SITE/Specific Festival 2026 – Salka Ardal Rosengren – He spoke and so it was

Salka Ardal Rosengren – He spoke and so it was, processvisning
Featuring Aron Blom på tagelharpa och björndans.

Torsdag 11 juni kl. 18:00
SITE:s blackbox, Mårbackagatan 5C, Hus H, 123 43 Farsta

Föranmäl dig här.

Lördag 13 juni kl. 15:30
SITE:s stora studio, Mårbackagatan 5C, Hus H, 123 43 Farsta

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He spoke and so it was is part of a larger project where I’m looking at older folk dances, ring dances, chain dances and dancing games to investigate lived social practice. These dances are understood as historically situated technologies for relation, ways of organising bodies, attention, touch, desire and collective time.

I am especially curious about how these social forms of gathering, both musical and physical, became displaced from adult life and associated with childhood. This shift happened through processes in which the bodily, sensual and socially charged aspects of dance were moralised and regulated, particularly through Protestant ideas about the body, and later through industrial society’s demands for discipline, productivity, and control of time and movement.

The concept of play is central in the work. Here, play is understood as a complex activity of concentration, risk, communication, curiosity and joy. I am interested in play as a form of social intelligence, a way to organise collective situations that are both structured and open, both disciplined and unpredictable.

Inspiration Agate Bankava

BIO

Salka Ardal Rosengren works with dance and performance. She was born and raised in Stockholm, but moved to Brussels where she studied at P.A.R.T.S. (Training & Research Cycle, 2006–2010). She returned to Stockholm during the pandemic and completed a Master’s degree in New Performative Practices at SKH in spring 2021.

Her work Lasting Figures toured last autumn with Riksteatern and has also been presented at Weld, Atalante, Flockfestivalen, and HOROS. She has previously created works together with Mikko Hyvönen (Trash Talk), Nicholas Hoffman (The Thing with a Hook), and Andrew Hardwidge (Subbodybodysub).

As a dancer, she has worked and toured internationally with, among others, Eszter Salamon, Xavier Le Roy, Boris Charmatz, Daniel Linehan, Sarah Vanhee, Tino Sehgal, Gunilla Heilborn, Malin Elgán, Rosalind Goldberg, Liz Kinoshita, Salva Sanchis, and Björn Säfsten.

She has taught professional dancers at institutions including Cullberg, Norrdans, SKH, Musée de la danse, and Beijing Dance Academy, among others. She is currently teaching in the Modern/Contemporary Dance Program (DMN) at Balettakademin, as well as classes for children and adults at Värmeverket in Bredäng, where she lives. She is a member of the management group for the DMN program and also sits on the reference group for daily training at Danscentrum Stockholm.