Jan 30 – feb 1. Driftwood / Anna Koch & Mikael Marklund
Weld kicks off the anniversary year with a premiere!
Driftwood
Is stability just an illusion? Is hope perhaps our most radical act?
Driftwood is a physical journey through that which changes, that which falls, and that which refuses to disappear. Today, algorithms try to predict our steps before we even take them. Where is ‘forward’ when direction dissolves? How do you remain present when presence itself slips away? Driftwood is a choreographic duet that springs from a choreographic heritage that both shapes and questions, moving in the tension between the familiar and the unknown.
‘Stay, stop, still going… What is going on?’ These lines of text are the starting point for the choreography.
The sea is vast. The storm is blowing. Do we stay where we are? We continue.
January 30 at 7pm
January 31 at 7pm
February 1 at 4pm
Weld
Norrtullsgatan 7
Book: book.weld.se
Choreography/dance: Anna Koch and Mikael Marklund
Sound design: Rohaeen
Lighting concept: The team with support by Casper Wijlhuizen
Object: Love Enqvist
With support from the City of Stockholm, Region Stockholm and the Swedish Arts Council.
MIKAEL MARKLUND
was born and raised in Skellefteå. He trained at the Ballet Academy in Stockholm and P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, where he also worked with the dance company Rosas. After his time in Brussels, he moved to Berlin, where he was principal dancer for Laurent Chétouane, among others, and later freelanced with Matej Kejzar, Leonard Engel and Moritz Majce, among others. After a long international career as a dancer alongside some of the foremost figures in the field, he has developed his own distinctive artistic expression, centred on bodily intelligence, perceptual presence and situated experience. His practice explores how relationships between subject, object and identity are constructed and renegotiated in the encounter between the lived and the artificial. By working with rhythm, pulse, image and movement as analytical and aesthetic tools, he reveals the narratives, norms and perceptual systems that shape both physicality and society. Since 2024, Marklund has been based in Sweden, where he works as a dance artist, performer and creative artist in both his own projects and collaborative processes.
ANNA KOCH
is a dancer, choreographer, artistic director and founder of the dance and art platform Weld (2006) in Stockholm. Here she initiates ideas and concepts involving collaborations, knowledge generation and various formats for experimentation. In 2013, she initiated Weld Company, now Weld Extended, and conceptualises and runs its activities. She is interested in the historical thread of dance and choreography: where movements come from, what influences have shaped what, and what drives development forward. Her artistic work moves between different practices and fields. She explores the interplay between language, image and perception through choreography, performance, word- and text-based works, sound and video. Her artistic works have been shown in dance and art contexts on both small and large stages in Sweden and internationally. She has a long-standing collaboration with director Ole Anders Tandberg and choreographs for theatre and opera. Recently Lemarc at the Citytheatre. As a dancer, she has worked with Efva Lilja, Margaretha Åsberg, Xavier Le Roy, Michael Laub/Remote Control, Lotta Melin, The Wax Factory, Dinis Machado and others. Anna trained with Ellen Rasch and at The Legat School of Ballet, UK. She is educated at the Ballet Academy in Stockholm, with further courses at the University of Dance.
Weld is supported by the City of Stockholm, the Swedish Arts Council and Region Stockholm.