PETER, dance with...

PETER, dance with Hanna Gillgren

• PETER • Season 3 • Episode 38

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S3 Ep3  PETER dance with Hanna Gillgren
Today we dance with Hanna Gillgren. You can get in contact with Hanna Gillgren here https://h2dance.com/hanna-gillgren-biography-and-cv/ and follow Hanna on instagram @h2hanna. At the Rose Choreographic School https://rosechoreographicschool.com/ , Roehampton (University of Roehampton, London) https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/hanna-gillgren and at Fest en Fest (festival founded by H2 Dance) https://festenfest.info/fest-en-fest/ .

Dates for festenfest 2026:
24th to the 29th March: APT gallery Deptford London
21st /22nd March : southeast dance Brighton
25th March: Colchester arts centre.

References:

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For information about PETER visit www.stillpeter.com.

And contact PETER email peterapeterpeter@gmail.com PETER would love to hear from you.

Support the podcast paypal.me/dancepeter

PETER:

hello. Today we are dancing with Hanna Gillgren, and we met in January. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. 


PETER:

at the choreographic devices, number four, at the ICA, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where you were there as a part of the Rose Choreographic School, super exciting. But we didn't really connect there, we connected more when I invited you to participate in this podcast. And it's been really exciting, actually. dialoguing and learning a little bit about you already. We have this connection where I come from, the UK, and I've had my career in Sweden, and you've come from Sweden and you've had your career more or less here in the UK. And also, we have like, a lot of affinity, maybe around working at universities as well, you're at Roehampton, and I've been at SKH in Stockholm. So a lot to get me interested and intrigued to know what you're working with and from what I've already heard. It's super exciting. But if people don't know you, how do you introduce yourself? I've missed out H2Dance. Of course, you're big.. The company, yes. Your big contribution. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. Yeah, I um How do I introduce myself? Probably as a choreographer. Performer, which is how I started, which I'm doing less now and perhaps a little bit less interested in, but still very much part of my practice and practicing, and making a lecturer. And I really enjoy this idea of how education pedagogy you can feed into, choreographic process and the kind of collaborative learning, for everyone. I love that. And yeah, that maybe would be, and who am I? I'm yeah. People, like, my son would now say that I'm English, more English than Swedish, but I'm not sure. I' sort of try and claim my Swedishness, even though I left when I was 18, and I've been here for, like, more than 30 years, but it's an interesting one.


PETER:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good summary, and people will find out more about you. Yeah. in the podcast and online and stuff. 


Hanna Gillgren:

I mean, the company, perhaps I should mention an age to dance Heidi Rustgaard, a choreographer, a friend of mine from Norway, we set that up in 2000. So we worked sort of collaboratively for 20 years on touring production, community work, teaching, kind of duet work between us, and that really fed my practice and what I was doing and then we just now doing our sort of own practices separately at Rose Chorographic School, which is also something really. interesting to work together, but not making together, like, actually sitting. 


PETER:

In the same studio. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Together yeah in the same studio, but working on different practices, but still sort of similar, but and then. kind of supporting each other's work in a different way, which is great. 


PETER:

Yeah, I mean, when I I mean, because I saw that you were both in the Rose choreographic school, I assumed, actually, that you'd perhaps still be 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes.. And there was a choice, actually, Martin (Martin Hargreaves) said, you can both you can do it if you want to do it together, you also can. But I think we were at that stage where we were both interested in going off solo for a bit and see what that is.


PETER:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Because, yeah, I think we have sort of our interest a little bit was dividing anyway and then yeah, there's obviously there's a different process, different the whole relationship behind working together and apart. And taking decisions or just how you want to be in a process. So that was really, it was great. And it's great because I still feel we're working together but not intermashed. We don't have to agree.


PETER:

 Yes. 


Hanna Gillgren:

We don't have to come to kind of compromise. We can just like, okay, you do that. I'll do this. And it's okay. We can still kind of feed in and. 


PETER:

And like you say, how you describe your practice, like dance as a pedagogical and performative and practice, it's so collaborative anyway. So it's always funny. I tend to work alone, like as a solo author and stuff and yet all my pieces feel collaborative. And I think there's an irony, actually, that's why I tend to call myself PETER, and I call all my pieces, PETER, because I think it's sort of absurd to imagine that I made this alone. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Exactly. 


