Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion | Workshop “This then that”

Composer Matteo Fargion and choreographer Jonathan Burrows share a week long workshop looking at questions of how to balance the many and overlapping elements at play in the making of a performance, including concept, context, image, form, dramaturgy, materials and daily practice. The workshop will be a mixture of practical work and discussion, with the aim of allowing each person to re-examine how they approach their own work. The mornings will be facilitated by Fargion with a focus on composition, and Burrows will lead the afternoon concentrating more on dramaturgy and performance. The workshop is open to anybody interested in performance: no specific skills needed.

Practical information
31 August – 5 September 2026
5 working days (5 h/per day) + a lecture and a performance
Fee: 350 €*
Application deadline: 26 July
Apply here: https://forms.gle/uQLccRYDidnapeoR6
Place: Vitlycke – Centre for Performing Arts, Tanumshede (SE)

We aim to have a selected group of participants for each workshop so we encourage you to apply early as each workshop has a limited number of spots.

*The participation fee includes access to the workshop, lecture, and performance, as well as accommodation for a limited number of participants. Please note that once the accommodation at Vitlycke-CPA is fully booked, we will no longer be able to host participants on site. In this case, you will need to arrange your own accommodation nearby, and your participation fee will be reduced by approximately €50.

Any questions?
Please write to: towards@vitlycke.org

Jonathan Burrows (UK) and Matteo Fargion (UK/IT)
Choreographer Jonathan Burrows and composer Matteo Fargion have been collaborating for over 35 years, creating an internationally acclaimed body of duet work including Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006), Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece (2009), Body Not Fit For Purpose (2014), Rewriting (2021) and The Unison Piece (2025). Their work is hard to place, combining intellectual rigour with unexpected humour, but it has its roots in a shared love of compositional forms and an approach to performance that is both anarchic and joyful.

Fargion has also written music for many other performance makers including Helga Arnalds, Claire Croizé, Siobhan Davies, Mette Edvardsen, Karl Jay Lewin and Andrea Spreafico. Burrows is the author of A Choreographer’s Handbook (Routledge, 2010/2025) and Writing Dance (Varamo Press, 2022), and is currently Associate Professor at the Centre for Dance Research Coventry University.

TOWARDS:2025
This workshop is organised in the framework of TOWARDS:2026, a cycle of intensive workshops organised by Vitlycke – Centre for Performing Arts (Sweden) that includes physical praxis, evening lectures, video screenings, and live performances. It’s the metaphor of aiming at something – to expose and engage ourselves in physical investigations and conceptual challenges that can foster creativity and encourage discoveries. TOWARDS:2026 see pedagogy as a continuous intellectual provocation, an occasion for inspiration through paradoxes and awakenings and as a desire to overturn common sense and question what we have learned.

Over the years, TOWARDS: has welcomed an outstanding list of artists and choreographers, including Julyen Hamilton, German Jauregui Allu, Judith Sanchez Ruiz, Frey Faust, Laura Aris, David Zambrano, Francesco Scavetta, and Xavier le Roy & Scarlet Yu. This year, the TOWARDS program began with a series of workshops led by two renowned voices in the contemporary dance field: Meg Stuart (US/BE/DE) and Guy Cools (CA/BE).