Photos by Benedikte Esperi
Ami Skånberg was invited by Gun Lund to intro-dance to the work Transmission. Ami, in turn, invited flutist Anna Svensdotter – they have now been collaborating for twelve years. Ami chose three dance feathers, designed by her sensei Nishikawa Senrei. One blue, one brown, and one red. Abstract patterns that engaged with both Lars Englund‘s sculptures and Finn Pettersson’s and Lars Persson’s lights and video.
My film Ancestor, premiered in 2022 at Dansfilmfestivalen , was selected for the IV International Ecoperformance Film Festival 2024 and will be screened on these venues:
Cine Satyros Bijou – São Paulo, Brazil – May 30 to June 2
Brown Arts Institute – Granoff Center for the Creative Arts – Providence, USA – June 4-6
Montfleuri sur Mer – Pinamar, Argentina – June 7th to 9th
Bucharest National Dance Center – Bucharest, Romania – June 11-14
Teaser:
The film has previously been screened at
Dansfilmfestivalen in Gothenburg, FilmFest by Rogue Dancer, Manifest Dance-Film Festival in Pondicherry, India, Nordic Summer University in Oslo, Venice Shorts, Berlin International Art Film Festival, and FICCE, Buenos Aires.
Performers: Douglas Rosenberg, Ami Skånberg, Nishikawa Senrei, Linnea Johansson
Edit: Rasmus Ohlander
Text and director: Ami Skånberg
Music: Kajsa Magnarsson
Photo: John Areblad
Produced and distributed by
Studio BuJi, Gothenburg
with support by
Adlerbertska Forskningsstiftelsen
Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Konstnärsnämnden
Jonsereds Herrgård
Villa Martinson
Filmed on location
in Kyoto (2011), Hyltebruk (2017) and Jonsered (2021).
CAST
Douglas Rosenberg
as
Andreas Jakobsson (1826-1907)
Nishikawa Senrei (1945-2012 )
Linnea Johansson (1924-2017)
Ami Skånberg (1967-)
Additional photo by Folke Johansson, Palle Dahlstedt
Assistant: Karin Brygger
PUBLIC WALK with WAP24
Denna dag går vi Vikingaleden etapp 1 som också är ett stycke pilgrimsled. Vi gör detta i omvänd ordning, mao från hållplatsen Fjällbacka till Grisslehamn. Vi får ta del av vandring som konstnärliga metoder. Juanma González leder oss i Pilgrimsvandring. Ami Skånberg har hand om uppvärmningen i gång tekniken Suriashi och då vi kommer fram till Grisslehamn tar John Schuerman med oss i en vandring på plats.
Datum: 21 maj
Tid: 08:10 Fjällbacka (Norrtälje sl 637), se nedan.
Varaktighet: 1/2 dag eller heldag
Denna dag är ägnad konst och gående vi är flera konstnärer som sträcker ut vår hand till andra konstnärer och nyfikna att vandra i lugnt tempo med oss.
Program
1) Ami Skånberg, Suriashi vid Fjällbacka busshållplats.
2) Juanma González, pilgrimsleden/vikingaleden 8 km
3) John Schuerman intervention i Grisslehamn
4) Gör en heldag och fortsätt till Singö alt gå Roslagsleden till Älmsta eller hoppa på bussen så blir det en halvdag.
Osa
Är du intresserad låt oss gärna veta så snart som möjligt. info @ bjorkokonstnod.se (ämnes rad: 21 maj)
Vi har per 6e maj 6 deltagare registrerade fler är välkomna!
Ta med
Trailsnacks, vatten, stadiga skor, badkläder, regnkläder
Vi lunchar i Grisslehamn (medhavd eller köp något på plats)
Click to make map larger
Vikingaleden/Pilgrimsleden, Fjällbacka mot Grisslehamn (karta o beskrivning), 8 km >>>
Roslagsleden, Grisslehaamn-ÄlmstaEtapp 11 Grisslehamn – Sandviken 20 km >>>
Etapp 10 Sandviken – Älmsta 4 km >>>
Observera att vi går i omvänd ordning mot vad kartorna föreslår. Please note we walk in reversed direction.
