Interview with Charlotta Öfverholm: I have to thank Prague!

Yes, Czech contemporary dance is celebrating many anniversaries right now…
Yes, and actually I will celebrate 20th anniversary with my company Jus de la Vie next year. And this year I have 30th anniversary as a dancer! So they asked me to choreograph something for them and I said: ”I would rather dance with you!” They started to look for choreographers to create for us, but they didn´t have so much luck in finding. Then they asked me if I knew someone… and I thought of Joseph Tmim whom I worked with 16 years ago in Berlin. We have stayed in contact since then and have done smaller projects together. VerTe asked him and he said yes.
I thought his physicality would suit Verte. He is very funny as well but with depth. I like that. Do you mean that his performances are funny as well?
I don´t know if his performances are funny for everybody, but for me they are. But as a person he is very funny. I have never laughed as much as when working with him. I guess we have the same humour…
Actually, I don´t think his performances are funny to watch, I mean humorous. There is humour there, but it is quite dark. They are also very physical, in a ”dancey” way. Since both Veronika and Tereza are dance people, I think this would work with their physicality. I think it´s going to be great! Dark, funny and physical. Do you already know the music by Israeli composers you will be dancing to?
I haven´t heard it at all. But I can imagine, because I know what they do. It is kind of earthy, or urban music and I like it a lot. Do you follow Israeli contemporary dance?
I travel a lot so I know what is happening in the world, even if they don´t visit Sweden that much. I think Israeli dance is wonderful because it is so physical, animal, you know, and I like that. Together with Traces you will perform your new show Lucky – it will be a Czech premiere of this piece. Have you performed it before?
I premiered Lucky in May in Stockholm. Since then I haven´t performed it, so I have to recap and get back to shape. It is a one-woman show and I do a lot. What does the show Lucky mean to you?
Lucky is about that all the hardship we go through, actually, is something good. That we are lucky to be alive. It is easy to look to the other side and be jealous of the ones who get it all. It is about being lucky for the experiences. Being lucky to be here. In the process I was working a lot with the subject of death, with the fact that we all die, and what death actually means. Researching death from perspectives of different religious philosophies – what they believe will happen when we die: reincarnation, second lives, or if it is completely black. Now the show is more a celebration of life, being here just now.
After doing my financial applications, writing concepts and blablabla, I was so tired that I thought: maybe this will be my last show… But it won´t be! Anyway that is also one of the ingrediences of the show. You will not read that, but for me it is there. In this show you use also some aerial acrobatics on a rope, which is a new circus technique. Is it something you work with a lot in your choreographies?
No, not a lot. But it is something that I want to learn more and I incorporate now in my shows. I had so much pain in my hips, so I started to use more my arms and other parts of my body that are stronger. But I simply like to learn new things. Are you planning to change something in this show after the first performance in May?
I always change. I like that. For example Pas de deux sans toi, another piece that I performed in Prague two years ago , still tours and I  modelate and evolve it all the time because we are only two people on stage. It makes the show alive. The base is always the same.
We will see what Lucky will be now! But I am really happy that it will be the second part of this programme that we call Traces/Lucky. Now I would like to go back to the beginning and ask you what was your first contact with the Czech Republic and how it continued?
I have to say that I have to thank Prague, it has given me a lot of nice connections and I am happy that it keeps going on like that.
The first time I was in Prague was 1999 when I performed with DV8. We had two weeks of pre-premiere work there. Prague was very different at that point, still very ”Eastern”. Completely different than now. But I liked it a lot already.
Later, through my years as a dancer in different companies, I became a good friend of Jan Kodet’s. We met in Germany. We decided after leaving the Stadtheater to create a piece together. In 2004 we premiered Lola and Mr. Talk and it became a big hit. We performed it three years in Prague and I was even nominated for the Thalia price, which was, you know, only for ballerinas!
When we performed it in Archa Theatre in 2005, Viliam Dočolomansky approached me after the show. It continued to be a long working relationship and collaboration.
Together we participated in a EU project that connected artists from different countries. I was supposed to get inspired by Czech art. I created Kódy Života- The Last Forecast. The piece became more a study of what happens to a country after being free from a dictatorship.
I think I was mostly inspired by the post-communist environment: how a country changes, what happens to people who lived all their life very controlled and suddenly they have no control, but maybe no tools to really be free. How it was to live in fear and not trust anyone and suddenly be friends with everybody. I did interviews with loads of people. It was a very interesting process. We performed it in Prague, in Žilina and also in Stockholm, I really liked that piece.
Some years later VerTeDance asked me to create a piece for them, I actually don´t know how they found me.
I have been invited to Olomouc through Jan Žurek to perform several years with both Pas de deux sans toi and Youwilldieandu2. Found and Lost even premiered in Olomouc. I respect Jan Žurek’s work with the festival a lot. We became good friends. So you actually follow Czech contemporary dance for few years now. How has it evolved in your opinion? What are the differences in comparison to Swedish dance, for example?
I would like to speak about stage art in general. It seems as if theatre and stage art are important in Czech Republic. Maybe it comes from the hard days of the dictature: the art was the only world where you could be free in. People in the Czech Republic go to the theatre. To a small stage outside the city, to the Opera, the National Theatre and it´s a full house on a Tuesday! It´s not like that here. In Sweden, in the freelance scene, there are maybe five or six choreographers that are supported well and can really do their work. And it has been the same ones for a long time. The dance itself is very slick and clean cut. Not too much emotions. I do think we have very good dancers in this country. There is quite a lot of conceptual art, conceptual dance going on.
In the theatre world, different kinds of art start to melt together: drama, dance, mime, circus. I like that very muchBut for me all arts are important, so the above is just to describe the Swedish dance scene.
Of course, I might not be objective since I am one of the competitors for money and venues in Sweden….
My own work is more expressive and that is maybe why I am drawn to the Czech Republic. I somehow think my work works here. As well as in South America. How come you detached from this ”Swedish” way of dancing?
I don´t think I really detached. But it´s true that after two years of dance education in Goteborg , I went to New York continuing studying and working. After that I worked mostly in Europe, so I was away for almost 18 years. But now this is my base, my home.
I have roots here and definitely I have an audience here.  And I think I am necessary here, because as I said, in the arts, everything is necessary. How does the financial support of the arts in Sweden work? Has it got worse after the crisis?
The arts are supported by the state and by the city, mostly. Actually it hasn´t gone down after the crisis, but it was not increased either. And there are more artists and everything costs more, so they should rise it. I think Sweden survived the crisis very well. What is your opinion about the dance critic?
Hmmm I am happy to get a good critique, of course, but then I get so so sad when I read something bad about my work = me, especially when I can see that they haven´t done any kind of research about the piece. So I have decided that I will never ever read any critic again. I learned that from Lloyd Newson, DV8´s director. He NEVER reads any critics But I am really split in this sense. Of course, when you are making art that is public, you have to be ready to take it. I don´t create ten choreographies per year, maybe 2 bigger ones. Every piece is very important to me, I put my heart and my soul out there, and then it becomes hard to take a bad critic.
I think it is very important for dance critics to be educated, to know dance, its istory and do the research about what they see beforehand. Then a critic can teach you something.