PhotoTalks: Stisa Søgaard [Dancer and Choreographer]

I met Stisa Søgaard for a photo session in November. Stisa is a Danish dancer and choreographer, who also enjoys anthropology and African culture.

At the beginning, we started with a long discussion about the best location to meet and take pictures in. We agreed on some raw place. We both liked the idea of monochromatic, a bit organic, and a bit of an industrial place.

Eventually, we found an amazingly creative place close to Sydhavn. There stood many old battered containers and workshops that were contrast against the brown trees, their yellow leaves, and to Stisa who was wearing colourful dresses.

I hope you will like our autumnal pictures ;-)



Stisa, I have seen your last dance performance, Klangkörper. Could you tell me more about it?
The idea behind the performance, ‘Klangkörper’, came from the artist, Berit Dröse and her sister, Viola Dröse, who is a modern dancer and who I work with in the dance company, Panisk Organisk. I cooperated with the two sisters in order to develop and transform the idea into dance.

The performance is about sound and how sound affects people physically and psychologically in the every day. We hear sound through the brain and the skin. Music therapists and sound masseurs use sound to balance our psychological wellbeing. Sound is around us in the everyday and it affects us unconsciously. Sound is a big part of our perception of the world. We therefore find it interesting and necessary to shed light on the impact of sound!

The German word “Klangkörper” is the body of a string instrument. Therefore it is the body of sound. In the performance we worked together with a sound artist, who works with recording sounds of silence. To him sound is everywhere and in everything –even in silence. He plays his sound live in the performance.





Are you currently working on anything new? When and where is your next dance performance?
Right now I am working on a children's performance. My interest in this has grown in the past year as I've seen my own daughter grow, and her interest in movement and theatrical games grow with her. Therefore we are working on interactive play, where the children will be part of an imaginary dream world. The performance will take place in kindergartens in the first place and afterwards we will see where it can lead us. Also I am in a process of making a children's book in corporation with a photographer, and Viola Dröse from the dance company Panisk Organisk.

Also, I am now working together with an old friend of mine, who is a theatre instructor. We want to make a theatrical dance performance about how we perceive the world we live in and how the way we perceive the world controls our ways of acting. It is just in its infant stage, so we have not yet decided with who or when and where!





Where does your creative inspiration come from?
My creative inspiration derives from the everyday. I do not seek inspiration. Inspiration is around me all the time. Sometimes I get it from movements I see in a special setting –it could be from a walk in the park or a football match. It can inspire me to a topic to work with or just a movement frame, which has to go through a process where it evolves and becomes something else. It could be the movement shape itself, the force of which it is performed or the feelings behind the movement. I can also get inspired from a situation I witness, where a topic is discussed or maybe how it is being discussed. Often I get inspired from texts on a specific topic in the newspaper or an interesting quotation, for instance. This then gives me a picture of a scene that I would like to develop.

I also like to get inspired by other artworks, here I philosophize about the concepts, the structure or the material the art piece is made of, and then I am inspired to form them into movements and stories.

Thank you for the interview!



More pictures from the photo session HERE!