Being part of Perform Europe 2024-2025 – Conversations with artists Helle Siljeholm and Olive Bieringa

Can you tell us about your project which is a part of Perform Europe?

HELLE: 

The project which is part of the Perform Europe is called The Mountain Range, Beyond Borders (2024–2025) and it is exploring the volcanic dimensions of four European sites: the Dolomites, the Pre-Pyrenees, the Azores and Iceland. The Mountain Body is an ongoing series of artistic works and research that I develop in collaboration with diverse artists, climbers, academics and others. Together and over time these works and processes form a «mountain range” inspired by the nomadic movements of the continental shelves and the land surface, which are always in motion across borders and in various stages of transformation. 

Read more about The Mountain Range, Beyond Borders here.

OLIVE:

BodyCartography’s Resisting Extinction will be developed and performed in landscapes in Cyprus, Denmark, and Poland with local and Norwegian performers. As the world is experiencing a climate emergency, the core of the project offers adaptive practices for performers and audiences to develop understanding and resilience in the fight against climate change on a personal and collective level.

The site-responsive relational dance work will unfold in sites of ecological importance. It provides a structure for ongoing research, mentoring, and exchange with local communities, scientists, activists, and local and international artists to learn about local ecosystems through embodied practice. Together, the partnership adapts to meet the socio-cultural, ecological, and geographical contexts in which the work will be performed.

The performances will function as intimate communal events, opening space to grieve for animals, plants, land, values, or belief systems that are being lost. Together, practices will be built that reweave the relational field with the more-than-human world. This immersive participatory work offers opportunities to move collectively towards creating more ecologies of reciprocity.

Read more about Resisting Extinction at the Peripheries here.

How did you come across the Perform Europe network and why did you think it was a good fit for your project?

HELLE:

I was notified on Perform Europe through Lisa Gilardino, an Italian curator based in Bologna, that I have been very lucky to work with now for some time. She proposed to build a framework for The Mountain Body project, exploring volcanic grounds in Europe. I thought it was a wonderful idea. Lisa always has great ideas, I have to add. So now we develop four different works in the chosen sites, with the local biennales and festivals. It is really quite special!

OLIVE: 

BodyCartography Project is a member of IETM – an international network for contemporary performing arts which is one of the consortium partner networks of Perform Europe. 

Perform Europe emphasize and support practices that are rooted in sustainability and inclusivity to contribute to the transformation of the performing arts sector and to ensure a balanced distribution across the continent. Resisting Extinction is a project that follows an ecosomatic model of degrowth, slow travel and substantial knowledge exchange between local and international artists and audiences.

How has the experience been so far and what does it mean for you and your project to be funded by Perform Europe?

HELLE:

So far, the experience is good as it is for me a framework that allows me to bring in, and further the current research that I am undertaking throughout my artistic research project at KHIO. My research project is on geological formations and their transformations, exploring different and possible interweavings between human and more-than-human bodies and places, in the light of geological (deep) time and space. 

The PE is a frame for touring works, but what we do instead is to tour a research, that finds quite different forms in meeting with the diverse sites. Each work bases itself on specificities represented and/or found in the nature archives within each location. Thinking on sustainability we keep travel and production material to an absolute minimum working mostly with local actors in each location. 

I must also emphasize the wonderful work of all my collaborators within each project and as well as the artistic directors, curators, producers of the project: Tanz Bozen- Bolzano Danza in Bolzano with Biennale Ghërdeina in Val Gardena, Sismógraf in Olot, Walk and Talk Biennale in Azores and Reykjavík Dance Festival in Iceland. Bolzano Danza are the main partner of the work, implying that they deal with most of the administration of the project, which allows Lisa and me to focus more on the artistic work and research and less on admin, which is truly nice. 

OLIVE: 

The matchmaking tool they created is a fabulous horizontal tool for connecting with presenters and festivals all over Europe. We have just begun our in-person experience with our first site visit, public workshop and performer audition in Cyprus in early February. Our performances are taking place in May-July 2025. Meeting with the Perform Europe team and selected artists online is very interesting and the outcomes of our discussions are being mapped on their website with a focus on rethinking touring with a focus on inclusive projects and green touring. This work we are doing together gives me hope for the performing arts field.

In addition to Helle Siljeholm and BodyCartography, there are four other Norwegian partners involved in other Perform Europe projects in 2024-2025. These are:

Elle Sofe Company
Tou Scene AS
Para Film and Theatre
Tenthaus