PETER:

And that it actually is performed alone as well. Like the audience are even so much more so much a part of it. Anyway, what are we going to do today? 


Hanna Gillgren:

So today we're going to do a practice, which I call the voice circle. It's a kind of voice and movement practice, where either the movement kind of instigates the voice or other way around voice goes with the movement, or instigates the movement, and it's come from some work I did many, many years ago with Guy Dartnell. It's a theater maker in the UK. Now lives in Spain, I believe. and basically one, it's usually done with several people, but it's just the two of us today, which is also great. And one person will start generating any any movement, really that comes with with a vocal sound. Then when that person is ready to give, transmit, it does, and we kind of jam together for a little while, kind of find it as a duo, when then the person that initiated sort of moves away and today we're also going to play with recordings. So I will then, if I start, I will record the vocal sign in a loop machine. So I'm sort of interesting at the moment in looping repetition, insisting, staying with something, and see what that does. And then you would then carry on, transforming the sun and the movement, and when you feel ready to give back to me, you give it back to me, with g together, you record the sound, so we're layering vocal sounds. in the loop machine, creating a sort of sound score, I guess, or some sort of sound sound for us us to then, maybe when we're done kind of a few each, maybe five each, we will go off and sort of jam ready and transform and stay with whatever the last thing was, and then kind of work on staying with and see when transformation happened, but also what happens between the two of us in that kind of negotiation moving together. Yeah, and the sound. So, yeah. 


PETER:

Yeah, it's really nice. I'm so sound has become really important to me at the moment, so I'm so excited to do it. But I think it's relatively clear, like, so your start or someone starts, and they start to feel movement and whatever sound comes with that, and then we start jamming, and then at some point, it gets passed onto the other person. And for us, we're gonna put that you're gonna put that into the loop, or the person who started or put it into the loop. And then you return and you take over, take back the thing as it is, so it can transform. It's no strictness of it has to be maintained. Even though there is an interest, obviously, around like what is what is the center maybe or the thing that holds? Yeah, it seems really beautiful and we just go for as long as we feel as. 


Hanna Gillgren:

We go for as long as we feel. Yeah. Yeah. 


PETER:

Do you ever do this alone, but with the loop machine? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, I have tried it alone, yes, just as a tester, never, like, engaged. I've tested, I've tested it in 2003. I'm thinking about it whether how you can compose what you're making. But I haven't got to that place yet. It becomes quite cacophonic, often, like. But I'm thinking, like what types of sounds could one to engage with? Yeah, you know Or do we make a song? Do we make a minimalist soundscape? Do we make? Yeah. But I haven't yet. 


PETER:

Or is it just a dance and that's the music. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Exactly. Or is it just the movement? Absolutely. Yeah. 


PETER:

And so it's called The Voice Circle and so normally it would be in a circle so we can imagine that kind of composition, in fact. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. Normally it's transmitted around the circle. or the person engaged in the doing could also move in and sort of solo inside and come out. 


PETER:

A sort of cipher.. Great. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah. 


PETER:

Then let's do it. Cool. See you in a bit. 


Hanna Gillgren:

See you. 


PAUSE


PETER:

OK. That was amazing. 


Hanna Gillgren:

It was so fun. 


PETER:

We were just joking that it's a show, or I was joking. It's a show. But I think now, I mean, we can do whatever we want, but we can just recall what happened, what we remember. yeah, and see what comes up. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, nice. Yeah, I was really struck by... One was the sort of sonicness or how I let go of the body and the listening of both the loop that we created together, and your sounds and my own sounds in relation to this space and how that. I was thinking, yeah. how that shifted throughout and really subtly, and I was very. I kind of mesmerized and busy with that. Yeah for some time. in it. 


PETER:

So it's as though that it disappears? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. Yeah. Sometimes a loop disappears while we record it, sometimes you disappear, sometimes I disappear, sometimes you appear, since the disappearing and appearing of the Sonic world, which is super interesting and the the choreography of that, I guess it was the first time I've I encountered that feeling. doing this exercise. 


