These wonderful artists will join us at BIRCA this year to do research
ISLAND CONNECT ARTIST 26 FOR BIRCA
Artists selected from Denmark:
Cathrin Elenor Nørgaard
– ISLANDER FOCUS ON MALLORCA AND MARTINIQUE
Dancer and choreographer with a practice that explores sensuous, movement-based work rooted in nature, spirituality, and human connection. Grounded in vulnerability and cyclical rhythms, she invites audiences into shared ceremonial spaces of stillness, presence, reflection, and deep connection. She is currently based on the island of Bornholm, where her work is inspired by the island’s nature, force, spirit, and elements.
Daniel Norback
– ISLANDER FOCUS ON GOTLAND AND BORNHOLM
Daniel Norback makes performance productions between theatre, journalism and installation. He is born on the island of Gotland, Sweden. He has for the last 25 years been part of the free stage art milieau in Copenhagen. As member of the performance collective Bidt, as artistic leader of the group Norpol and as performer in various collaboration projects. He is experienced in improvisation, text production, choreography, documentary work, site specific and audience participation. www.norpol.org
Elise Bjerkelund Reine
– ARTISTIC RESIDENCY ON BORNHOLM AND SARDINIA
Elise is a circus performer and performance creator born in Norway based in Copenhagen. She works with experimental and political circus to push boundaries and norms, aiming to evoke and provoke emotions through taking performative risks. After 23 years in the trapeze, and as a contortionist in every conceivable position she uses her equilibrist circus language to explore topics often aimed at an adult audience. She is the founder of Feral Festival. https://elisereine.com/
Lenka Vořechovská
– CO-CREATION RESIDENCY ON TENERIFE
Her work around dance dramaturgy, dance writing, expanded performance formats and the art of working collectively. While focusing on the intersection of nature and culture, she explores diverse somatic and artistic practices that make the practitioners and/or observers shift their state from the daily one to one that allows and invites restfulness, complexity and compassion. She is born in Czech Republic and lives in Copenhagen.
Artists from other island coming to BIRCA/Bornholm:
Alexandra Deglise
– ISLANCER FOCUS FROM MARTINIQUE – ALSO GOING TO VIS
Multi-skilled nomad Martinican-American theatre artist. Playwright, stage director, actor, singer-songwriter, she is the artistic director of DALA CompaNY based in Martinique, and builds bridges with other cultures around the world.
Amano De Londra Miura
– ISLANDER FOCUS FROM IRELAND ALSO GOING TO LOFOTEN
Amano is a singer, poet, performing artist and Irish language arts facilitator with roots in Ireland and Japan. Her practice draws from the well of Irish traditional singing as a medium through which to explore contemporary ecologies, identities and spiritualities. She enjoys an expansive approach to genre, venturing between folk, electronica, spoken word, ritual and sean-nós styles as a solo artist and creative collaborator.
Flora Pesenti
– ISLANDER FOCUS FROM CORSICA ALSO GOING TO SUOMENLINNA
Flora is an italo-french writer and director of documentaries based in Corsica. Her work is based in studies in literature, philosophy and cinema and extensive world travels. Her work turns around the question on unity and mixes reality with fictional elements.
Simone Azzu/SHIP
– ARTISTIC RESIDENCY FROM SARDINIA
SHIP, founded by Simone Azzu and Martino Corrias, works across theatre, music, audiovisual installation, and ritual performance. Their work addresses historical memory, power, colonialism, and the relationships between community, territory, and capitalism.
The residencies on Bornholm will happen 11-24/5 and 3-16/8
BIRCA RITUAL RESIDENCY – 15-28/6
Alaya Riefensthal (DK), Liene Jurgelane (LAT/DK), Camilla Brogaard (DK/DE), Christine Gaski (NO/DK), Varste Mathæussen (GL/AX), Þóranna Dögg Björnsdóttir (IS)
Alaya Riefensthal (DK) Performance artist, scenographer and producer, artistic director of MYRKR since 2014. Works with darkness as a sensory, poetic space through walking performances, film and podcasts. Creates ritualized processes (e.g., full-moon rituals) as a central part of her practice. Interests: Ritual practice, night, dream-horror and the interweaving of art, natural science and magic.