Map from Naturkartan/Outdoormap >>>
Pilgrim
Vikingaleden är en del av St Olavsleden som kommer från Åbo och går vidare till Trondheim
The Viking Trail is part of the St. Olavsleden, which comes from Turku and goes on to Trondheim
Attending Artists
Juanma González, Marina Pugina, Jolene Mok, Cliff Andrade, John Schuerman, Vincent Stangl, Ami Skånberg, Anna Viola Hallberg
If you are not an artist you are still welcome to join but please RSVP.
The Public Program ”Walk with Us” is part of the WAP24 program at BKN.
I Samverkan med ABF NORRTÄLJE
Date: May 21, 2024
Duration: 1/2 or full day
Time: 08:10 Fjällbacka
Departure from BKN with bus 636 at 07:17. Change in Älmsta to 637. (see bottom page for return schedule)
This day is dedicated to art and walking, we are several artists who extend our hand to other artists and the curious to walk at a leisurely pace with us.
Program
1) walk with Ami Skånberg, Suriashi
2) walk with Juanma González, pilgrimage trail/vikingaleden 8 km.
3) walk with John Schuerman (co-curator WAP24 June) (4×50) intervention in Grisslehamn.
4) Optional continue to Singö or walk Roslagsleden to Älmsta. Hope on the bus and go home.
What to bring
Trail snacks, water, sturdy shoes, swimwear, rainwear.
We will have lunch in Grisslehamn (bring or buy something on site)
Rsvp
Are you interested please let us know as soon as possible. info @ bjorkokonstnod.se (subject line: May 21)
WAP Curators and instigators >>>
Ami Skånberg & Anna Viola Hallberg.
WAP24 Co-Curators >>>
John Schuerman WAP May-June Edition and Antonia Aitken is for August-September
Research Catalogue, Expositions
WAP24 – to be published
WAP23 >>>
Below schedule for return to Björkö
Title:Current
Trt: 08:20 (10.05)
Genre: video essay, non verbal, documentary, screen dance, visual anthropology
Media: 16:9, 4K 3840×2160, color, sound
Music: Mats Skånberg
Dance/Choreography: Ami Skånberg (SE) and Alfiyanto Wajiwa (ID)
Camera/Editing: Anna Viola Hallberg
Concept & Producers: BERG
Preview video: contact BERG DUO via Björkö Konstnod or Filmfreeway.
Keywords: ecopolitics, water protection, activism, ecoperformance, gentrification, biopolitics, ancestral, Ciganitri, West Java, Indonesia, video essay
SYNOPSIS:
Current is a screendance piece made in the village Ciganitri, West Java. It is an encounter between four spaces, two dancers and a camera during two afternoons. Current creates layers of time through dance improvisation – in between reality and fiction – performed as a ritual for resistance in a place where rice fields, fish ponds and gardens currently are replaced by fancy buildings and crowded highways. It is the first encounter between a Swedish and an Indonesian choreographer where the only shared language is dance. The movements are an immediate response to space, bursting of ideas, outpouring of dreams, while following currents of biopolitics and ancestral life through a visual journey.
BERG DUO:
Current is a project by BERG, Swedish artists Ami Skånberg & Anna Viola Hallberg Since 2022 they have done workshops, interventions, collective performances and turned them into video projects. Current is their second video based project together. They live and work between Stockholm, Gothenburg with a primary studio at BKN in the Northern Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden. >>>
DANCERS:
Dr Ami Skånberg (SE)
Ami Skånberg, born in Gothenburg, is a performer, choreographer and filmmaker. She has a PhD in Dance from University of Roehampton, and is the current Head of the Master’s programme M.A.D.E. at the Stockholm University of the Arts. She also works at University of Gothenburg. Skånberg often creates stage work (solo, and collaborative) based on embodied life stories in a particular theme. Her screendance films have been shown and awarded internationally since 1994. Her solo performanceA particular act of survivalreceived a performing arts award at Scenkonstgalan in Sweden in 2015. She walks slowly as a ceremonial, subversive act after extensive Nihon Buyo studies with Nishikawa Senrei in Kyoto since 2000. She is a board member of Nordic Forum for Dance Research. Her recent screendance pieces Ancestor and An Encounter with the Uncanny are currently shown in filmfestivals.
