Maison de la Danse
is an independent platform for dance, organized and curated by Dance is Ancient. We are based in Malmö-SE, but currently mobile in the city!
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2024 spring program
Dear dance and
techno lovers,
Malmö, 5 February 2024
It has been wonderful to see you in 2023 at Maison de la Danse, our mobile, independent house for dance. It was a pure pleasure to treat you to cutting-edge dance performances, to beats resonating throughout your whole body, to exploring what your body can do in our Technosomatics workshops and dance classes and to invite you to ask your most burning questions to the artists. It was also pure joy to share the dance floor with you.
Great news: we are back in 2024!
Less great news: times are really grim for culture in Sweden and as many organisations, we are facing economical hardship, which could jeopardize our existence on the long run if nothing changes. But guess what? We refuse to give up!
So yes, we are back in 2024! We have to be more inventive than ever to be able to put together a generous programme under those circumstances but it is not a challenge we are afraid of. We are fearless and we love dance too much to let inflation coupled with dodgy national cultural politics jeopardize our work and our meeting with you.
We are more than excited to welcome you to our spring and fall editions of Maison de la Danse! As I am writing this letter and as I am finalizing the last touches of the spring edition, I wonder what should be our motto for it. “Less is more”? “Tax the rich”? Or “poor but sexy” as Berlin used to be beginning of the noughties? Maybe all of that. In any case, at Maison de la danse 2024, dance and music will not be average and we will continue to raise high the flag of sharp aesthetic choices and of dance practices that expand our perceptions. All of that without neglecting hospitality, which is at the core of our project. Our home is your home!
Check our online programme below. The spring is already on, the fall will be announced later, after the summer!
Last but not least, another great news… It is still for free! Even if you are welcome to support us with a donation. But know that the best support you can ever give us is your presence. You can count on ours!
I cannot wait to see you,
Frédéric Gies
Artistic Director of Dance is Ancient
SPRING 2024
SPRING 2024
WORKSHOPS
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Dates: Mondays 26/2, 11/3, 25/3, 8/4
Time: 18.30-21.00
Place: Ungdomens Hus, (Teater Barbro)
All levels.
Frédéric Gies’ movement practice is toured internationally in festivals and dance theaters and shared with dance students and professionals around the world. In the frame of La Maison de la Danse, we offer technosomatics workshops for all levels to the local audience, free of charge. Dance at your own rhythm: you can either sign up to single sessions and let go of the week’s pressure or sign up to several sessions to take the most of the practice and take the time to connect deeper with your own body and states of consciousness. -
Dates : 9 April
Time : 10.15-11.30
Place : Ungdomens Hus, (Sal 12)
All levels.Join Dance is Ancient’s daily training for a morning. Free dance class with technical insights, led by Frédéric Gies. Follow the class at your own ryhtm, it is accessible to beginners and pros alike.
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Date : 12 April
Time : 20.15-20.45
Place : Ungdomens Hus, (Teater Barbro)
All levels.Frédéric will share with you a dance practice used in Queens of the Fauns, which they call “fauning” and which borrows some iconic moves from Nijinsky’s piece, remixes them to techno beats, to the point it starts resembling voguing, faun style ! This practice doesn’t require any
speficic background in dance.
Part of the SPRING OPENING PROGRAMME
Book your spot HERE
PERFORMANCES PROGRAMME
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Date: Friday 12 April
Time: 19.00-21.30
Place: Ungdomens Hus (Festsalen)
Age Restriction: For allA 3-in-1 night we cinema + talk + dance.
Screening of Frédéric Gies’ Queen of the fauns (2019) followed by a workshop (Fauning dance practice) and a discussion with the artist.“(...) the strength of "Queens of the fauns" is that it shows how, not just bodies and their appearance, but
also choreography itself, can break with and create new structures of desires. "Queens of the fauns" is not
a modernized version of Nijinsky's masterpiece, but utilises it as historical material, to investigate what is physically possible today when the question of sexual conquest, more than a hundred years later, looks
very different from the time of Nijinsky.”
Josefine Wikström, Dagens Nyheter (20-01-2019) -
Date: Saturday 20 April
Time: 15.00-21.30
Place: Ungdomens Hus (Teater Barbro + Festsalen)
Age Restriction: For allA 7-hour programme of dance performance, dance practice and conversation ! Come and go as you wish during the day.
