Marianne Skjeldal / Inger-Reidun Olsen
LATERNA is Inger-Reidun Olsen and Marianne Skjeldal, both choreographers, dance - and performance artists, now working in various formats within performance dealing with body and actions in dialogue with history, place, materials and sound.
The performative works of LATERNA are grounded in an artistic ecology, where everything exists in a context and develops over time through regular practice and methodological investigations. Tracing history and gathering collectives, with other artists, practitioners and scholars, we exchange and create new ways of shaping communities - as in our works in the long-running project ‘CoSA’, taking place at historical places like Monte Verità, Steilneset, the Museum of St. Petersburg Avantgarde in Russia and at Black Box Teater in Oslo.
LATERNA is exploring dialogical listening as a method to facilitate spaces where interconnections can emerge, as a ‘listening with’,-researching a participatory performance practice as a choreographed being-with-others, cultivating a perception of ecological sense, (more- than- human and invisibly entangled) in the interest of arriving at new ideas and ethics together with place, with plants, with others.
In 2019-21, LATERNA and Black Box teater collaborate on CoSA Garden, taking place in the foyer of the theater, and on the Garden Wall that will grow on the theatre´s facade in Stockholmgata from Spring 2021. LATERNA is associated artist at Black Box Teater 2020-21.
Marianne Skjeldal (b. 1979) holds an MA degree from DOCH/Stockholm University of the Arts with specialisation in Choreography and Performance and a two year degree from School of New Dance, now Høyskolen for Dansekunst – HFDK.no.
Through various formats, Marianne is producing her own work at the intersection of choreography and performance, examining different forms of presence, listening and ways of being intimate, as well as methods for transformation and possible transcendence. She is also part of various collaborative work as a dancer, choreographer, performer, mentor and curator. Her works, combining movement with text and voice, are most often linked to a specific site, to space, objects and materials, and the relational approach to the audience is always addressed. She has presented work touring in Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Russia, The United States, Chile, Brazil and Ethiopia. In 2011 -and in 2018 she was awarded with a 3-year Government Grant for Artists. www.marianneskjeldal.com
Inger-Reidun Olsen (iRo) (b.1976) holds a MA of Fine Art in Performance from the Norwegian Theater Academy, Østfold University College (2018-20), a BA in Choreography from Academy of Dance, National Academy of Arts in Oslo (2000-03), and a two-year degree from School of New Dance (1996-98), now Høyskolen for Dansekunst HFDK.no. Since 1998 iRo has been doing her own artistic projects and performances. She is part of various collaborative projects, in some with a shared artistic practice and responsibility and in others she is commissioned as a choreographer, dancer, dramaturg, mentor and curator. iRo´s artistic work lives between choreography and performance art and involves performative work in various formats and places; indoor and outdoor. The materials in her work are human bodies, movement/actions, non-human materials and sound, and her work mostly is linked to a specific place. The research is rooted in a listening practice which works explicitly with taking time – time to reflect, be affected, respond and unfold material relations. She is a certified self-development teacher, life coach and healer, and are using both cognitive and spiritual methods from these practices as tools and inspiration in her artistic practice, to explore different forms of listening, presence and layers of consciousness, to reach new knowledge and expressions, new ideas and ethics within performance making and beyond. iRo has been touring and presenting her work in United States, China, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Russia, Sweden and Norway. In 2009 and 2014 she was awarded with a 3-year Norwegian Government Grant for Artists. www.iroart.com