STINA NYBERG

Stina Nyberg lives in Stockholm and works as a dancer and choreographer. In her practice, she uses conviction and illusion in order to create new systems of logic which constructs the world differently and make bodies act accordingly. At moments she calls this performative force magic, sometimes a craft, and occasionally a practice. Her departure point is always a feminist approach to the body; its social and political construction and ability to move.

She has developed a series of independent works in collaboration with choreographers, musicians, visual artists, technicians and magicians and often returns to MDT as her favourite place to dance. Her latest project, The Tesla Project, involves a solo performance with a Tesla coil (Thunderstruck, 2017), a lecture performance (The woman who lit the world, 2018) and a live concert with musician Maria W Horn (Alternating Currents, 2018), as well as a puppet show about ghost sex in collaboration with Diederik Peeters and Andros Zins-Browne (Spectrophilia, 2018). In 2020 she has developed a choreographed city walk from the perspective of a dog, on commission from the Public Art Agency Sweden (Statens konstråd), and developed and performed early iterations of Make Hay While the Sun Shines in New York and Stockholm

SWEET

”That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” – Emily Dickinson

In a series of ten evenings, Stina Nybergs tells ten stories about humanity. From the birth of the human species to our violent journey across the earth and our coming death. What might seem like a tragic end is probably the beginning of an unknown and shiny future, without us.

Sweet is a series of personal, fictive and embodied stories that dig deep into history in order to dare to stay with the unknown future. Stories about the art of living on this planet.

 

Credits
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Choreography and performance: Stina Nyberg
Set and costume design: Jenny Nordberg
Dancing dramaturge: Eleanor Bauer
Production: Terry Johnson (Johnson & Bergsmark), Magnus Nordberg (Nordberg Movement)
Administration: The artist cooperative Interim kultur

Made with support from: Kulturrådet, Stockholm stad

MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” ― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

Ditching a “neither/nor” in favour of a “yes/and”, Make Hay While the Sun Shines is a dance of constant change. Saying yes to both the habitual and the unknown it samples the dance history of a cross-generational cast of dancers and merges them into new forms. If each moment is a possible future, why not catch them all?

Make Hay While the Sun Shines departs from the incoherency of movements and histories. It engages in time specific and partial views, the uncategorized details that pre-exists the whole, and the chaos called reality. Stemming from a movement practice based on disharmonious change, a dance which might be more like life itself is created: irregular, fascinating, unsuccessful, stumbling, loving and pretty unpredictable.

Make Hay While the Sun Shines is a series of dances developed through movements between Stockholm and New York. Previous iterations have been presented at Center for Performance Research (NYC), Performance Mix (NYC), Dans.Hall (Farsta), La Mama Studios (NYC) and on the grass field outside of MDT.

This performance is a conglomerate and development of several of the previous dances, with an extended cast of dancers, light design by Josefin Hinders and new music by KABLAM.

 

Credits
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Choreography: Stina Nyberg
Performance: Ingrid Mugalu, Maria Naidu, Maryam Nikandish, Stina Nyberg, Chrysa Parkinson and Katy Pyle
Music composition: KABLAM
Light design: Josefin Hinders
Sound tech: Julia Giertz
Co-dancers in the process: Aurore d’Audiffret, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Molly Engblom. Iréne Hultman
Co-helpers in the process: Zoë Poluch, Yvonne Rainer. Production: Terry Johnson and Nordberg Movement
Administration: The artist co-operative Interim kultur
Co-production: Dansnät Sverige, Norrlandsoperan, MDT

Made possible with support from: The Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Stockholm stad.

