighbourhood really is.

pavleheidler: And when you moved to the new house — was orienting yourself in that new house, physically — also a part of the excitement?

ulrikaberg: I was very busy figuring out what room to use in which way, and how to organise my things. Finding little private spaces to hide in or play in excited me. But it’s more difficult to relate for me to that place where we moved to because that’s still where I go, when I go home. Which means that as a grown-up, that space is still available to me — which means it’s not really a space of fantasy. But the first place that we lived in, that place is exclusively related to childhood memories. What is characteristic about that house is that it is functional, built at a human scale, and asymmetrical; there is no material division of space on the ground floor, for example. The kitchen leads into the living room leads into… The kitchen table was built into the house, for example. This means that everyone was always sharing the space when on the ground floor. It’s this sense of shared community space, everybody-doing-different-things-together way of being, and organising that I feel very comfortable with. Still.

pavleheidler: Coming from ex-Yugoslavia, I have to say that I react to the thought of community spaces, and of communities coming together. I react physically, emotionally to the notion of space that is made for circulation of many people that are trying to live together. The difference I notice between Sweden and Yugoslavia, in terms of communal mentally (or what’s left of it) is that Yugoslavian mentality is weaker on the “we are also individuals” side. We are traditionally more codependent. I would even say that we pride ourselves, to a certain extent, in being codependent. If somebody’s nostalgic about “the good, old times”, they are basically nostalgic of times in which codependency was more accepted; outspoken. At least I can say that I was brought up surrounded by that nostalgia. Blending in was a thing. I remember my mom telling me about growing up — her parents set this goal up in her behalf, and the goal was to blend in.

ulrikaberg: I recognise that. A typical thing that comes up in small Swedish towns is Jantelagen [Law of Jante]; that says “don’t think that you are any better or more than anybody else”. It’s all about blending in, sticking with the norm, not thinking that you could do anything; basically. It’s against individuality and success. Most of the time I hate that thing, and it’s something that I criticise and have struggled with - a lot. I see how much it has held me back. But there are also some good qualities to Jentelagen, I think. Listening, paying attention to others, being humble and understanding of everyone’s equal value. Those are things I value in others as well.

pavleheidler: Do you remember when was it that you became consciously aware of your body? When was it that you became aware that you can use it to do things, that you can sense things with it?

ulrikaberg:I seem to have early memories of sensorial explorations. Of sorts. When I talk about alone time, that’s what I connect it with a lot. Touching things, smelling, looking. I engaged in some kind of bodily explorations. I’ve also always been moving around. And dancing. I can’t locate a moment in time and say: that’s when that happened! Also because I feel like that’s always been my way of engaging with the world. Going, lifting, trying. Not staying outside, observing, from afar - but engaging physically.

pavleheidler: Would you say touch was a dominant sense?

ulrikaberg: Yeah, I think so.

pavleheidler: Could you compare for me, just as an exercise, how you relate to your senses? Could you list them according to how impressive they are?

ulrikaberg: I think smell is probably the least impressive, or at least that is the sense that I am the least aware of and have cultivated the least. I think taste is quite impressive, high up on the list. I would say: touch [being the most impressive], sight, hearing, taste, and smell. Kind of traditional, don’t you think? Except that touch is higher than others. I’m very sensitive when there is a lot of information in my sensorial environment. Perception overload, is that a thing? A lot of sounds and visual information can make me sick. Going to Gröna Lund, the amusement park: that’s my nightmare. Five minutes at the amusement park and I want to spend the rest of my day closed off in a dark room.

pavleheidler: Do you think that you were always sensitive like that, or did you grow more sensitive as you grew older?

ulrikaberg: I think it’s both. But I also think I always liked being kind of quiet, and slow.

pavleheidler: What kind of high school did you go to?

ulrikaberg: I went to a musical high school in my hometown, to which people came to study from all over the place. Money was invested in that education, so we got a lot of good teachers, and had lots of shows. Singing and theatre and dancing; mostly jazz dance. So, it was a show — musical gymnasium. Which means we were also studying the other subjects.

pavleheidler: And how did you get to choose to go there?

ulrikaberg: I had been dancing for a couple of years before and I had this show group together with my friends and we spent more or less all of our time making shows. We performed everywhere. In the church, on the streets, at parties. When the opportunity presented itself, I auditioned and got in and then - I went for it.

pavleheidler: That means that your first contact with dance was immediately with performing it?

ulrikaberg: Yes. Very much performing, in the sense of doing a dance, frontal, people looking at you.

pavleheidler: Did you enjoy being in front of people?

ulrikaberg: Yes. I enjoyed being in front of people. As much as I enjoyed making things. And spending time. My friend had this small space in her basement that we took over. We spent hours in that basement, playing music, making things up.