Liene Jurgelane (LAT/DK) Artist, curator and anthropologist. Intertwines performance, singing traditions, rituals and multispecies collaborations with plants and trees. Creates sensory walks, participatory performances and workshops focused on mutual exchange. Interests: Earth-based wisdom traditions, plant-collaboration, community and ecological belonging.
Camilla Brogaard (DK/DE) Performance artist, philosopher and somatic facilitator. Works with collaboration, text, choreography and social organization with a focus on relational care. Researches discomfort, doubt and ritualized uncertainty as embodied, political and ethical practice. Interests: Ritualized doubt, mental rituals/OCD, somatic practice and social transformation.
Christine Gaski (NO/DK) Performing artist and artistic director/producer of Kompagniet ILT. Creates outdoor ceremonies and mythological nature experiences with active audience participation. Works regeneratively with nature as co-creator and draws on Sámi roots and circular thinking. Interests: Rites of passage, nature spirituality, menstrual rites and reconnecting humans with nature.
Varste Mathæussen (GL/AX) Actor trained at Tuukkaq Theatre, born in Saqqaq (Greenland). Freelance actor collaborating across Kalaallit Nunaat, the West Nordic countries and Scandinavia; tours widely. Has worked on pieces about rituals and symbiosis with nature. Interests: Ritual relation to Mother Earth, West Nordic cultural expressions and performative community.
Þóranna Dögg Björnsdóttir (IS) Trained as a classical pianist, now multidisciplinary. Works with sound, video and performance; focuses on listening as a form of knowing and on multisensory situations. Creates works where film, live music and sculpture are woven together, often inspired by folk and fate traditions. Interests: Listening, sound as an intuitive knowledge space, myths/folk beliefs and the interface between humans and the hidden world.
BIRCA KIDS 26 – 6-12/7
We have decided this year to expand and have a Norwegian perspective on the concept of inviting artists families in residency to investigate children’s creativity – something we have worked with and collected knowledge about sine 2020 with My Grönholt.
Katarina Skår Lisa
Is a trained choreographer, dance artist and teacher. Through her work she researches relationships between people, culture and nature. Poetically, she turns to the landscape and the more-than-human to create bonds between the body and nature. Her artistic projects, outreach and performances, as well as facilitation of movement spaces, are rooted in an interest in sensitivity, listening, and gratitude for all living beings. www.katarinalisa.com
Astrid Groseth
Is a dance artist, choreographer, therapist, mentor and mother. She leads and creates art in various formats — art events, performances, walks, text, photography, film, cultivation, infrastructure, bridge-building and outreach. Her work is relational and in dialogue with nature, the earth, people and all living beings. Astrid lives at and runs Strand Artist Residency—an interdisciplinary art arena for being, producing, creating and performing.
BIRCA OUTREACH – 31/8 – 13/9 PLUS RESEARCH IN APRIL-MAY
We have gathered a group of projects/artists interested in geopolitics, a research area we will continue the next couple of years. We also want to support Ukrainian artists as well as refugees residing in Bornholm and have therefore invited Daria Pugachova to create projects directly with them. Daniel Nordback who has been selected for the Islander Focus will also participate here.
Daria Pugachova is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, and art activist from Rivne, Ukraine. In her projects, Daria uses participatory practices to unite a community and integrate art into daily life. She studied architecture at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. From 2013 to 2019, she played drums in the female pop trio Panivalkova. Since the band split up, she has delved into the contemporary art field, focusing on performance, film, and socially engaged arts. On Bornholm she will engage together with American playwright Kevin Doyle in the Ukrainian refugees and help them articulate their situation on the island.
Kristian Husted is a documentarian working at the intersection of literature and performing arts. He has written drama, produced radio plays and published books—on topics including the financial crisis, artificial intelligence and the Danish asylum system. His work is critically investigative, humorous, curious and questioning. On Bornholm, in his project “Østersøer” he will investigate what, in light of the military threat from Russia, separates and connects the populations around the Baltic Sea—aside from the sea we share?
Helene Kvint works in her company KVINT with debate-generating feminist performing arts, always grounded in concrete reality, both the grand political and the intimate personal narrative. Her investigation on Bornholm focuses on right-wing feminism in the EU and, at the same time, on local folk dance.
The programs are upported by Creative Europe and The Danish Arts Foundation.