Anna Koch

Anna Koch dancer/choreographer and artistic director at Weld. Here she works and presents her own artistic work and cultivates the organisation. Throughout her career, Anna has worked in a variety of international contexts. She is a frequent participant in the worlds of art and the theatre but is also actively engaged in the field of electronic music. As a choreographer, Anna Koch has created a whole range of choreographies and collaborations, including commissions for various contexts internationally and nationally. During 2013 she initiated Weld Company now Weld Extended and is conceptualizing its work. Please read more below.

Artistic work

December 2023
Anna is having a one day exhibition at Weld called ”Small things that happened and some that did not” – Video works, text, sound-performance and unreadymades.

October 2023
Anna is back in the studio and is one of the participants in Marie Fahlins research work The Curative Act, exploring her own choreographic vocabulary  through specific assignments.

June 2023
Invited by DansPlats Skog to continue with Unfolding and to collaborate with dancers Sara Larsson, Aleksandra Cigarcic, Hanna af Kleen and Zala Pezdir. Unfolding III went on tour in Gävle 14-18 June.

May 2023
In May, Anna Koch presents a new choreography Unfolding II with dancers Jasmine Attié, Sophie Augot, Elin Hallgren, Ulrika Berg, Destiny Johannah af Kleen. The work will be shown 12-14 May at the locations Sergels torg, Fittja Centrum and Tensta Centrum in the STHLM DANS festival running May 4-14.
Costume: Erik Annerborn

We jump to hope. We crawl to reclaim time. We hammer with knuckles to heal. We gather for all we can. 

April 2023
Anna works with director Ole Anders Tandberg and choreography to Mozart’s the Magic Flute” at Det norske teatret in Oslo in a version for singing actors. Premiere 22 April

December 2022
Solo for something, a short new solo shown at 3:våningen Gothenburg 8-10 December

October 2022
Participating as a performer at Accelereator in the exhibition ”Mother Courage” in Labryo by Roberto N Peyre in collaboration with Barbara Crescimanno (It) Participants: Anna Öberg, Shaya Khalil, Caio Marques, Anna Koch, Roberto N Peyre, Barbara Crescimanno.

May 2022
Participates in Ensemble- a one-day festival at Röda Sten Konsthall together with Ida Lundén and Johanna Mårtenssons and their spinning sound object ”Vev”.

June 2022
Participates in Five Tender days at Weld

21/May-26/June 2022
In motion
Nääs Arts and Crafts
Curator Camilla Iliefski
Participating artists: Sanna Lindholm, Julia Bondesson, Anna Koch and Camilla Iliefski Nääs Kunsthantverk celebrates 20 years. This exhibition is a celebration of artistic making, materiality, process and perception. The artists have been invited based on their curiosity about each other’s practices, where curator Camilla Iliefski started by inviting Sanna Lindholm who invited Julia Bondesson who invited Anna Koch (video work)

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Oktober 2021
Dancer  in  Artificial Airs,  a choreography by Marie Fahlin shown at Weld.

September 2021
Dancer in i LABRYO/ This turning Europe av Roberto N Peyre in collaboration with Barbara Crescimanno (It) Participants: Anna Öberg, Shaya Khalil, Caio Marques, Anna Koch, Roberto N Peyre, Barbara Crescimanno.

June 2021
Textperformance Markerade revir at Tiny festival, Teater trixter, Gothenburg

13 februari 2021–2 maj 2021
Participating in Marie Fahlins exhibition Centauring at Marabouparken. Live performance of Manege a trois (2019) the 20/3, 2 pm  together with the documentation running through the time of the exhibition.

November 2020, Live streamed
handle with care varsamt (World Premiere)
Anna Koch film, Claudia Molitor film/music
Commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

” The resulting film piece focuses in on the small, unnoticed things around them, the duo moving and choreographing objects – combining them with sounds that have been ‘foraged’ for, collected from the suppressed local environments still breathing around them.”

