ABOUT
“As a counter proposal to today’s popular culture, my work in its essence aims to go beyond the able, vigorous, high performance and aesthetic body. It acknowledges that sociopolitical large-scale forces influence our health and play a concrete role in how we experience ourselves. Artistically and methodologically I work with expressions of physiological, psychological and emotional realities including archetypal patterns, as well as a phenomenological exploration of our matter. I do that through a dialog with formerly dormant unconscious parts of ourselves using somatic body work. During the working processes we built on my 14-year research into the somatic practice FULL DROP into the body. We have explored altered states of perception relying on the science of deep tissue release towards heightened sense of bodily perception and expanded self-awareness.
The performers unwind the matter allowing the body to release tension in the depth and in that way to open up and become a vessel for channeling and self-expression beyond the cognitive. We enter into a dialog with generational archives and passed-on trauma patterns and related energetic realities dormant and originating within the cellular body and subconsciousness.
My work in general deals with energetic citizenship. As a choreographer I compose experiences that are meant to vibrate energetically at the core of omnipresent pathological states of embodied beings induced by current and ancient conditioning and transference. When I use the term pathologies I am referring to the practical fact that cells, muscle fibre, bone structures, body alignment, the nervous system-respiratory system-circulatory system-digestive system endocrine system-reproductive system, the connective tissues and flow of various energies within our bodies all reflect our current and former experiences, conditioned patterns, as well as genetic imprint. Including traumatic events from our biographical history which we carry with us in a literal sense.Therefore all internal and animated motorised movements of the body reflect pathological (non-optimal functioning) inner systems and scarred and contracted tissue.
These embodied pathologies exist in the shadows of what is considered normal life and in conceptual shadows. The audience may be confronted by pathology, but this is done to initiate release and transformation and further cognitive and physical processes on the topic, not to re-traumatise”.
Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir 15.january 2024
Formerly Berlin based no Brussels based Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir studied dance in Holland and worked as a performer with various performance makers around Europe during the period 2001-2014. She co-founded the production house Panic Productions in Iceland which was active from 2004 – 2009 and focused on producing and initiating collaborative performance works with international artists for the Icelandic stage and beyond it. At the same time she lived in Berlin while creating and touring internationally her own performance works. Since 2010 she has been addressing the pathological imprint of the social political body within our own bodies and its de-conditioning in her choreographic works as well as research into the deep tissue release practice FULL DROP. She considers her work involving de-conditioning as a direct political gesture and activism.
The performers, the audience, and the practitioner of her FULL DROP practice access different body states and altered states of awareness, so called HYPERSTATES. These bodies are surrendered to and moved by inner and outer forces, both political and energetic in nature, both ancient and current, and of a magnitude and power far greater than all of us. These body states are celebrated as visceral denials of the externally and internally imposed imperatives to achieve, and draw a contrast with the logic of hyperactivity by presenting an alternative kind of energy and strength. Forming a corporeal language that serves as a doorway into the subconscious which allows for radical questioning of our inner and outer realities through new knowledge and perception of ourselves.
In a larger sense the performance works engage in the ongoing discussion of healing, feminism, interconnectedness and notions of energetic citizenship within the choreographic context. They function as safer spaces for collective exploration of the maze of connections and dead ends that constitute the interface of the pathological body within our achievement-oriented society and outer and inner realities beyond it. This reinforces the theme in the FULL DROP into the body practice of allowing the performer and viewer access to states that are usually unconscious, thereby opening up the way for a profound experience that is disarmingly radical in its manifestation and politics. This language is marked by an infinite presence that reveals and provokes in the same moment. It breaches the divide between performer and audience in a meeting that is of high intensity. Together, exploring and confronting the inner landscape of the de-bordered body, offering up an alternative HYPER reality by surrendering to our shared reality.
Margrét Sara´s work has shown her work and been supported by numerous platforms and dance organisations across Europe, including: Wilderness residencies, a project for the Nordic-Baltic contemporary dance community organisation keðja; Life Long Burning co-productions fund, Cullberg Ballet, Stockholm; Aerowaves festival platform England; ICEHOT! Nordic Dance Platform; SLINGAN Swedish Performance Network; Atalante, Gothenburg; Dansstationen, Malmö; MDT Stockholm; Tanzfabrik Berlin & Advancing Performing Arts Project (APAP) Production Studio Berlin / EU Culture Programme; WP Zimmer, Antwerpen, Sommer.bar–Tanz im August,Berlin; Barney’s Crossing,Cologne; Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin;The City Funds of Reykjavík; Sophiensaele Berlin; Senat department for Culture and Europa, Berlin; BAU Dance and Performance Platform Amsterdam; Brussels Workspace, SAARI residence Mynämäki Finland; Kutomo theater in Turku Finland; Inter Arts Center (IAC) platform for artistic research and experimentation in Malmö Sweden; ICI-Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin; Savy Contemporary Berlin, Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media; Data Society Research Program of Malmö University; Inter Arts Centre (IAC); The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is an Icelandic; Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR, Dachverband tanz Deutschland.
Collaborators 2010-2024
2010-2019 Performers Laura Siegmund, Suet-Wan Tsang, Johanna Chemnitz, Angela Schubot, Catherine Jodoin, Louise Dahl, Marie Ursin, Marie Topp were collaborators and deeply engaged in the work during that period.
2010-2020 Peter Rehberg (PITA) electronic music makerdirector and owner of the music label Edition MEGO has created the soundtracks to all the performances during that period.
2017- 2024 Phenomenologists Prof. Susan Kozel at Malmö University. Working together on integrating the deep fascial release practice of FULL DROP into the Body with philosophical thought as language. As well as collaborating on a AR/IA and Mixed Media archival projects of somatic states.
2019- 2022 Interdisciplinary collaborations on film project SILICA with visual artist and filmmaker Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir, composer Guðný Guðmundsdóttir and performer Karolina Ginman.
2022-23 interdisciplinary collaboration and research with musician, writer and performance artist Esther Mugambi.
2022-2024 collaboration with performers Karolin Ginman and Marlon Moilanen.