Choreographer Mette Ingvartsen presented a discursive-practice-performance addressing artificial nature, catastrophic constructions and the autonomy of objects, where imagination, speculation and description all play a role in the encounter with the spectator.
Mette Ingvartsen is a Danish choreographer and dancer. From 1999, she studied in Amsterdam and Brussels where she in 2004 graduated from the performing arts school P.A.R.T.S. Her first performance Manual Focus (2003) was made while she was still studying. Since then, she has instigated several research projects and made numerous performances, among others 50/50 (2004), to come (2005), Why We Love Action (2006), It’s in The Air (2008), GIANT CITY (2009) and All the way out there… (2011). Questions of kinesthesia, perception, affect and sensation have been crucial to most of her work. Recently, her interest has turned towards thinking choreography as an extended practice. Starting with evaporated landscapes in 2009, a performance for foam, fog, light and sound, this interest has led to a series of propositions that extend choreography into non-human materials. In 2010 she worked on several site-specific propositions, also dealing with notions of artificial nature. The Extra Sensorial Garden was presented in Copenhagen and The Light Forest was open to be visited during Szene Salzburg in July 2010 and 2011. Her latest work, The Artificial Nature Project (2012) reintroduces the human performer into a network of connections between human and non-human actors. This work concludes the series on artificial nature. In 2014 she started a new cycle of work entitled The Red Pieces. 69 positions opens this series and questions the borders between private and public space, by literally placing the naked body in the middle of the public theatre. In the second piece, 7 pleasures, a group of 12 performers will address notions of nudity, body politics and sexual practice. Mette Ingvartsen is artist in residence at the KAAITHEATER in Brussels from 2013 till 2016 where she has presented her work since 2004 and associated artist to the APAP network. Besides her performance work she is engaged in research. Her practice involves writing, making, performing and documenting work. She teaches and gives workshops often related to developing methodologies within choreographic practices. Since 2005 she has been working on“everybodys”, an open ongoing collaborative project based on open source strategies, aiming at producing tools and games that can be used by artists to develop work. She works as an editor for everybodys publications. In 2008 she participated in 6Months1Location initiated by Xavier Le Roy and Bojana Cvejic, confronting questions around education, structures of production and artistic exchange. During the 6 months she worked on the YouTube project Where is my Privacy, infiltrating and utilising contemporary communication tools as a way to rethink choreographic production. As an extension of 6M1L she took part in organising the festival Inpresentable 09 in Madrid, on an invitation by Juan Dominguez. Mette Ingvartsen is currently doing a PhD in choreography at UNIARTS in Sweden. She is in this context researching the relationship between artist writing and artistic practice, using her own work and writing as a way to experiment with these relations. She has worked as a performer in projects of Jan Ritsema / Bojana Cvejic, Xavier Le Roy and Boris Charmatz.
Speculations credits
Concept & Performance: Mette Ingvartsen
Production Management: Kerstin Schroth
Production: Mette Ingvartsen/ Great Investment
Support: Summer Intensive 2011 organized by Christine De Smedt/les ballets C de la B and DOCH (University of dance and circus, Stockholm)
Supported by DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION.