Performances:
> Album (revisited) (15.15)
An uncanny dance concert by and with Frédéric Gies which navigates between a deviant/surrealist cabaret, a dance diva recital from another century with a hint of a punk-rock performance and a poetry salon in which gestures replaced words.
> One Unclouded Dance for a Crowd (18.15)
A collective version of the 1-to-1 performance/ritual of the same name. Frédéric Gies will dance for you, after guiding you through a series of simple collective actions, which will determine the nature and function of the dance.Activities :
> Technosomatics tea dance (16.30)
> Techno-oke (20-15)
Dance like you would sing at a karaoke
> Lounge for thoughts (20.15) -
Date: May 4
Time: 19.00-21.00
Place: Ungdomens Hus (Festsalen)
Age Restriction: For allPremiere or work-in-progress of Frédéric Gies' new performance. Followed by a talk with the artist.
“I didn’t know that exposing my buttocks publicly in the name of art in performances or in the name of comfort, defiance and body-positivity in specific club settings was actually relating to ancient traditions.” / Frédéric Gies
OTHER EVENTS
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Date : 20 April
Time : 16.30-18.15
Place : Ungdomens Hus, (Teater Barbro)
All levels.
A shorter version of a technosomatics session, in the middle of the afternoon !Part of MAISON OUVERTE PROGRAMME
Book your spot HERE -
Date : 20 April
Time : 20.15-21.30
Place : Ungdomens Hus, (Festsalen)
All ages.Dance like you would sing at a karaoke !
Part of MAISON OUVERTE PROGRAMME
Book your spot HERE -
Date : 20 April
Time : 20.15-21.30
Place : Ungdomens Hus, (Festsalen)
Language: English
A space for reflexion at the end our open house day. Frédéric Gies will answer your questions and side conversations will be enabled. A specific score for the conversations will be provided.
Part of MAISON OUVERTE PROGRAMME
Book your spot HERE
Upcoming Editions
FALL 2024
More artists, international choreographers and access to behind the stage.
More info in September 2024.
About
MAISON de la DANSE
MAISON de la DANSE is an independent platform for dance, organized and curated by Dance is Ancient. MAISON de la DANSE is at the moment mobile in the city. Through activities - mostly in Malmö, SE - we welcome all audiences to dance together, watch dance and experience infectious techno beats.
Previous Editions
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Workshops & classes:
Technosomatics
Technosomatics live (collaboration with Kontra-musik/Ulf Eriksson)
Open training with Dance is ancient’s team
Open classes——
Performances:Many wild times (work-in-progress)
An investigation of the overlaps between hetereocis-normative sociability and climate collapse.
Presented in the frame of the programme evening #ONE (A danceaafter a dance after another dance - 2023).
Dance & choreography: Andreas HaglundChiron in Aries (excerpts and remixes)
Selected duos and solos from the 7-piece cycle Chiron in Aries. Uniquely revisited with group dances danced as solos and/or solos as duos. After the Spring edition revisiting Brittanie Brown and Elisa Brewer’s solos, the fall edition makes us rediscover the cycle through the prism of dancers Declan Whitaker, Andreas Haglund and Frédéric Gies.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dance: Frédéric Gies, Declan Whitaker, Andreas Haglund / Music: Fiedel / Costumes: Grzegorz MatlagDance is ancient dances Dance is ancient’s dance #1, #2, #3 and #4
6 different compilation of dances from our repertoire, presented in their original form or remixed in unexpected way.
Presented it the frame of our Open House Maison Ouverte.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dancers: Elise Brewer, Disa Krosness, Anna Pehrsson and Frédéric Gies / Music: Fiedel / Costumes: Grzegorz MatlagExcavation Series I
In the first part of three, Excavation Series I, Choreographer and Dancer Anna Pehrsson, sources movement as mass - hot liquid rock lurking around the corner - a comet’s tail blasting through the skies - or a thin layer of evaporated water reaching the pores.
Presented it the frame of our Open House Maison Ouverte.
Choreography and Dance: Anna Pehrsson / Music: Alva NotoYou might plant a rose bush under your bedroom window
A walk through the landscape of bushes and railway tracks. A sequence of desires and needs unfolding alongside the trail. A dance of repetitive riffs that hits tenderly.
