ÁJTTEGA
the ancestors
ÁJTTEGA
the ancestors
Marika Renhuvud
Marika is a contemporary dancer/choreographer from the North of Dalarna, Sweden and based in in Funäsdalen/Härjedalen Sweden. She travel around the world to dance, choreograph and teach.
She was educated at the school of New Education For Contemporary Dance in Härnösand and Balettakademien in Stockholm and has a diploma in dance for children and youth – didactics 1.
In addition to the dance she is very passionate about spreading knowledge about her Sami origin, and all of her dance pieces are based on or containing thoughts and ideas that come from the Sami culture.
“– My dream is to spread knowledge and understanding of the Sámi culture through dance. “
Elle Sofe Sara
Is a choreographer, director and filmmaker. Sara’s work expands upon seemingly mundane, often overlooked areas of Sámi physicality—unspoken rituals that have escaped the vice grip of colonialism.
Sara uncovers a space in which the past and the present coincide. While her choreography is known for its playful approach, she also delves into taboo subjects such as trauma, abuse, and suicide. As an Indigenous artist, Sara seeks to create work that resonates as strongly for her community as it does for the art world..
Linda Remahl
Linda grew up in Gothenburg and moved to England to further her studies at London Contemporary Dance School, where she stayed for 17 years, working as a dancer and choreographer. In 2015 she moved to Arvidsjaur where she has her family roots.
Digital expressions and the moving image with video editing as a choreographic tool are often the basis for her work. A collage of movement, soundscape, photo, and film with elements of live performance takes often form in interactive installations and site-specific works.
Personal stories and our inner worlds are the main inspiration for her work - how we see, perceive and relate to our history and the world around us. Collaboration with other artists and art forms is at the center of her creation.
Linda is one of the founders of Northern Sustainable Futures, a creative team that strives to bring art and culture in various ways to the sparsely populated and rural areas, and strengthen the cultural infrastructure and work conditions for artists by establishing a creative space for living and working in the inland of Norrbotten called Moskosel Creative Lab.
Linnea Sundling
Linnéa Sundling is educated at the School of Dance and Circus in Stockholm and has since 2010 worked both as a dancer, educator and choreographer in various projects and companies. She grew up in Umeå, and has Sami roots from Åsele, Vilhelmina and Anundsjö.
Through the dance, she explores, among other things, the relationship to her identity, preferably with improvisation based on different emotions and states. Other interests are communication, the relationship to nature and the body's ability to heal. Listening and being inspiring and in addition to dance, she has studied psychology and trained as a therapist in Craniosacral biodynamics.
Petra Howard
Born in and Gironis / Kiruna grew up in Bithamis / Piteå. She has her Sami roots in Girjas. She is a choreographer and artist. Active since 2000 with various expressions like dance, film, sculpture and photography. Her art is about origin and identity. Petras latest works have been about the Sami history and the reclaiming of her Sami heritage.
Liv Aira
Liv Aira is a native Swedish dancer, choreographer, artistic director, from Sápmi, Jokkmokk. She often reflects on her sami heritage in her arts. Liv produces and create dance shows for different ages, creates screendance, arranges the screendance festival Låvda and other dance related events and staged arts through her company Invisible People Contemporary Dance Company. She has a BA and an MA in dance and choreography.
Liv Airas art describes as powerful, spiritual, imaginative in her animalistic movements.
Sebastian Björkman
& Rönn Påve
Sebastian is a dancer with his Sami roots in Ammarnäs but also among the families who were forced to migrate south from Karesuando in the 1920’s. Through his dance he invokes the voices of his origins while keeping one leg firmly planted in urban dance cultures.
Rönn is a performance poet and spoken word artist, raised and residing in Kiruna. Through poetry Rönn touches on subjects such as colonialism, queerness, rural settings in sparsely populated areas and love.
Ola Stinnerbom
Director is a Sami performing artist, dancer, choreographer and researcher.
He has been researching and finding the Sami dance for 25 years and is now working to take it back and bring it to life. The upside down dance is a reflection of SAAJVA- the upside down world of sami legends. Ola has in his exploration of sami dance found an entrance to SAAJVA.
The Noite, (Sami Shaman) travelled through the SAAJVA lakes to the other world that lies under ours.
Marja Helander
Marja Helander (b.1965) is a Finnish photographic 3and video artist. After originally training as a painter at the Lahti Institute of Fine Arts from 1988 to 1992, Helander then pursued her interest in photography and graduated from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 1999.
Her earlier work explored her own identity between the Finnish and the Sámi culture, the Sámi being the indigenous people of Fennoscandia. Helander´s recent photographic work has focused on northern landscape in which dark views are portrayed without people. The accent of the work is on the postcolonial topics in the Sámi area, focusing particularly on the global mining industry. The encounter between nature and mankind is not harmonious, but destructive. On the other hand her video works are playful, exploring the contradiction between the traditional Sámi way of life and the modern society. Her recent short film Birds in the Earth won the Risto Jarva Prize and the main prize of the National Competition at Tampere Film Festival 2018 in Finland. It also won the Kent Monkman award for best experimental at imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto, 2018. It was also part of Sundance Film Festival 2019 short film competition.
Marja Helander has presented works in solo- and group-exhibitions both in Finland and abroad, with many shows in Scandinavia. She has works in various public collections in Finland and abroad. e.g. Kiasma, The State of Finland, Finnish Museum of Photography, National Gallery of Canada, Public Art Norway (KORO), Stadtgalerie Kiel.
Helander has also made a public artwork So Everything Flourishes for the Sámi Cultural Centre Sajos, in Inari. She has won the The Artists' Association of Finland´s Fine Art Prize year 2018, and was awarded the Finland Prize year 2019.