In November 2019 she also created choreography for voice, hands and objects, Manege a trois featuring Weld Company at the event Manege by Marie Fahlin at Marabouparken.

In October 2019 Anna danced in Seven Extravaganzas by Fédéric Gies, together with Anne Juren, Hokuto Kodama, Benoît Lachambre, Andrea Svensson, Elizabeth Ward and Frédéric Gies at Hallen in Farsta.

In spring 2019 she held the free-standing course ”From Beoyncé to Bach” at Stockholm University of the Arts.  She also edited the book No Talking No Props for Weld Company about the work of Yvonne Rainer together with Weld Company which was publiched in the fall.

In 2018 Anna worked in the studio of  Weld and at Skogen. She is performed with Dinis Machado and his work Cyborg Sunday.

 She created a solo made up of all her memories of the different versions the Rite of Spring, within the context of ”Silent dances” (Tysta danser), a project by Wilhelm Blomberg and Maja Hannisdal at Dans och Teterfestivalen in Gothenburg.

In the spring of 2017, Anna, in collaboration with Dinis Machado created the performances, ”a dance inspired by a dance by Courtney Alston that was inspired by the dance by Katherine Dunham” as a commission for Konsthall C for the exhibition ”Horses on rollerblades”.

She also made a solo for Dinis and his Barco collections and worked with Frida Sandström on the festival Talking & Props and on the Weld Company yearbook.

In autumn 2016, Anna completed the textbook ”disappearing”. Designed by Jonas Enqvist (Donebyme), which is a continuation of the text/sound piece Magic spells. Magic spells is a text/sound work made in collaboration with sound artist Tomas Björkdal as a commission for the summer exhibition ”Death- an exhibition about life” at Liljevalchs in Stockholm. June 3-sept 4, 2016.

Autumn 2015 Anna participates with a solo No square dance at FestivalDisplay at the Rotunda, at the Royal Opera. Along with Anna Asplind and Daniel RecénAlmgren she participates in the Nordic Music Days in Copenhagen and together they create the first part of a new work, ”Insisting On” which premiered at the festival Swedish Energies, Nordic Edition, Issue Project Room in NYC in December. Music by Mats Lindström. Swedish premiere in February 2016.

June 2014 she created Working hands for Töne festival (GB and  started a new choreographic work at Weld. She was performing the choreography Unfolding(2011) with Weld Company at Hasselblads centre in Gothenburg and participated with the performance I, I, I Moderna Bar in the frame of The Normalcy project by the Royal Institute of Art.

In 2013, Anna developed and proceeded the idea Weld Company, participated in Philipp Gehmachers concept Walk +talk.  (text by Erik Bryngelsson in SARMA)

In June 2012, Anna performed in ”One of them is red” with artists Torbjörn Johansson and musician Christine Abdelnour

In May 2012 Anna, Claudia Molitor (UK) and Pascal Jardy further developed the sound installation Unter-Haltung at SPOR festival in Århus. A piece commissioned by SPOR in connection to ’Call for Proposals 2012.

During fall 2011, Anna initiated her project Omprövning (Re-consideration). In the spring of 2012, she developed the project further into a solo with Anna-Mi Fredriksson formerly dancer at English National Ballet. In spring the work toured and developed at the platform Skogen in Gothenburg. In the fall of  2012,  the project continued into a group work with dancers Anna-Mi Fredriksson, Sebastian Lingserius, Henry Vikman and Noah Hellwig. The project is further explored during 2013.

In December 2011 she performed One/Scratch memory (a duet with electronic musician Mats Lindström) at The Issue Project room in Brooklyn, in the festival Swedish energies. In April 2011, Anna presented the choreography Unfolding at festival:Display in the Modern Museum in Stockholm and  Weld far out West at the festival Almost out of sight  April 1-20, at Weld. In August she was invited by Dansens hus in Stockholm as the artistic coordinator for ENPARTS-Open campus.