PETER:

Yeah, no, it's super strong. Like, I I was thinking about at some point, I wasn't sure if I'm following you or if I'm following the loop, or if I'm leading or following, like in a sort of like already philosophical way, I don't like to think about it, but it's like the closest I'll talk about it because I don't feel like I know enough, but I think it's the closest thing to like point towards the experience, but it gives me a strange sense of free will, where, like, I'm unsure if I'm choosing, what I'm doing..Cause it's interesting to think of it, like, it's not quite improvisation in the traditional sense, because I'm not. I'm not sort of making choices. I have a real concrete thing that I'm to copy and follow. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. 


PETER:

But at the same time, it's emergent and generative. It takes me places, which I unexpected. And so I kind of see that disappearing in there, like you say, like, I lose, I lose myself. The will part of me. So it starts to disappear and it becomes communal. Like, it's. I think it really taps into a quality that exists in all dance or all dance I've done, where you're with the room and the body and the circumstances just as much as you're doing something. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Interesting. Super interesting. Yeah, I've never thought about it like that, but I think. for me, also, it's this pleasure of letting go of deciding or letting go of controlling, letting go which I think I often. I often interrupt, like that's I like that, but in this, I'm really like, I'm not even trying not to. I'm just not busy with that. idea of.. I guess predeciding change or predeciding interruption, or predeciding anything, just allowing things to come. There's something so liberating, or just letting go of, you know, having a plan. 


PETER:

Yes. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Or like a calendar or a. You know, having stuff, a list. 


PETER:

No, exactly. It's very sociological. Yes. I don't have to. I don't have to.. Yeah, I don't have to be this political, social, political being in the world navigating all these choices and stuff. But in that thing of, yeah, like, not making decisions and choices, for me, it felt like it so much comes up. So it feels like there's not much need actually. to generate or to intervene, like you say, and interrupt because already it's a lot. 



Hanna Gillgren:

Yes, 


PETER:

right? 


Hanna Gillgren:

It's a lot is true. 


PETER:

Which, in a way, sort of ties into the difficulty you had. 



Hanna Gillgren:

You said at the beginning of like, how do you compose this, or should it be composed? It's exactly that. And I'm a little bit busy with that while doing also, like, what would it woodions make, you know, out of this and And yeah, where exactly where does one. Yeah, where does one go with it? Do you compos it? Do you not? Where? Yeah, and what type of composing does one do then? In order to not lose this sense of of letting go and hack and an audience perhaps be part of the letting go. I don't know, like how I've had the last couple of weeks, I've tried to compose a little bit. And of course, that just brings up tons of questions and inquiries and like, Ooh, and and you start to sort of leak things and, yeah, I mean, it's it's a very.. And then are you into this? Is it just just for the doer? Like, is it the doing of that's. 


PETER:

Yeah. 


Hanna Gillgren:

actually the interest here rather than observing or how do you encounter it? Is it something that goes on for a day or two and then you pop in and out? And then how, what are you know, what is the score or what could they ingredients be then in order to Fine. Because it was interesting today with you, because it was more i’ve done it when everyone is really busy with their own. thing. But we were quite, we kind of followed. There was a sense of being together, like a union, which was great. And then there sort of also the loot machine and the amp in the middle there being some sort of centering kind of totem or something like that we were like kind of circling or having as a kind of magnet to anchor and different things come up each time, obviously, I do it with people. So it's really. I think that's nice. And I thought to myself at some point, I should have told you, you can go off on your own. 


PETER:

Yeah, yeah. 


Hanna Gillgren:

But actually, it was really quite in interesting. The fact that we were like, and then slowly, of course, by doing, you can of also went like, okay, I'm going to go on my own and see him. 