Dr Alfiyanto (ID)
Alfiyanto, born in West Sumatra is an artist and lecturer in Dance Creation/Choreography at ISBI Indonesian Arts and Culture Institute (Bandung)]. He is the initiator and curator for West Java Contemporary Dance and is the driving force behind the West Java
Contemporary Dance Festival and the Bandung Dance Film Festival. He studied at Indonesian Karawitan Arts Academy, Indonesian Arts Institute Padangpanjang and Indonesian Institute of Arts Surakarta majoring in dance. Alfiyanto joined the contemporary dance group Gumarang Sakti led by Gusmiati Suid in 1990-2004. Alfiyanto is also the founder and Art Director of WaJiWa Bandung Dance Theater and WaJiWa Creative House. Developing dance Activities and dreativity with eco-cultural concepts. He has a special interest in community dance. In his home village Ciganitri he runs a community dance center for Sundanese youth.
MUSIC:
Mats Skånberg
Bass player in Anticimex and now occasionally making electronic music. The tune Tried and Tired was originally self distributed in early 2023. Berg selected it for Current in December 2023.
BERG STATEMENT:
”Working at the intersection of lens and embodied practices – we are interested in movement and space within and beyond language, and ask how movement can bring spaces together, and how several spaces can be made into one, through embodiment. As time collapses, space is put at the forefront of our artistic research.” BERG
STUDIO:
BKN/Björkö Konstnod, Simpnäsvägen 739 SE-764 53 Björkö, SWEDEN
curator@bjorkokonstnod.se
CURRENT in Festival VideoDanza, Puerto Rico
Above video-stills from Current
Current Adjective: occurring in or existing at the present time/generally accepted, used, practiced, or prevalent at the moment
Current Noun: a tidal or nontidal movement of lake or ocean water/a tendency or course of events that is usually the result of an interplay of forces (Fr. merriam-webster.com)
Text on CURRENT by Dr Anne-Laure Vernet, coming in May 2024
CURRENT is the first in a series of three films the next sites are in Japan (several locations) and Istanbul, Turkey.
5 short questions from ScreenDance Festival, Sweden >>>
CURRENT IS SELECTED FOR FOR:
- MOMA KAMCHATKA TBA
- SCREENDANCE FESITVAL, SWEDEN, April 23-30, 2024
- FESTIVAL VIDEODANZA, PUERTO RICO April 22-28, 2024
– Curator: ANA SÁNCHEZ-COLBERG - SUPERMARKET ART FAIR, STOCKHOLM April 25-28, 2024
- WICKLOW SCREENDANCE LABORATORY, Ireland, March 23-26, 2024
- ALMATY UNDERGROUND SCREENING SERIES, KAZAKHSTAN, Jan 24, 2024
– Curated by: DIANA GALIMZYANOVA
Watch trailer HERE:
The short documentary covers part of the vibrant Bandung Punk Scene in 2023. Three bands, three full songs and some behind-the-scenes-material. It was the circumstances (screendance and curatorial) that took Berg Duo (Ami Skånberg and Anna Viola Hallberg) to Indonesia. In addition, we allocated two half days to the Punk scene in Bandung. We had promised to provide some material from Indonesia to a documentary being made by Tomas Haglund about Anti Cimex. For this we had two days. In addition to the material we collected for the Gothenburg-based director, we ended up with a material being more of a personal exploration of the punk scene, and decided to do a short documentary of our own. Our quest was to search for the imprint of the Swedish punk group Anti Cimex in today’s Indonesian punk scene from the point of view of Skånberg’s performance persona. The project is made in cinéma-vérité tradition.