pavleheidler: Did you invent everything yourself or did you draw from sources?

ulrikaberg: We didn’t think about stealing, but we did work off anything we could get our hands on. I think we usually made our own dances, though.

pavleheidler: And what happened when you finished high school?

ulrikaberg: Then I moved to Stockholm and went to a one year long preparatory dance education, where you had to do basic ballet, contemporary, and jazz. And flamenco. I eventually applied for Danshögskolan to become a dance teacher — that was before it became DOCH, when it was at another location. I then got accepted to both Danshögskolan and Balletakademin. I chose to go to Danshögskolan. At that point there was only the dance teacher education; and a one year education for dancers. My main subject was jazz dance. Which means that I’m a jazz dance teacher. That’s my education actually. I almost never taught a jazz class.

pavleheidler: Did you have work on the side?

ulrikaberg: There was not much space for it. I just studied. My interests changed throughout the education. After all, it was four years long. I started the program thinking that I wanted to go develop my jazz dance, but then I met other things. I think it was there that I first realised how much I liked passing through a creative process. First process I went through was with Cilla Roos! We were doing Per Johnsson repertory. I was very excited to understand that you could work in different ways and go into the process and through different layers of analysis.

pavleheidler: How did you start organising yourself in the professional environment?

ulrikaberg: Since the time within the program was so organised [controlled, filled up] I had the feeling that within that time I did not have time enough to figure out what I wanted. I had a really strong need to do something in a new context, somewhere else — where I didn’t have anybody to depend on. I wanted to go alone somewhere. That was my top priority. So I left for New York. It was in New York that I started to understand what I was interested in. Of course I found some clues during my education, but… I chose to go to New York because I thought I wanted to dig more into contemporary jazz, but I ended up taking only one contemporary jazz class. During the two years that I stayed in New York I learned that I could work professionally with dance, not only with teaching dance. It’s like I worked my way through getting that dancer’s identity. And it was a huge thing for me because I was not — especially then at the teacher’s education, it was just like: you’re a teacher, and that’s something else than being a dancer; and you’re not an artist, really. There was a very clear division. Or I perceived it as a clear division.

pavleheidler: What did that transition from teaching to working with dance, with art do? Practically speaking?

ulrikaberg: I started organising my time in a different way. Previously, I was used to taking five classes a day, but now I would go to this one class and then spend time reading, writing, or walking. I would go see shows. In the beginning it was really important to take class, to come access across so much information. But eventually things changed. I started working in projects that were lead by a specific choreographic idea…

pavleheidler: What made that transition possible, do you think?

ulrikaberg: I think it was the change in the context that was really important. Not being surrounded by people that knew my background. Not being surrounded by expectations of what to be or how to change. I felt it was more possible for me to change [evolve] in that environment. I also knew I was not going to stay there. Which meant I knew I was going to come back; but with a different view-point. At that time it felt necessary to wash education off me. And of course I’m still very influenced by that education. And thankful for it. But then I thought it was necessary to change identity, to change my understanding of the methods that I was taught; about how to teach, and how to work. So that I could eventually be able to [or be free to] continue! I didn’t want to stop dancing, working, learning; I didn’t want to say no to all the experiences I already had just because I wanted to move on, to transition, to transform something. It was some kind of… OK, washing off, but still affirming some kind of interest in what I’ve been through, or come from. I see that now as the transition that happened in New York. But really, it wasn’t until 2009 — until after I had been back in Stockholm for a couple of years, working — that things started to make sense. At first, I had quite a lot of unpaid jobs, I was changing my mind, had lots of interests — in the same time as I was trying to stay in conversation with people, and stay updated with what was going on in the scene. Still, I could not really find the right something that would made it OK for me to continue dancing. I couldn’t find what made sense. And then I did the solo project with Deborah Hay. Suddenly things made complete different sense, and I could stay interested in what I was doing. I don’t know if it was getting all that language, or those tools, performance tools. It must have been that I learned it was OK to not only do things, but also perceive, and sense things in the same time as you do them — which was definitely something I was already doing all the time, speaking of childhood, right? — only now I could give it language. And with language came conformation. After that, my way of working changed completely.

pavleheidler: What were your physical interests before meeting Deborah?

ulrikaberg: Back then I was relating much more to shape, and aesthetics in your definition of the word [aesthetics = what things look like, eye based relation]. I would say that Klein technique was my technical base, but in terms of dancing New York was so much about… self-expression, actually. But I wanted to pass through that, and to exhaust that thing of dancing nicely, and to get through to the swush-iness; so that I could eventually be able to introduce sensing and perception into the actual work I was interested in doing.