PETER:

Yes. No, I mean, actually, like, it's mirrors a little bit what you're describing, of like, how would this translate to like a sharing sort of situation, like are you sharing the experience and how do you how does it how does it get communicated or felt by the audience? And I had the similar thing of like, the way the podcast is structured, like, I'm learning your composition and there's a sense of, like, whatever I however I interpret it, usually is the version that we end up talking about. And so it really is a sense of what is it today here? If I was your dancer, we'd have this type of conversation, perhaps, and then you would say, but then try going off on your own., 


Hanna Gillgren:

yeah. Let's it again, do you remember last week? Yeah, 


PETER:

yeah. And for yet at the same time, there's something like is its own thing. Like we've sort of captured it and we're allowing ourselves to say, well, that was that was what it was meant to be, and that was what it is. And we're not going to repeat it or and it sort of later to me actually to think about how. Because this figure of like the social political came up, but that also seems to be that place of thinking about like, how do I compose it? How do I communicate it? How does it then enter into the world? exactly, like, which sounds represent the experience the best? And there's.. It's like almost impossible to sort of to name or to condense 'cause it is the speculative, the dream, like, the unknown, the the possible that is what it is. Which really is really interesting when you think of it as as like in the realm of politics because so much of politics is about like, we need to do this and this and this. But what happens then of the the dance, sort of the going anywhere? the allowing whatever it is to be included. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. 


PETER:

And yet, it is choreographed. It's a clear score. Yeah. So we're sort of like... Something is named. However.. I know exactly what you mean when you say that fight between, like... Okay, how do I compose this? How do I share this? 



Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Martin came in last week to observe a little bit and just in terms of sitting through this You know, of course, you will zoom in and out, probably as an audience, like you do in there also a little bit, like, oh, I mean,. I'm a bit bored or like, all of this feelings and thoughts. But there's all which I felt today with you was this idea of most hypnosis. I was getting into a sort of trial, almost like a trance where things kept the repetition of the loop and the movement was there, but I sort of lost, like lost the sound a little, lost the rhythm of it or the patterning of it, which I thought was super interesting in the doing. And I was also have been thinking a bit about a sort of emotive state, like, could you bring this to some sort of extremely recognizable emotions or characters or attitudes or states. how far do you go that route? And back in Yeah, I sort of been playing a little bit with that. Also thinking in how we can meet each other in it, sort of how what are the potentials of negotiation and.. Yeah, transmitting.. Yeah. 


PETER:

There's so many elements, right? Like, I had to think of flocking. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. 


PETER:

as like a method, maybe, or even just the fact that it's like, I can't see you now. So how am I actually being with that or continuing with that? Yes. I was like, are we doing that traditional thing of when I'm facing a way and you now following me and if I turn around and I following you? And it's all more or less. And you also introduced this word insistent, which just before we started, you said, you're very interested in insisting. And I had to think. Yeah, in what way, right? There's so many elements to that. For sure. But I think one thing that I could say that I was insisting on, or maybe you can answer, like to insist on those emotion or emotive states. Because it makes me. There's something very primal.. The rhythm, the bodily connection, some of the sounds, 'cause they weren't all, like, harmonious.. They were really a guttural. Right. They really had a physicality. Even some of them. Yeah, you had to move to do them. Like. And it was interesting as well. Then, now I'm bringing up two different things, but then trying to bring that to the microphone as well. Because then, of course, it shifts, you know, Ooh! But there's some, yeah, very. Yeah, primal. For want of a better word. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes, it's true. Now, it's really interesting when you find yourself in that place. where you, I guess where you go, "Oh, yeah, I can feel this as something that I've been through or that I felt at that time sounded like, and I recognized it and then how you kind of get there and also sit on how you kind of move out of that. And then, like you say, they're bringing to the microphone is somehow letting go of the body part of it and just sounding it is a very. It's it's a very other place to be in and other feeling to be in. So. Yeah, it's almost like you've become all of a sudden in a sort of recording studio space where you're just occupied by laying down that sound in relation to other sounds there are and then back in to the doing all the bodily thing. Yeah. It's a lot of bits, a lot of states. 


PETER:

Yes, yes, exactly. 


Hanna Gillgren:

We have done this with three. So three amplifiers, three loop machines. It's quite mental. Like, you have to usually do a little bit of a longer loop, just not to crowd it, but. Yeah. Yeah, also the sound coming from different, I guess, places in the room. is an interesting choreography to go through, 


PETER:

but I mean, it makes you think of knowledge, right? Like the beginning of the exercise is this blank slate type, or at least we have contracts really agreed that it's a little bit blank, and then we keep adding into a moment where you can't distinguish between what has been added, what is being added, what is being sounded, like it's such a loud noise. I somehow imagine, like, it has it has a a similarity to how we're amongst so much information, so many voices and instructions and knowledges and truths, perhaps, in our world. How do you distill or make distinct those. Yeah, those. It makes something of it, right? Somehow.. 


