Samlingen

Samlingen (The Collection) is a group of five choreographers - Amanda Apetrea, Nadja Hjorton, Stina Nyberg, Halla Ólafsdóttir and Zoë Poluch - departing from a feminist approach to dance history.

We are five choreographers working together, as a collective, in making choreographic work signed as a group author. It is about how we relate to history, how we think about working together, the hierarchies between work roles, who gets to be the boss and who should be the boss, the whiteness of the black box, the money, the sick leave and parental leave, about working only with people you want to sleep with, about stealing ideas, about feeling like you never will become anything and everyone already knows that. These things, the major dilemmas of living in relationship with dance, can be brought up in Samlingen.

Samlingen initiated in 2013 and has since then been developing a series of site specific projects in collaboration with other dancers, institutions and festivals. From 2020-25 we are dealing with the 100 year anniversary of the Ballet Suédois (1920-25), making one work a year in relation to the ballet.

Ballet Suédois 2020-25: A five year commitment to the experimental modern ballet company existing in Paris 1920-25. Each year, Samlingen creates a new work in relation to a hundred year old ballet.

Herstory and current practices, In the Works (2019): Samlingen gave a participatory presentation of their herstory, current practices, how and why they work together. Focusing on the expanded, ungraspable, multiple context that this feminist collective is a part of and that to a large extent shapes how and why they do what they do. In The Works is a platform in New York City produced by Magnus Nordberg/Nordberg Movement (Sweden), Meredith Boggia (Brooklyn), and a rotating cohort of brilliant artists and collaborators.

Telling stories, Nordwind festival (2019): For Nordwind festival in Kampnage, Hamburg, Samlingen hosted a workshop where they mapped the practices of dancing together with participating dancers, calling on past, present and future ghosts, methods, premonitions and procedures. The most important element of this unofficial salon is the collection of truths and untruths, demands, expectations, disappointments, as well as successful and unsuccessful achievements.

A dancing history (2019): A collaboration with the National Touring Theatre.

Works at Work (2016): We worked in residency and held a speech at the Works at Works symposium “Group works? On feminism, friendship and borderlessness” in Copenhagen in October 2016.

Kulturhuset (2015): In September 2015 the choreographic project Samlingen invaded the foyer of Hörsalen at Kulturhuset to celebrate the official and inofficial, forgotten and untold oral history of dance. Departing from Kulturhuset’s opening in 1974, Samlingen invited female identified dance artists from all generations in a series of gatherings to orally share their story about the his/herstory of dance. During the public days at Kulturhuset, Samlingen created a time line with an overloaded canon, a series of dances speculating about the future and round table conversations with invited guests. All made with the help of the audience and the dance community. As part of Samlingen at Kulturhuset, four radio conversations were recorded.

Post Dance Conference (2015): Samlingen held a key note speech in their own collective and feminist way at the Post Dance Conference in Stockholm.

Cullberg (2013): “Could we dance the exhibition rather than exhibiting the dance?” Speculating about an alternative past and a possible future, six dancers - Åsa Lundvik Gustafsson, Jac Carlsson, Gesine Moog, Patricia Vázquez, Adam Schütt and Vincent Van der Plas - who embody the rich and acclaimed history of the Cullberg Ballet and five freelance choreographers – Amanda Apetrea, Nadja Hjorton, Stina Nyberg, Halla Ólafsdóttir and Zoë Poluch will construct a new collection for the museum of dance.

Two dancers dressed in white holding fake swords and shields in front of a huge painting

Samlingen at The National Museum (2023). Photo: Märta Thisner

A group of 13 dancers, Samlingen and the Cullberg company, standing like a sports team

Samlingen with Cullberg at Dansmuseet (2013). Photo: Märta Thisner

Samlingen with Cullberg at Dansmuseet (2013)

Samlingen presents Offerlunden at the National Museum (2023)