About FAKK THE SISTEM:
History writing as we have known it, frequently generates stories to maintain society – this with its limitations that revolves on normalcy. Parts of society are left out, where some individuals are perceived as different and other. Hierarchies create a binary between the normal and the alternative. Both artists have in their practice worked with legacy and the topic of audiovisual memory for the future. However, more so through an imprint of political contingencies, experiences and the energy of the selected group. Ami Skånberg reconnected with her personal relation to Anti Cimex, and her bass playing brother in the band for the first time in 2017, in The Laughter of Medusa: a two and a half-hour solo performance on stage, facilitating filmed, narrated and archival footage. Through Skånberg’s Screendance practice, she got in touch with The Bandung International Dance film Festival in 2013. Her films THE DANCE OF THE SUN and WALLFLOWER were screened there in 2013 and in 2017. Hallberg was on a curatorial mission in Indonesia May 2023. The artists decided to take the opportunity to trace the influence of Anti Cimex in Bandung. A number of questions appeared. Who are the punks in Indonesia? What are they concerned about? Several issues such as mental health, deforestation and gender inequalities were discovered.
FAKK THE SISTEM is a stand alone 16 min documentary built on a personal exploration of the traces of Anti Cimex primarily in Bandung, hence contacts were generated with Punks visiting the city from Borneo, Jakarta and Sumatra. Hallberg and Skånberg are curious about the state of mind of resistance and freedom fight in Indonesia. This put in perspective with the conditions of the Swedish government supported rehearsal spaces for young bands in the 1990s is something the artists reflect over. How is this linked to forming a youth that is engaged with the construction of present and future societal systems? FAKK THE SISTEM is not only a fan movie, or a legacy movie of Anti Cimex. It is also a brief insight to what the Bandung punk scene looks like in 2023.
”Punk in Indonesia has often been described as a spectacular performance of disorder and resistance, a youthful style that posed a disruptive challenge to the authoritarian hierarchy and discipline of the New Order regime. The punk scene in Bandung has developed in the context of what is often referred to as ‘post-authoritarian’ Indonesia. Punk gives another historical narrative of the development of urban communities, and, while remaining a minority, is highly visible among urban Indonesian youth lifestyles.” FRANS ARI PRASETYO
– WORLD CINEMATIC PREMIERE: ”TOO DRUNK TO WATCH” Punkfilmfest Berlin has selected FAKK THE SISTEM. Screening in Berlin during the festival September 11-17 , 2023
– semifinalist for Pebbles Underground Art and Video Festival 2024
– OFFICIAL JURY SELECTION: ”ART FILM, SPIRIT AWARDS” Toronto Canada, July 2023
– IN EXHIBITION ”BECOMING LANDSCAPE”, DasEssZimmer, Bonn, Germany, August-September, 2023
– SWEDISH CINEMATIC PREMIERE, Aug 31st 2025 at Gåsebäcks Filmfestival
Trt: 16:45:00
Year: 2023
Media: 4K
Language: English, Swedish, Indonesian
Subtitles: English
Codec: mp4 with aac sound
Formats: Available in requested format for screenings and festival
Keywords: archival activism, video essay, short documentary, punk, indonesia, sweden,fan film, intersectional
Yesterday, Ami Skånberg and Studio BuJi, invited by artist/curator Anna Viola Hallberg and curator Sibylle Feucht, owner of the gallery Das Esszimmer, created a slow intervention for Bonn together with the audience.