Hanna Gillgren:

That's a lovely way of looking at it. I'm very different truths. Yeah, or I'm treats. Yeah, exactly. 


PETER:

Exactly. Exactly. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah. Yeah, I was mentioning this idea of doubt, just.. 


PETER:

Yeah, that's true. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Just before we started this idea of. Are you sure, you sure we've been been playing with this sentence and kind of deconstructing words and sort of chopping up with the loop machine and finding kind of being a bit busy with also finding this idea of what truth and what am I doing, what am I sure of? What am I Where am I going? and finding the, I guess the doubt some doubt in performativity because it's performing often is such a. re showing somehow certainty that we know what we're doing here. But finding a way of embodying doubt. Yeah. Yeah. For the not knowing or the Yeah. I'm curious about this place. And I will remember this work with Jonathan Burrows and Jan Ritsema. Is it Young War? They did. They did 10, 15 years ago. Weak dance, strong questions.. Do you remember that? 


PETER:

I know of it, yeah, but I don't think I. I don't know who it was with. I will look it up and put it in the show notes. I have a feeling they were sort of doing this exercise with two hours of just inquiring what the sort of body performative things is. So. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Almost moving as if each movement was a question rather than a statement, right? 


PETER:

Yes. Yes. I mean, absolutely. I've often thought there's something in exactly the performative gesture or the apparatus of the stage, which produces a sense of argument, like whatever I put in front of you, this is a statement. This should exist, at least.. Right? Like, I've chosen these steps, these bodies or I've chosen to be here in this way, because I believe in it or I'm standing up for it. And exactly, this. How do how do you meet with actually conditions or knowledges or truths that don't have a an argument. It's a little bit the difficulty we have like between what's the story? What's the meaning of what you're doing? And it's like, well. can we stage doubt or can we stage meaninglessness? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes. 


PETER:

Or abstraction, of course, is the classic one? Or even can we just. Can we just give something a chance regardless of knowing what it is? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, yeah. 


PETER:

Even in its ambiguity. Yeah. be with it regardless. I have to think of sort of asymmetrical relationships with like, you know with the environment, for example, or plants. We don't know how they feel if they feel, even. And yet we're more and more recognize the importance of being ethically in relationship to them regardless, if we will ever yet know what it needs or what it's saying. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That's super interesting. Yeah, this is, I'm ready curious about exploring this.. this question, because the older I get, also, the more, of course, like with the cliche, the less you feel you know and the more complex, like. And yeah, the more complex, I guess, the world is complex, everything is complex, but also you kind of. I feel like and it's for me, youth had such a sort of assured kind of yes. Of course, this needs to be shown. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I will now, you know, exactly like you say. And then you're like, but does it really need to be shown, or do you really what? And part of me also, you know, an older woman in dance is this kind of idea of, yeah, that needs to actually be there. Yeah. And often sort of invisibility of older or women my age. So I think yeah, there's something in that where I'm thinking, yes, that that should be somehow in the world or you, 


PETER:

of course, 


Hanna Gillgren:

performativ Arena or whatever.. So, yeah, all of those things are super interesting to think about and also often, I guess, working with a younger generation or people in their 30s or 40s and It's. It's super interesting. I really like that. How what we've been through in different times of training, what was the focus of the training? What was the discourse, what are our references? And bringing all that in is really lovely. And I'm learning so much, like I'm working with. This is great. I'm appreciative of that. So whenever I do this exercise, also the different people is yeah, I get so many ideas and thoughts that I jot down, because amazing. But yeah, interesting. 


PETER:

I mean, 


Hanna Gillgren:

perform not to perform. Yeah. 


