Spinner
Since 2017, the collaboration of Sigrid and Antonia has centered around the idea that the artistic environment has subjectivity, needs and expressions of its own. Shaped by transactional factors, such as time, research space and financial support, the practice has built different milestones to become its own landscape. For entering the landscape the two artists need to coordinate and spin around again and again the meaning of being together.
In the work Spinner they deal with a collaborative practice that explores how to propose, enter and negotiate spaces in between them and to one another. Exceeding the interest of being a duet, the piece is situated in a landscape of elements that asks for response, activation and (re)interrogation
Dance and performance is understood as a visible and tangible layer that manifests into multiple encounters, narratives and experiences in motion and relation. The work is looking for a state of attendance, in the hope to find new dimensions of possible meanings, logics and yet unknown spaces of existence.
Credits
Choreography and performance: Sigrid Stigsdatter, Antonia Steffens
Advise: Maciej Sado
Light design: Paulina Prokop
Costume: Ginta Tinte
Set design: Antonia Steffens, Sigrid Stigsdatter
Co-produced and supported through Afk Amsterdam, Dansmakers Amsterdam, Bologna C.C.,
8-Athens, critical laboratory for Arts and politics, Veem House for Performance,
New Fears Gallery for dance and performance, Flam festival Amsterdam
Biography
Antonia Steffens studied contemporary dance and choreography in Cologne and Amsterdam. In her practice, she looks for a dialog in between spectatorship and material, often to be found in an environment made out of movement, objects, materials, light and sound. Her recent interest lies in researching ways of attention, that exceed the separate/binary idea of subjectivity and focusses on the concept of co-emergence. Out of this interest, in fall 2019 she co-initiated “Unfamiliarities” a platform for artist to show work in process. For its realisation she teamed up with QRU and Subbacultcha Amsterdam. In 2020 she was invited by Julian Weber to be represented artist for “New Fears”, Gallery for dance and performance, Berlin. In late 2020 she co-curated a 10 days on Movement for Veem House for Performance together with her colleague Keerthi Basavarajaiah. She recently premiered a solo work “an attendee”, produced by Veem House for Performance and NB projects. Her works have been shown at Flam Festival, Veem House for Performance, Frascati Theatre, Dansmakers Amsterdam, Tanzhaus NRW, Festival Why Not, Come Together Festival, Front Raw Festival, Festival Art in Oost, Bologna C.C. and more.Further, Antonia works as a performer, dramaturg and advisor.
Sigrid Stigsdatter Mathiassen is a choreographer, performer and vocalist based between Copenhagen and Amsterdam. She completed her studies at the SNDO (School for New Dance Development – AHK) in 2017. Sigrid grew up on the very countryside of Denmark, by the North Sea, a place she carries with her always and that made her a complicated image in a complicated body traveling through dance with an open heart and a critical mind. Sigrid’s work centers around using body and voice as powertools to build up fictions and blur the lines between the actual and imagined spaces. Furthermore Sigrid is a member of Jacuzzi an independent artist run space in Amsterdam and part of the writing collective Awful Fantasies. Currently she is working on a solo Cold Hawaii premiering in April 2021. In 2017 Sigrid won the jury price of Moving Forward – with her solo REMEMBRANE this gave her the opportunity to create a new piece, which resulted in the work Hope and Heavy Metal. In 2018 she was granted the DanceWeb scholarship and received additional support from Statens Kunstfond, Augustinus fonden and Grammex fonden. It is equally important for Sigrid’s practice to work as an advisor and perform for other artists.