Marika Hedemyr, is a Swedish choreographer of contemporary dance. She creates dance theatre for the stage and for public locations, making an average of one or two productions per year. Since 2000 she is the artistic director and choreographer of Crowd Company, based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Marika Hedemyr currently shares her time between freelance engagements and her own productions for Crowd Company.
Ms Hedemyr is educated at Laban Centre, London (1999). She finds inspiration in pedestrian movements, non verbal communication and challenges the borders as well as places for dance performances. She is often engaged in international projects on artistic practice.
Marika Hedemyr’s work is characterized by mundane situations taken into a twisted reality, a high degree of identification, humour and physicality. In her stage productions the musical elements are either new or rewritten works by contemporary composers. In her pop-up pieces for public locations she deliberately uses only the dancer’s character and the choreography, no set design, sound or light.
In 2009 her work Just in Time was selected for the final of the international choreography competition of Yokohama Dance Collection R in Japan. In 2010 her stage production I denna Ljuva… - about her own Swedish national identity - premiered at Museum of World Culture in Sweden. In 2011 she restaged her work Next Stop, Revisited for 8 dancers at Atalante, and premiered The Three Penny Opera by Brecht/Weill at Masthuggsteatern. Her pop-up piece Minutes 2.0 has performed regularly on demand in Sweden and abroad since its premiere in 2009, and is still on tour.
In the autumn 2011 Marika Hedemyr is researching a new production. As part of the research Marika is preparing sketches for both a dance theatre performance and a script for a short film. Minutes 2.0 is touring through Danscentrum Väst's touring scheme Dansexpressen. Marika Hedemyr is also engaged as choreographer in a pilot production of the play Blood Wedding by Lorca. The pilot is presented at the Malmö Opera in December 2011.
In 2012 she writes screenplay for a feature film about a female bodybuilder, a drama based on an original idea by Marika Hedemyr. She is also working with post-production of Condition Confined, a short film / video art / dance film conceived by Hedemyr and scheduled to premiere in September 2012.
My artistic theme
My value system is that we are "more than", ie 1 +1 is more than 2. I see the artistic creation as collective processes with the work in focus, not as impetus of genius. I advocate the complex, not the complicated. For me, dance as performance art is a mirror of contemporary philosophy, physical culture and attitudes between people and their environments. Therefore, the performing arts are an important force in society.
My consistent artistic theme is the relationship between external expectations of a person, and the inner experience of how you are. This may be an individual, or the relationship between several people. I work with how these expectations clash, or fit like a glove. I'm interested in public figures or characters that often receive stereotyped expectations about how they should be and act. For example, office people, pregnant women, vendors, wedding bridal, lecturer, folk dancers or bodybuilders. It is the splice in between, when the equilibrium is disturbed and things are out of balance, which I think is interesting to explore.
I work with everyday situations, in the sense that it is the character's daily life or an ordinary situation. For me, performing arts are a way to catch sight of the imagination, humor, and absurdity, that constantly exists in our daily lives, but we rarely pay attention to, or allow us to release. Therefore, I also work with public spaces as venues, with performances that show up in the middle of the audience's daily lives. It may be in the middle of an office, a lunch restaurant, a museum or in a square.
I often work with situation that goes from a recognizable everydayness to a fantasy world, and back. I am fascinated by the drift, and how progress can unfold in ever new forms. I do not change the environment (on stage or in the public domain), but rather allow the association paths and imagination to take the audience on a journey where objects and people can turn into almost anything. Like a child playing a fork is an airplane, which is a tiger that becomes a bridge, and then again a regular fork to eat pasta.
When I create works for theatre stages I always work with a composer who makes commissioned music/sound, and use all possibilities of fantasy and magic of the theatre space. But space is always a place for me, even in the theater. I see theater room - including the audience and technicians - as a place. Therefore I often start in an open lit room that does not make a difference between stage and auditorium. In the works created for public places, I use only the dancers' character, movement and relationship to the viewers. No set design, sound or light. I like the challenge it puts on the choreography and have developed methods for how I work with dancers and the locations on this basis.
Audience comments about my work that they become like a distorting mirror. The humor is there all the time, but the giggle or laughter opens up the seriousness and contemplative opportunities. There is often a high degree of recognition in people and situations. Also surprise that so much could be said with such simple means.
Marika Hedemyr
Gothenburg, 5 September 2011
Marika has received yearly working grants from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee for her choregraphic work 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011.
In February 2009 Marika Hedemyr’s work Just In Time was selected for the final of the international choreography competition of Yokohama Dance Collection R in Japan.
In May 2002 Marika received Gothenburg City Cultural Award, for "appreciated achievements for the city’s cultural life".
In March 2001 Marika received Västra Götaland Cultural Award, for ”being an exceptional multi talented and complete dance artist who combines theory and practice in a constructive and professional manner”.
In December 1999 Marika received The 1999 CORD Award for Graduate Research. Granted by CORD (Congress on Research in Dance), Pomona College, California, USA.