PETER:

But also, that I can't imagine and I've already feeling it with certain things in my life being older than other people. A sense of jadedness or sort of guardedness or, like the privilege or that space of not knowing what it will feel like? to do something. is. is really valuable. I'm curious how this. It's funny, it's interesting, you speak about the performativity. Again, it's a very political thing as well, right? The Can we have space for older female bodies? Yeah, yeah. But how does it feel with what you described as well, I think I gave a word to it of like disappearing or these losing the sound, losing the body, losing the partner, losing the loop. How does that feel, especially in relationship to actually this recognition that it should be allowed that mature women should be on stage as well, or in the dance world as well.. Like, it's a dissimilar disappearance? Or is other things that get brought up, that disappear? Are they somehow of a world which doesn't have a place on stage? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Right, interesting, yeah.. Yeah, there's, I guess, like you say, there is also a sense of freedom to being older and to being also having the privilege to still do this. And having the also.. somehow feeling that I'm not.. There's a sense from me personally, also a sense of kind of pleasure in the invisibility or sense of freedom in that I think for me being young, a lot of performing was about being seen and being good and being looking good and all of that stuff and now, of course, well, not of course, but for me anyway, that somehow much more diluted and not less interesting. So it's finding like, so what's interesting now? 


PETER:

Yeah. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Where is the interest now and also trying, maybe trying to be honest with yourself and really staying with that? What is the pleasure in moving or exposing or not exposing? Yeah, so I'm saying older women, I think it's really, I love watching difference on stage anyway. I'm very interested in that. But Yeah. I'm not sure that's necessarily perhaps me. 


PETER:

No, sorry. 


Hanna Gillgren:

But yes, I know what you mean, though. I think the precious of going on stage also, like the expectations on myself, along all those things are just like, do I like do I really want that? or should I be I be doing this because all the things with discussed.. So, yes, and I think it's really beautiful how you put the disappearing and the disappearing of things and people and, you know, kids grow like my son growing up, disappearing up. You know, he's moving from home, he's not an adult. Things kind of you know, of course, parents getting older, their parents passing, d la, la, la, people. So it's an interesting time of disappearing and disappearance... Which is actually I've never thought about that's.. 


PETER:

It's a real conceptual space as well I like to experience and to be in. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah.


PETER:

I had my first big injury of my career this year. Okay. I got a sort of like fatigued in the troncantanta. So trcites, I think it's great great, yeah. And so, you know, when it gets bad, it can barely walk. And I was dancing in a research project, this summer and I really had this moment where it happened and I was in so much pain, I couldn't could barely walk like I say, and just a realization of like and sadness and like loss of like, what can I do now? What's available to me and and it's so complex and we know of its existence as young people, like. And yet to experience it, to experience the disappearance. the fading away of like a certain access or visibility is really interesting. I was thinking it's really interesting we're here, so we're at Saddle Wells East. I don't think we've said that. in one of the beautiful studios looking out on the Olympic park in London. and I have to think of how amazing that in a world which feels like it doesn't care about this kind of practice, for example. It is existing, and there are these buildings and there are these institutions and stages. And yet, at the same time, I feel as though trying to squeeze or what we're talking about a little bit. It's like trying to squeeze some of this diversity, some of this nuance and texture and ambiguity onto one stage. Because there is a monopoly around where dance can get shown and how and what that means. And as much as there's a desire for plurality of different dances and people in those dances. I feel like also I'd like to see more stages so that there are different. And I mean very conceptual as well, like different ways in which the dance can be met and entered. And that's not to say that we should keep Sadlers well to white, for example. But to sort of like, yeah, to imagine. Yeah, it's really it's really difficult, though, because Yeah, that's the economy and it is sort of towards productivity and. 


Hanna Gillgren:

For sure. Slick work, slick ready. Yeah. And accessible all yeah. It's an interesting one. I think. Yeah, this idea of dance's being encountered in the in various different types of spaces and different types of context. and that being a value of this is yeah, because I guess that's a little bit where we set up our festival Fest En Fest Heidi  I to have to find somehow a space where we can meet each other, we can share work, we can watch work, we can talk about work, we can sort of hang out and have a drink or something to eat.. And it can be presented in the way that the artist would be interested in presenting their practice or their work rather than kind of kind of actively looking for different spaces that could host work, which, you know, it felt a real need for that in London. and I think there still is a need for that, because a lot of the smaller, or the more experimental stages of spaces have closed. 


PETER:

Yeah. 


Hanna Gillgren:

But yeah, I mean, that this is here is extraordinary, you're right. 


