Matilda Bilberg and Jenna Hendry

For this residency, we are aiming to deepen our collaboration, expand our working methods, and further our unique movement practice already established.

With a shared interest in the phenomenon of touch in the context of dance, we both are fascinated by the potential of communication through the physical body. So far, our work has been happening within the questions of how to come together and be together, striving for authenticity and equality between non-performance and performance, and with an analytical, technological-physiological, yet playful and compassionate approach to the body and movement.

The frame of our working methods and practices is based on shared leadership. Therefore, the agency of acting always relies upon each individual, aiming to embrace differences and allow each collaborator’s knowledge, sense-making, and history to shape the work and its process in a way that manifests a shared present reality.

Living separately in Sweden and Switzerland, our collaboration happens through choreographic works, research residencies, and teaching spread out internationally. So far in theatres, art spaces, studios, and other alternative spaces in countries such as Thailand, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Basque Country, Germany, Belgium, Jordan, and Mozambique.

It is clear to us that a place and its conditions, inevitably affect the work we are making.
We grew up living in North Western European countries. Temperature-related, as well as political and social societal factors we experienced during our upbringing most definitely had a crucial impact on our previous works.

Dealing with the sensed-felt presence of society, while for almost seven years traveling for work, has brought up the question and the urgency of sustainability, and the effect it has on our collaboration, our bodies, minds, materials, and the environment when constantly re-situating ourselves and our work.

How does the situatedness affect a body of work?
How can we allow that to take us into a new creation of a dance performance?
What does the situatedness do to universal themes e.g. such as togetherness and touch? Where is the friction? Between us, the work, the place, and the audience?
Can we host friction and vulnerability of the present moment, while playing, dancing, and performing together?

Matilda Bilberg freelances as a dancer and choreographer in Sweden and internationally, with Stockholm as her base. Since her graduation at the Royal Swedish Ballet school in 2013 she has danced for and with i.a. Live art collective MELO, Cristina Caprioli, Helena Franzén, David Zambrano, Satoshi Kudo, Linda Forsman, Julia Kraus, HDN Studio, and Tove Skeidsvoll. Matilda’s own choreographic works include: All those things left behind, for now (2024), BYN (2021), I’ll be back (2021) with her collective UTOPISISTAS, and IUMI (2019) a collaboration with Jenna Hendry and an Aerowaves Twenty21 selection. She has also done several choreographic collaborations with the composer Torbjörn Grass and the audiovisual artist Ionnalee. In spring 2024, Matilda graduated the Masters program in choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts.

Jenna Hendry is based in Zurich Switzerland. After her independent dance studies in NYC, as well as being part of CODARTS dance program in the Netherlands, Jenna has been working as a freelance dance artist since 2015. A.o. she has been collaborating with Cocoon Dance, Yasmine Hugonnet, Lyn Bentschik, bollwerk, Irina Lorez & CO and compagnie o.. She also spent a season in Düsseldorf with Neuer Tanz/VA Wölfl.

Her own works have all been co-produced in Zurich and toured nationally and internationally: I’ll be back (2021) a collaboration with the collective UTOPISISTAS, I U M I (2019), a collaboration with Matilda Bilberg and an Aerowaves Twenty21 selection, and Mmmh?! (2018), which was part of Reso’s Tanzfaktor 2020 and was selected as one of Aerowaves 40 winks.

Together, Matilda and Jenna, have been collaborating since 2017, making choreographic works, touring, and teaching, internationally. Alongside several installations and instant composition performances, their work includes; I’ll be back (2021) with their collective UTOPISISTAS (Maria Teresa Tanzarellla and Nerea Gurrutxaga), co-produced by Tanzhaus Zurich (CH). IUMI (2019) in co-production with Rote Fabrik Fabriktheater Zurich (CH), followed by an Aerowaves selection in 2021. Their work has been presented in theatres such as Dansens Hus (SE), Västerås Konserthus (SE), Fabriktheater Rote Fabrik (CH), Tanzhaus Zurich (CH), and festivals such as ZurichTanz (CH), BAD Festival Bilbao, IDEA Festival Jordan, Warsaw Dance Days (PL), Les Printemps de Sévelin (CH) and now recently at KINANI Festival Mozambique in the frame of a two weeks workshopLAB and performance.