Presented it the frame of our Open House Maison Ouverte.
Dance & choreography: Elise Brewer#TWO (A dance after a dance after another dance – 2023)
A special programme, navigating between Frédéric Gies’ classics and the forgotten corners of their work, in a poetic yet humorous journey. Choreography and dance: Frédéric Gies / Artist talk led by Skånes konstförening.Penumbral dances
Performance for one spectator at a time, in an intimate setting.
Choeography and dance: Frédéric GiesTilt to turn
In 2021, the possibilities of meeting and playing live were uncertain. Intonal Festival decided to do little guerrilla actions where they would crash various locations around Malmö, without notice or announcement, and just create what they loved. No crowd or anything, just them, the artists and their creativity. They invited Frédéric Gies and Rivet, which collaboration gave birth to Tilt to turn.
Presented live for the first time, in the frame of the performance evening #THREE (A dance after a dance after another dance - 2023).
Dance and choeography: Frédéric Gies / Music (live): RivetManifesto 1
A new solo, which will be part of the upcoming piece “Manifestos: Chiron in Aries, Recital #5 and #6”, which will premiere in the fall 2025. It is part of a series of solos, which in their turn are part of the Chiron in Aries cycle, crafted specifically for the dancers who perform them. In this solo, Elise Brewer’s dance oscillate between fierceness and vulnerability, relentlessness and tenderness.
Presented in the frame of the performance evening #THREE (A dance after a dance after another dance).
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dance: Elise Brewer / Music: Fiedel / Costume: Grzegorz Matlag——
Club:
#THE PARTY
A party to celebrate a year of dancing, with Rivet & Berghain resident Fiedel.——
Other:Open rehearsals
Techno lunch
Afterworks
Artist talks——
Partners (curating) : MARC, Kontra-musik
Partners (venues) : Ungdomens Hus, Skåne konstförening
With the support of : Kulturrådet, Malmö stad, Region Skåne -
First edition of Maison de la Danse as we know it today!
Workshops: Technosomatics Regular, Technosomatics Intensive & Ribbon Dance workshop
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Performances:
The Last
A celebration of dancing, dancers, and personal dance histories. It will premiere in August 2023 in Knislinge, with 7 dancers, each presenting a solo. For La Maison de la Danse, Rachel Tess gives a world preview of this work and dances her own solo from the piece.
Dance, concept and Choreography: Rachel Tess / Sound: Uli RuchlinskiLittle did I know that I, ere or since, ever should speak mouthless
Little did I know that I, ere or since, ever should speak mouthless (2011) examines the possibilities of dealing with politics in an artistic work.
Choreography and Dance: Frédéric Gies / Music: Daniel JenatschDance concert #1
Compilation of different programs of bold, tender and virtuosic dances extracted from our recent performances for the stage: “Constellations and Alliances”, “Warriors” and “Terpsichore in Scorpio”.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dance: Frédéric Gies, Andreas Haglund / Music: FiedelDance concert #2 Compilation of different programs of bold, tender and virtuosic dances extracted from our recent performances for the stage: “Constellations and Alliances” and “Barricades and Legacies”.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dance: Brittanie Brown, Elise Brewer / Music: FiedelDance concert #3
Compilation of different programs of bold, tender and virtuosic dances extracted from our recent performances for the stage: “Penumbral dances”, “Constellations and Alliances” and “Barricades and Legacies”.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies / Dance: Brittanie Brown, Frédéric Gies / Music: FiedelUnclouded Dances
Performance/ritual for one spectator at a time, in an intimate setting. It addresses the spiritual dimension of dance and its relationship to healing.
Choreography and Dance: Frédéric Gies / Music: Fiedel——
Other: Techno Breakafsts, Open Movement Research
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Partners (venues): Ungdomens Hus
With the support of: Kulturrådet. Malmö stad, Region Skåne -
First Malmö base edition in 2022 under the previous name “ Context”.
Workshops: Technosomatics.
Performances: Good girls go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere - Unclouded Dances - Walk + Talk - Ribbon DanceDance: Frédéric Gies
Music: Fiedel
Partners (venues): Ungdomens Hus, Teaterhögskolan
With the support of: Kulturrådet. Malmö stad, Region Skåne