In March 2010 Anna Koch premiered Happy To be Here, at Dansens Hus in Stockholm. The piece toured to Made festival in Umeå and back for two evenings at Weld. She also initiated the project Weld far out west, an excursion that became a performance at Gothenburg dance and theatre festival.

In 2009 she had the premiere of the duet 8.66 together with ex-Cullberg dancer Gunilla Hammar.  Anna was also touring her solo piece Scratch memory and engaged herself and nine colleagues in a site-specific work and a film ”Another Pavilion”. She toured the piece Inexakt with choreographer Marie Fahlin and electronic musician Mats Lindström. She also coached the project Fast Forward-movement and film in Belgrade.

In the fall -08 she participated at the Navinkifestival in Minsk and toured her solo to become Montage 3 to Art Lab in Venice. In May-08 she premiered a new performance with nine actors named ”deconstructed formations 1” this piece was reworked to ”deconstructed formations 2” and had a new opening on the 31st of October -08. In the spring she held a workshop at the Swedish dance biennale in Umeå.

In dec/jan-07-08 Anna participated in a new production by Erika Latta(Nyc) taking place in Ljubliana, Slovenia. In the festival node.stockholm Anna collaborated with the artists Geska Helena Andersson and Robert Brecevic in the project Overklighetesinstallation at gallery HAP in Stockholm.

In 2007 Anna has been touring the second part of the triptych Montage: a solo for the actor Simon Norrthon, which premiered on the 22 of November-06. Montage 2 toured to Inkonst in Malmö and to the Nordwindfestival in Berlin, where she also played the new solo To become montage 3.  In spring -07 Anna had a residency at Theatre in Motions BeiLab in Beijing. In September 07 she participated in the International performance festival Navinki in Minsk. She is also an active member of INPEX. Anna gives workshops and lectures nationally and internationally.

Anna Koch utilises various methods to create her choreographic works as can be seen in solos such as Vocoder, Duolouge, Exrpt and Same but Different. She also works with open knowledge-generative processes, a path she started on with the show Transmission (read text)– a solo consisting of movements “swapped” between 35 Swedish choreographers. In Transmission Petit for the Panacea Festival held at Stockholm’s Dansens Hus, she used written instructions to provide 35 dancers with the movements for the piece. In the choreographed exhibition work Projekt Djurgårdsbrunn (a commission from Magasin 3, Stockholms Konsthall) she extended the Transmission concept developing it into a site-specific work. She had a study carried out of the Magasin 3 project both as a geographical location and a social convention and then invited a large number of her colleagues to engage in individual working processes and shared workshops, finally presenting an accounting in the form of a performance at Stockholm’s Jewish Theatre. The spring of 2006 saw the premiere of her work Montage, a duet performed by Marie Fahlin and Peter Jansson.

As a dancer, Anna has worked with both Swedish and international artists such as Efva Lilja, Xavier Le Roy, Michael Laub, Margareta Åsberg, Lotta Melin, Erika Latta/the WaxFactory.

Anna has been supervising at the PhD programme at Stockholm Uniarts and is engaged in the furtherance of Artistic Research.

Anna has shown her work at Dansens Hus, Kulturhuset, Magasin 111, Bonniers Konsthall, Forum, Fylkingen amongst others, and at various international festivals.

Since 2005 she has collaborated with Norwegian director Ole Anders Tandberg which has led to choreography at the Royal Swedish Opera, the Royal Dramatic Theatre, the Citytheatre in Stockholm and the National Theatre in Oslo.

2014 Don Giovanni, Kungliga Operan. Stockholm
2012 Trollflöjten, Kungliga Operan. Stockholm
2010 Figaros bröllop, Kungliga Operan. Stockholm.
2009 En midsommarnattsdröm, Nationalteatern Oslo
2008 En vanlig dag i helvetet, Nationalteatern Oslo
2007 Cosi van Tutte, Figaros Bröllop, Kungliga Operan
2006 Onda andar, Stadsteatern. Stockholm
2006 Barnet och Spökerierna, Kungliga Operan, Stockholm

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