Car(Ry)Ing the Past, Present, and Future—A Deep Dive Into Danish Dance Stories

Danish Dance Stories is an artistic initiative manifested through a series of collegial encounters in 2018 and 2021, which revolves around the sharing of personal (hi)stories across generations and geographic affiliations. Documentation from the events and contributions from participants have been organized as stories on the website danskedansehistorier.dk. By revisiting and through the writing process engaging in conversations with the content of the stories, the text is an attempt to articulate and reflect on issues and potentials of the initiative.

The conversations raise questions about hegemony, hierarchy and access, discussed through the lens of the terminology that constitute the ambiguous title of the initiative; Danish, Dance and History. By leaning onto the knowledge and experience of colleagues, complexity, multiplicity and repetition are proposed as a possible direction for a future local dance community.