Information about the performance in German:
Suriashi for Bonn ist einem künstlerischen Stück, einer Performance, die wir gemeinsam erschaffen werden. Es ist Teil der Ausstellung Becoming Landscape von Anna Viola Hallberg in der Galerie Das Esszimmer von Sibylle Feucht. Ich zeige meinem Lehrer Nishikawa Senrei in Kyoto meinen Dank, der mir gezeigt hat, wie langsames Gehen das Wichtigste in der täglichen Praxis sein kann. Ich danke auch diesem Weg, der seinen Namen trägt von Clemens-August. Der Bischof Clemens-August von Galen hat sich gegen die Rassentheorien der Nazis ausgesprochen und die Menschenrechte verteidigt.
Suriashi bedeutet „gleitende Füße“ und stellt einen Spaziergang mit den eigenen Vorfahren dar, der frei interpretiert werden kann als: Wer in Suriashi geht, tut dies niemals alleine.
Wir gehen langsam, um unser Bewusstsein für den Raum und für einander zu schärfen. Ein sensibles und langsames Tempo entsteht, wenn wir gemeinsam und mit unseren Vorfahren langsam über die Brücke gehen.
Was passiert mit Ihnen, dem Raum und der Stadt, wenn wir unseren Rhythmus und unser Tempo ändern und in das Stück des langsamen Gehens eintreten?
Wer geht hinter Ihnen, wer war vor Ihnen hier?
Denken Sie an jemanden, mit dem Sie heute gerne spazieren gehen würden.
Jemand, der Ihnen unterstützt hat
Ihnen Großmutter
Ihnen Ururgroßvater
Oder Ihnen Hund oder Katze
Suriashi-Gehanleitung
Sammeln Sie Ihre Füße
Hände auf die Oberschenkel legen
beugen Sie die Knie
Schultern nach hinten Öffnen Sie die Brust
Blicken Sie zum Horizont
Zurücklehnen
Gehen Sie mit Ihren Vorfahren
Greetings from Bonn
Video: Anna Viola Hallberg
Our short documentary FAKK THE SISTEM, covering part of the vibrant Bandung Punk Scene, in the footsteps of Anti Cimex – has been selected for the 10th Too Drunk To Watch Film Festival in Berlin!
Terima kasih banyak! Gassss!
Some time ago, the archives of two editions of the International Screendance Symposium – were published – symposiums from 2000 and in 2022 – both chaired by pioneer and dance filmmaker Douglas Rosenberg.
The symposium was hosted in Lathrop Hall, the H’Doubler Theater which is home to the Dance Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It is North-America’s first university for dance. It is also an important center for screen dance/dance film.
At the 2000 Symposium you met passionate dance filmmakers, activists, educators and researchers such as Sally Banes, Ellen Bromberg, Noel Carrol, Amy Greenfield, Nuria Font, Eliot Caplan, Daniel Nagrin, Li Chiao Ping, Silvina Szperling, Elaine Summer, Laura Taler, Deirdre Towers et al. At the 2022 Symposium you met as passionate screendance people: Harmony Bench, Claudia Kappenberg, Ann Cooper Albright, Gabri Christa, Omari ‘Motion’ Carter, Charlotte Griffin, Li Chiao Ping, Katrina McPherson, Marisa Zanotti, Cara Hagan, Chad Michael Hall, Robin Gee and many more. Dance film icons Becky Edmunds, Dianne Reid (Australia) and Silvina Szperling (Argentina) attended via Zoom.
Ami Skånberg was one of the few participants who participated in both symposia. Here you can hear what she spoke about twenty-three years ago:
Documentation of Ami Skånberg’s presentation at H’Doubler Theater, University of Wisconsin-Madison 2000
Here you can hear what she spoke about one year ago:
Documentation of Ami Skånberg’s presentation at H’Doubler Theater, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022
Screendance festivals in Sweden
Sweden now has two dance film festivals:
Screendance Festival i Stockholm directed by screendance maker and choreographer Cyntia Bothello
and
Dansfilmfestivalen i Göteborg directed by screendance maker and choreographer Benedikte Esperi.