pavleheidler: And when you met Deborah, what part of your work did the language Deborah passed on address?

ulrikaberg: I think it was partly my philosophical view on things that got affirmed. And then it was also the sensorial and perceptual; sensual experience of moving and perceiving and noticing; including. Including much more of what I sensed into my dancing, that made a lot of sense to me. And then there was something about listening, and slowing down. Up until that point dancing was such an athletic experience, with a little bit of zooming in. That got refined. I was establishing a more sophisticated relation to my dancing. I mean, zooming in, sensing, perceiving was something I was doing a lot in my life, but my life at that time was separate from dancing. I can also see that I made some kind of separation between art and dance. I remember having strong interests in art, and strong physical interests. When I started to dance, dancing was strongly connected to my physical interests, but not so connected to art. It was after my education that the two started to merge. That sounds crazy when I say it, but yeah.

pavleheidler: What changed about how you were organising yourself and relating to others after you had this experience with Deborah?

ulrikaberg: I think that my process of working with materials changed. And the gap between things became less important. I started to become aware of the one interest that was going through different areas I was working through. For example, before I used to keep these clearly separated: teaching was one thing, and then dancing and performing was something else. Now, these fields came closer together so that the processes that I was involved in as a dancer started to feed the teaching, and the teaching in return fed the artistic processes. What also changed was my relationship to time and responsibility. I became aware that when leading a group, for example, my sense of time was different from when I was alone in the studio. I realised I have so much more patience with not knowing, when taking care of myself. I have patience for experimenting. But when I’m leading a group of people, or when I’m responsible for facilitating a learning situation…

pavleheidler: What makes it possible for you to be more allowing when you’re alone?

ulrikaberg: It’s this thing of being on the inside, or on the outside looking in. When I’m proposed with a material or an idea, and when I’m given the responsibility to work on it, or within it - then I can dig into that world and explore it. I don’t question the world’s frame. I work within the frame, and I try to push the frame in different directions; but I don’t question it. This is totally different from when I myself am responsible for the frame in relation to other people - for example, in a teaching situation. Then even if I go into the exploration myself, my sense of time is completely influenced by the fact that I’m working towards a goal: the experience needs to make sense. And I have to make sure that the process becomes impressive or valuable enough for somebody else to engage in. The experience needs to feel like it’s leading somewhere. It needs to feel like: oh, maybe we’ll learn something here.

pavleheidler: Just shortly, when your exploration is organised by others, when somebody else is responsible for you: do you expect of them what you think you are expected of when you are the one that’s responsible?

ulrikaberg: No. Not really. And I don’t even think that I’m expected of… yeah. That’s something I’m trying to work around, I’m trying to step back from that. Sometimes, for example, I will feel that someone who took responsibility is not dealing with it well, I will feel that the direction is too vague, or that the goal is unclear and I’ll get annoyed. And I will develop an opinion, a critical thought. But I can be OK with that. I think that the expectation I place upon myself is a bit more square. Strict, maybe.

pavleheidler: We were talking about education now, is that correct? How about if we translate this conversation into the artistic realm. What would be the same, and what would be different about how you deal with being in different positions?

ulrikaberg: Very good question. Ehm. I think that depends on what the artistic process is, is it leading up to some kind of product or result; which in most of the time is the case. It also depends on how far into the process that is. Yeah, I think that here again we can talk about time. When I’m involved in an artistic process, I think I allow things to happen more as you go. I am more willing not to have a plan. So you start with something, and then this text, and this thing, and that conversation, and this practice, and this idea. I don’t mind that the process floats through these different stages. Na, na, na. I’m thinking that there’s nothing that says the same thing couldn’t be done in a learning situation together with a group of people. But most of the time I think that then the success of such a process depends on the size of the group. And if you’re working with a crowd that can have these kinds of conversations, or not. What matters is whether you can hear what’s on other people’s minds.

pavleheidler: Did you notice what kind of influence the space that you’re working in can have on what’s possible creatively?

