Josefine LöfbladPhD student
About me
PhD student in Theatre and Dance Studies since September 2018. I have a BA in Theatre Studies from Stockholm University and a Nordic Master in Dance Studies (NoMAds). I also have a dance education from the Royal Swedish Ballet School and the School of Dance and Circus (DOCH) and have worked as a contemporary dancer and choreographer, mainly as a member of the group Autopilot. In addition, I am one of the founders of Köttinspektionen, a venue for experimental dance, theatre and the visual arts in Uppsala.
Research
My thesis project, which has the working title “The Dance Artist as Historian”, is based on the huge interest amongst dance artists in making reconstructions and reenactments during the last 20 or 30 years, as well as the discourse accompanying it. What I have chosen to focus on, however, is that many dancers and choreographers have made reenactments that could be seen as historical fictions. In these reenactments, dancers and choreographers fantasize and very consciously make changes in the historical material they draw upon, thus blurring boundaries between historical facts and fiction, and between truth and fantasy. Hence, I will analyze dance works by the choreographers Trajal Harrell (US), Frédéric Gies (FR/SE) and Stina Nyberg (SE), which include such fantasies and changes – or “historical fantasies and interventions”, as I have chosen to call them. The project aims to explore what historical fantasies and interventions can achieve, both in the moment of performance and beyond.
Supervisors
Dirk Gindt and Lena Hammergren
Areas of interest
contemporary dance, reenactment, dance analysis, dance history, historical fiction
Publications
2018. ”Bodily Archiving in 69 Positions”. Nordic Journal of Dance 9(1), pp. 4-13. (peer-reviewed research article)
http://www.nordicjournalofdance.com/NordicJounal_9(1).pdf
2018. “Konsten att dokumentera”. Danstidningen nr 4, 2018, p. 10. (review in journal)