Screendance in education
In 2014, Skånberg wrote an article for Writing Movement, which was published in International Journal of Screendance about the importance of education of screendance for choreographers, directors, dancers and teachers. She was tired of trying to get the filmindustry to accept and support screendance, and searched for a different focus on bodies and narrative in the film medium. Today, she would like to claim that screen dance is its own genre, and that it is situated closer to dance art, visual art and experimental film than the film industry.
From autumn 2022 you can read the course Dansfilm inom dansutbildning at the Academy of Music and Drama at University of Gothenburg. Ami Skånberg, Ninnie Andersson and Karin Rickardsson took the initiative to implement it as a 7,5 credit course. In addition, Benedikte Esperi and Skånberg are teachers in the course. It is given as an independent course as well as a program course for the Dance Teacher Program in Dance at the University of Gothenburg.
Skånberg also plans to arrange an International Screendance Symposium at Stockholm University of the Arts in 2025. Keep your eyes and ears open!
Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt and Ola Stinnerbom have been colleagues for many years in Gothenburg.
In April, 2022, they were invited by Stockholm University of the Arts to do a keynote presentation at the digital conference Decolonizing Tertiery Dance Education in Action – Time to Act, arranged by Stockholm University of the Arts and Makerere University, Uganda.
When we met to discuss and rehearse our presentation, Ami pre-recorded and edited together the collaboration to make the presentation accessible also for people outside the university.
This is how we presented our keynote:
We have collaborated on an embodied keynote about how we can offer different stories about Sweden and Sápmi where we live. We therefore present a collection of movements to support these narratives. We think of un-conferencing as a way to embed non-word discussions through movement – as a way of communication. Thus, we create time and space for movements as part of our keynote, where we also use video and sound. One of the lights used for walking and dancing through our keynote is the chapter Decolonized-Research-storying: Bringing Indigenous Ontologies and Care into the Practices of Research writing. The authors of the chapter invited Eatname, the earth itself, to become the narrator. We invite specific spaces in Sápmi, Sweden and elsewheres to join our research-storying. We focus on movement and the healing and caring of ancestors in certain spaces. We do this as groundwork in search of unstrategies for decolonizing dance practices. We thus invite non-humans to be dancers, thinkers and activists in our presentation. Our own ancestors are given space to move with us and through us.presentation hette Dancing with our Ancestors.
You can watch the full presentation here:
Ola and Ami have continued to collaborate. They are now working on a text together for the journal Dance Articulated, edited by Professor Tone Pernille Østern.
CREATIVE COLLISIONS III
Encounter with New Music in Different Genres
Ami writes:
I have a thing with paper/papers. Paperplanes and post it-notes.
Autumn concert. The theme for me was exhaustion – my own, everyone’s, time’s – in dialogue with midrange sounds and algorithms from two organs. Paperplanes as messengers, messages, play.
Post-It works as a creative, pragmatic sculpture for everyday choreography, while changing the dominant design / placement of benches and tables, or the placement of technology and body or the placement od music and dance or performer and audience in a room.
Höstens konsert. Temat för mig blev utmattning – min egen, allas, tidens – i dialog med medeltonsklanger och algoritmer från två orglar. Paperplanes som budbärare, meddelanden, lek.
Post-It fungerar som en kreativ, pragmatisk skulptur för vardagskoreografi och för att ändra dominant design/placering av bänkar och bord, eller teknik och kropp eller musik och dans eller performer och publik i ett rum.
AMI SKÅNBERG DAHLSTEDT (b. 1967)
PALLE DAHLSTEDT (b. 1971)
HANS-OLA ERICSSON (b. 1958)
An artistic encounter between dancer, researcher and choreographer
Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt, composer, researcher and improviser
Palle Dahlstedt, and organist and composer Hans-Ola Ericsson. With the church’s famous meantone organ and the church space as departure points, they together created a series of works and improvisations. These included electronically modified organs as well as motion sensors for gestural and embodied playing on novel organ timbres.
The Creative Collisions part of the festival is funded by Musikverket
Konserten gavs i slutet av oktober 2021
Studio BuJi 