ulrikaberg: Yes! And what time of the day! Very much. For example, CCAP I feel as an in-between space; it almost feels like a living area. It almost feels like I go to my workspace. I feel that at DOCH as well, but DOCH’s such a large institution, and hosts so many people. But, for example, I feel it really helpful to go to CCAP in the afternoon, when I’ve been working at DOCH in the morning. Means a lot, to change space. I’m doing that right now, working in the studio by myself at CCAP. One of the things I like about that space is how dynamic I find my working in it; I can start very slow and then work intensely, and then go out and do something on the computer and grab a book, then walk back in to the studio. I really appreciate how the space makes me work… If I have the possibility to book a long working sessions at CCAP, for example, I do. This feeling, I think, also comes from how we’ve been working there recently; in, and as a group. Most of the time we didn’t have strict, set schedules; it was more like there was a time-span within which we decided to work. I think that things evolved very organically through the way we all individually and together organised ourselves within that time-span. In comparison, for example, when I’m here [in Danscentrum Stockholm] and what I have is a two hours slot? That makes my work more efficient. I make a work plan, and I work through it. Sometimes that efficiency is necessary and great, but I also tend to miss things along the way; things that I don´t give myself time to process. And if I have a longer period together with people in Klotet [Dansens Hus], for example, then I know that it’s us, and that we’re there for a while. And you’re aware that you’re sharing the space with others, and you’re aware of others that are coming in, doing their thing, and then leaving. But Svarta huset, at Telefonplan! That was an interesting experience in terms of space. Because most of the time that space is not in use. Definitely not for performing. Maybe some exhibitions get put up there. But most of the times it’s empty. So that was really moving into the space not knowing how to do that. There was nothing there waiting for you that will tell you how to behave. Figuring out how to inhabit a space whilst doing work — organising, and relating through doing, and through doing, figuring out what kind of place this can be: that was very interesting.

pavleheidler: Did the demands of Svarta huset support the work you were doing?

ulrikaberg: Very much. It was helpful to not have a choice, but get away from habits. Because, how do you even prepare for a show in such a place? How do you train? Socialise? Going to the Danscentrum, for example, and rehearsing. Just thinking about it, I already think in the format that tells me how to organise myself. And then you have to sort of push; you need to actively change it in order for it to become something else. In Svarta Huset there is not as much to push away from since the place is not coded as a performance space or studio or theatre. You start making work and preparations for work in a slightly different manner, making things up as you go.

pavleheidler: And what happens when you travel?

ulrikaberg: If there is a residency situation, I love that. That’s all about staying within the process all the time. It’s super intense, and usually really interesting for the work. Not always good for the work, though! But you work a lot and then you get out and it’s like: what the fuck’s just happened? And going into environments that you don’t know, to an unfamiliar Berlin studio and working. It’s the small changes that happen to how you would organise yourself by default that make the difference; because you don’t know where to put your coat, or where to make the coffee. The time that it takes to reorganise in a new space does something interesting, creatively speaking.

pavleheidler: In order to be able to negotiate all these spaces and in order to be able to negotiate the difference between fluctuating and moving, and movement and then rigidity.. Where do you think is your anchor? Or even what is your anchor?

ulrikaberg: One anchor could be the people that I have a continuous conversation with. There’s a history of talking and sharing artistic process and experiences there, and a certain resonance in the language. It’s a community of people that I can go back to and I think with, share my observations and reflections with. That’s really important for me, both socially and artistically. And while working I have a strong trust in the the doing… I trust that if there’s a clear enough proposal or format, that the doing of it, or the doing within it will inform me of what it is to become. I trust in the staying in the becoming of it. That’s a trust that I have worked to build up. And I think I need to remind myself about it all the time because I tend to question it, and become insecure. I’ll ask a question, for example: Am I doing it, is this the instruction and am I doing it right? Then I have to remind myself that yes, it’s there. I have read the instruction, the text, whatever needed to be read; I have it, I am doing it! I have to immerse myself in the work and enjoy the experience, so that doing doesn’t become just fulfilling a task. It’s a bit along the lines of what Deborah calls: get going and call it. And along the way: ask the body, not all the answers are in the conscious mind. This trust has not always been there.But I think it’s an anchor. A trust in the physical exploration of the thing. Not saying that it’s anything, not calling it names before I have experienced it for what it is sensorially, perceptually.

pavleheidler: These days, when you talk about that physical thing - what are some of the key words, or concepts that come to mind?

ulrikaberg: I think that I always have these three elements involved in moving: one is the thinking process, one is some kind of sensorial input or process, and one is the doing. Of course, they go together. I’ve had these three models - thought, action and perception; that’s one little group. And then there’s movement, sensation, and imagination. And they are very wide concepts, but they are still specific enough for me so that I could go into one, then the other. Then let them bounce off each other. I can trace, for example, the thought as it becomes an action, or the action as it informs the thought. It’s always three; it’s never two things that I’m working with. Three is a dynamic that’s not binary, and I’m strongly attracted to it. There must always be a third option. Even when I don’t know what are the other two things are, there has to be a third.

pavleheidler: I will not try to put a ribbon on this conversation, but rather say thank you very much. That was very… I am with sense of accomplishment.

ulrikaberg: Thank you very much. Very nice.

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a great big thank you to Danscentrum Stockholm for all the generosity and help they provided myself, Francesco Scavetta and Vitlycke - Centre for Performing Arts, IDOCDE and LEAP projects with.