THUNDERSTRUCK

“Modern science says: The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future. From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom. (…) Meanwhile the cheering lights of science and art, ever increasing in intensity, illuminate our path, and the marvels they disclose, and the enjoyments they offer, make us measurably forgetful of the gloomy future.” (Nikola Tesla “The problem of increasing human energy” 1900)

Thunderstruck walks in the footsteps of the genius and madman Nikola Tesla. In the end of the 19th century, the Serbian-American inventor brought us several of our century’s most important innovations in electricity and communication. He also invented the Tesla coil, an electrical resonant transformer circuit used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity. Basically, a device that produces lightning bolts and now can be used for entertainment in live electricity shows.

Thunderstruck departs from the 19th century phenomena of touring electricity shows. At a time when electricity was still a scientific novelty it was displayed in public performances as acts of magic. Today, a contemporary heir to the electricity magic show is the Tesla coil performance, making use of the spectacular sound and light effects the coil produces, but often performed in hyper-masculinized, technique-masturbatory and rock’n’roll-fetishistic shows.

In Thunderstruck, Stina Nyberg returns to a time when the artist and scientist believed in transforming the forces of nature into the forces that propel society, harnessing natural energy for crafting nearly magical devices.

Creating an alternative to the existing macho-spectacular Tesla coil shows, Thunderstruck pairs effective technical innovations with a long-term research on science and magic.

 

Credits
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Choreography and performance: Stina Nyberg. Assistant on stage: Niklas Ren. Choreographic assistance: Andros Zins-Browne. Research: Sandra Linnell, Stina Nyberg, Zoë Poluch. Composition and sound design: Maria W Horn. Light design: Josefin Hinders. MDT technical supervisor and security: Katti Alm. MDT producer: Frida Tiger. Technical assistance: Axel Norén. Coiler: Finn Hammer / Hammertone. High voltage consultant: Roya Nikjoo. Administration: Interim kultur. Residency, co-production and performances: MDT in Stockholm, Station in Belgrade, The National Touring Theatre of Sweden and residency support by C.off. Supported by: The Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Kulturbryggan, City of Stockholm, Stockholm County Council and [DNA] Departures and Arrivals network which is co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Commission. Thanks to: David Choi at makerspace Fat Cat Fat Lab NYC, Miroslav Kosanic and Nikola Milenic at makerspace PRAKSA Belgrade, Erik Gabrielsson at KTH.

CHEST

STINA NYBERG - May 8, 2024 - Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden - 19:00
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  • Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden
  • May 8, 2024
  • 19:00
STINA NYBERG - May 10, 2024 - Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden - 19:00
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  • Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden
  • May 10, 2024
  • 19:00
STINA NYBERG - May 11, 2024 - Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden - 19:00
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  • Dansens Hus, Elverket, Stockholm, Sweden
  • May 11, 2024
  • 19:00

‘The fear that the human race might not survive has been replaced by the fear that it will endure.’*

In an attempt to imagine a different world, Chest brings us closer to the collapse as a common ground from which new creatures can emerge. Creating hybrids that are not cars, but creatures simultaneously moving and being moved, embodying the myriad properties of protagonists, landscape, and atmosphere.

Chest is a choreography at the intersection of ecology, animality, and masculinity. It folds practices around seeming binaries such as hard and soft, flaccid and erect, hairy and bald, into contradictory landscapes, switching between atmosphere and personhood in trying out ways of being nature to each other.

In Chest, Stina Nyberg continues to explore new musical horizons, this time collaborating with composer Kaki King, based in New York. King is considered one of the world’s greatest living guitarists, known both for her technical mastery and for her constant quest to push the boundaries of the instrument. Chest is the third part of Nyberg’s investigation of the assholeness of (hu)mankind, as previously developed in Sweet (MDT 2022) and The Dawn Chorus (Norrdans 2022).

*Middle C, William H.Gass

Credits
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Choreography: Stina Nyberg

Performance: Robert Malmborg, Pontus Pettersson

Music: Kaki King

Costume design: Jenny Nordberg

Choreographic outside eye: Andros Zins-Browne

Producer: Terry Johnson (Johnson & Bergsmark), Magnus Nordberg (Nordberg Movement)

With support from The Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee,