Weather Report (Bornholm)
New Work in Development
August
BIRCA – Bækkelund International Residency Center for Artists
In August 2025, Bornholm becomes our collaborator, an island with granite cliffs that tell geological tales, while the Baltic tides carry memories, and mythic narratives intertwine with the urgency of ecological transformation. Together with BIRCA and Bornholms Kulturuge, our artistic research embarks on crafting a site-responsive performance, set to be shared in 2027.
Rooted in a tentacular approach, our research practice integrates diverse strands: historical explorations, ecological studies, marine biology, and local folklore, into a multidimensional choreography and exhibition-making.
We will engage closely with the island’s coastal landscape and historical archives, uncovering resonances between artistic representations, scientific discoveries, and community narratives. Collaborating with marine experts and immersing ourselves in Bornholm’s sacred and scarred sites, we will look more closely into the island’s ecological precarity and resilience.
Through field studies and an informal public sharing, we invite local residents, historians, scientists, and artists to join our process.
Ultimately, this project seeks not merely to perform but to create a shared imaginative space, a dynamic intersection of art, science, and local knowledge, that reconfigures how we understand and respond to the environmental futures of Bornholm and the Baltic Sea.
Body as Earth
Workshop
13 June, 10.00-12.00
Junifestival, MDF, Eskilstuna, Sweden
This immersive workshop explores the interconnection between the human body and the Earth through movement, sound, and imaginative inquiry. Drawing from eco-psychology, quantum biology, and Eco-Somatic practices Body as Earth invites participants to embody the living processes of the planet.
By tuning into the rhythms of forests, oceans, and mountains, we cultivate eco-sensitivity through the body, shifting from solely an intellectual understanding of the ecological crisis to a felt, embodied experience. This shift opens new pathways for relating to nature, not as something external, but as something we are intrinsically part of.
Open to all curious movers, no prior experience required, the workshop offers a space to explore the body as a vessel of ecological knowledge. Participants are invited to engage somatically, activating the often-overlooked wisdom embedded in their physical being.
In a culture often dominated by rational thinking, this practice invites us to reclaim the body as a site of empathy, presence, and connection. By dissolving the binaries that separate humans from nature, Body as Earth nurtures a sense of responsibility, care, and kinship with our endangered planet.
Le Sacre du Printemps (Tandvärkstallen)
Film Screening and Talk
14 June, 19:30- 20:30
Junifestival, MDF, Eskilstuna, Sweden
Le Sacre du Printemps (Tandvärkstallen) brings us to the very heart of an encounter between humans and trees in the nature forest of Högsveden in Dalarna (Sweden). Through a playful exploration of movement, the dancers seek to create an eco-sexual dance in which both humans and pine trees are regarded equally, as dancing bodies. They discover that by bringing their heads to the roots of the trees, they become more grounded, more upright like the trees themselves. In this position, they rely less on sight. Instead, smell and touch begin to guide them.
Video, performance, and visual artist, Zheng Bo advocates for the coexistence of humans and plants. They specifically explore the erotic possibilities between queer individuals and plants, allowing imaginative thinking to lead toward what they envision as a post-human dynamism. Through an ecologically and socially engaged practice, they forge an alternative path that emphasizes a non-anthropocentric worldview and strives to establish interconnection among all living beings.
Le Sacre du Printemps (Tandvärkstallen) was premiered and presented at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022. A conversation with DACE / Rickard Borgström and Rebecca Chentinell will follow the film screening.
Eco-sensitivity:
Zheng Bo
Production and eco-facilitation:
DACE – Dance Art Critical Ecology / Rickard Borgström and Rebecca Chentinell
Dancers:
Paolo de Venecia Gile, Andreas Haglund, Mikko Hyvönen, Adriano Wilfert Jensen, and Ossi Niskala
Cinematographer:
Adam Nilsson
Post-production:
Wu Ping-Chung
Support:
Hong Kong Arts Development Council, DACE – Dance Art Critical Ecology, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Frame, Swedish Arts Council, Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Färgfabriken, Stockholm university of the arts
I. A depiction of invertebrates by German biologist Ernst Haeckel, published as lithographic and halftone prints in Art Forms in Nature (1899). II. Peter Rosvik, Bergsspråk. III. Adam Nilsson, still from Le Sacre du printemps (Tandvärkstallen), Zheng Bo, 2021/22
rickardborgstrom.com 