PETER:

Yeah, it is, 


Hanna Gillgren:

yeah. That we are here and school is here. I think Martin understand that biant job initiating it, and Alister, obviously. You know,reed to this and it was this really beautiful. I'm hoping that it will ripple.. 


PETER:

Yes, exactly. Is it? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Ripple in the field. 


PETER:

That's sort of ripple effect. Yeah. I mean, actually, one thing that I had to think about with age and with stories and histories is actually in the in the exercise, in the practice, I felt histories were actually really present.. Like, the I don't think I'm describing it so well, but like, the sense of the loop is of it's like an echo chamber of what's already there, and of course, our techniques or our dances or where we've been, what we think is loud and possible in the space, the social contracts, the spatial contracts, the histories, what we do in a studio, how we talk, how we think, how we move, and then also, yeah, the histories of the building and even just traveling here. We even started with histories. I historicized your origin and my own origin. And they sort of like. they come up and they become insisted upon, maybe but they also show their complexity and their, like, breadth, like that are very generative. There wasn't a moment where I was like, okay, now I'm doing that ballet class from when I was five, you know? 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes, this is interesting. Yeah. There's moments where I. It's a real flesh not like, there's moments where I recognize like I know, like, okay, yeah, I do this a lot. And I do this a lot because my neck is really stiff. I would now just keep going with that horror bit. But, yes, and then there are a moments where I'm absolutely also not aware of what is going on. So that, yeah, it's a really, there's a lovely way of putting it that history are present on also the kind of past of the vocal work is kind of being looped. 


PETER:

I guess I noticed it very strong because I know if I do some movements now and I'm having to teach myself that it's not in my body, that I know, if I do that, I'm gonna get a lot of pain. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. 


PETER:

So I'm really having to like sort of. And because I think the experience I've had with my body is that it has it will show me where the limit is. My arm will only go so far type thing. However, now it's like, on my leg, if I send my leg there, I could be in a lot of pain for doing it. But like you say, like just like, I like to do this because my neck, right? Like this story, this history, this saga with our conditions is a really beautiful one. Yeah. And that's why why this is dance. I mean, we very literally using sound and voice. Yes. Like in one could sort of, or when I started working with it earlier this year, I started to ask myself, like, am I still dancing because I'm the focus was so much on the voicing. And yet, this really demonstrates how.. at least, you know, in one way, D is about being with those historical stories and conditions that the body... carries with us.. But this has been beautiful. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Yes so nice. 


PETER:

I feels so inspired and so, so lucky. I don't know if I feel inspired, because it's sort of assumes that we should do something more or go somewhere else.. And actually, I'd rather think that I feel so... a grateful, actually. that I can that this happen. This dance.Cause it was weird and unique. Yeah, yeah, right? Like,. 


Hanna Gillgren:

It was great. What an amazing way of starting a day, just movingly new, was super. And it's also nice that I've never met you. You, exactly. And then we go off and do this. That's great.


PETER:

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean in a way, those stories, actually, of like, what I presume, what I think expectation wise, like, how to like honor what you've invited as much as I can. Like, all those dancery learning things, right? like, they were definitely there as well. But, yeah, we don't We didn't know each other, but now I feel like we know each other and within this 30 minutes of dancing.  That's really special. Yeah. Thank you so much. If people want to get in contact with you or check you out, 


Hanna Gillgren:

I guess the website? H2dance.com.  would be a good place. And I think, yeah, my email is there. 


PETER:

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's good. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Or a festival, also a festive fest website. Yeah, they can read about the festival and the program. 


PETER:

And also attend. 


Hanna Gillgren:

And attend March. March is next year, 2026. Yeah. 


PETER:

Yeah. And you're also on Instagram. Instagram, 


Hanna Gillgren:

H2hanna. I'm on Facebook, but Instagram more actively. Yeah, it's the's the place. One of the places, yeah. You sort of have to be. No, but it's such a pleasure to meet you and your work. 


PETER:

And also, if people are interested, you're teaching it Roehampton as well, so there's so many opportunities to interact with you your experience and the dancers you're doing and things and Exactly. Also, the learning, you're continuing to do is so beautiful, how you put the put it like that. It gives me great hope and inspiration. I feel very grateful. Thank you. 


Hanna Gillgren:

Thank you.