ENSEMBLE´S leder Ellen Kilsgaard er danser og koreograf. Hun er specialiseret i improvisatoriske processer og interaktivitet og samarbejder ofte med levende musik og lysdesign. Ellen arbejder med forestillingsprojekter for en bred vifte af målgrupper fra børn til ældre på plejehjem. Desuden arbejder hun som underviser.
Ellen Kilsgaard er optaget af danserens samspil med levende musik, lys og publikums sanselige kroppe, både hver enkelt krop og publikums ‘fælles krop’. Hun arbejder med hvordan danserens nærvær og empati, i tæt forbindelse med det tekniske håndværk, baner vejen for koreografisk form.
Hun studerede først dans og koreografi på School for New Dance Development, NL (1995 -1999), og har en MA med udmærkelse fra Dartington College of Arts, (nu Falmouth Univeristy College), UK, 2008. Hun har desuden studeret den indiske kampsport Kalaripayatt. Hun var ‘artist in residence’ ved Dagdha Dance Company, Limerick, Ireland, i sæsonen 2008-2009. Hun har siden 2010 base i København.
Grundlag for den selvejende institution ENSEMBLE
Vi undersøger selvorganiserede principper i grupper og arbejder med hvordan koreografisk form kan emergere.
Vi arbejder med hvordan kropsligt nærvær i dans og det at lytte kan være organiserende principper.
Vi arbejder med interaktivitet i koreografi og performance.
Vi arbejder med performative formater hvor proces og produkt smelter sammen.
Vi arbejder med live musik, lys og mørke
Vi bruger dansen - refleksion og tænkning ind i kroppens sansninger og bevægelse - som filosofisk rum. Som måde at være på og måde at være sammen på. Som måde at skabe læring og erkendelse.
Vi insisterer på aktivt at arbejde med the unknown, med erfaringer som umiddelbart undslipper det kognitive. Vi insisterer på at lære og arbejde gennem denne vægtløshed, dette sted af lethed, ‘the spirit of dance’.
Vi insisterer på subtilitet.
Vi undersøger pluralisme, samtidigt socialt og koreografisk. Vi undersøger hvordan forskellighed kan co-eksistere og blive et aktiv i de koreografiske processer.
IN ENGLISH
Ellen Kilsgaard is a dance artist specialized in interactivity in dance and choreography. She often collaborates closely with live music and lightdesign. She creates performances for wide range of ages, from school children to elders in care homes. Furthermore she works as teacher.
Ellen Kilsgaard’s dance and choreographic practice explores how the dancers presence and empathy, in close connection with technique, might shape the choreographic form. She is occupied with the dancers interplay with live music, light and the sensitive bodies of the audience, every individuals body and the collective audience-body.
She first studied dance at School for New Dance Development (1995 -1999), and holds an MA with distinction from Dartington College of Arts, (now Falmouth University College), UK, 2008. Furthermore she studied the Indian martial art Kalaripayatt. She was artist in residence at Dagdha Dance Company, Limerick, Ireland, in the season 2008-2009. Since 2010 she is based in Copenhagen.
About Ellen by David Williams (reader in Performance Practices, UK)
`Ellen Kilsgaard's academic writing focuses on questions of present-ness, attention, perception in an embodied practice, and explores the ethical implications of an opening towards ‘otherness’, both internally and in relation to performance as social forum. She is consistently articulate, inquisitive and creative in her thinking.
Her practice, both as solo practitioner and as collaborator, is remarkable for its sensitivities, adventurousness, detail, and the invitations it affords to spectators. She is extremely engaging in live performance, drawing and meeting one’s attention with a quality I can only describe in terms of lightness, generosity and compassion. The quality of attention she brings to her collaborators is self-evident, palpable.
It is perhaps informative that her experiences to date include projects with Deborah Hay and the study of the martial art Kalaripayattu in Kerala, S. India; in very different ways, both propose attunement to an amplified attentiveness and the possibility of a radical present-ness.
As a performer, she is also naturally very funny, with a remarkable capacity to shift the register of a performance fluidly into and out of the comic, the pensive, the theatrical, the dynamically still.´