Photography: Märta Thisner

“Covers” (with and by Amanda Apetrea, light and set design by Chrisander Brun)

“Covers”, is a solo where Amanda plays with the idea of dance performance vs concert. It is new version of a contemporary or previously made, commercially released or popular dance or choreography.

"Dancer" (with and by Emma Tolander)

"I am a dancer. To dance is the best thing I know. I feel bad if I do not practice every day. I always work to be as good a dancer as I can. " In her solo, Emma will search for the deepest and darkest intentions and ideals of being a dancer.

In the EDIE&EDIE project Apetrea and Tolander has been working through a collective practice. During the process they worked in relation to the EDIE&EDIE practice manifesto as seen below. 

EDIE&EDIE, the practice manifesto

By Amanda Apetrea and Emma Tolander

It's about practicing dancing and performing.

The practice can be used as a tool for making performances. We have set up possibilities to; develop material, practice, write, sing, do your own work, share work/thoughts/ideas, do collaborative work, be physical and use music.

The practice can also be used as simply a warm up or a time and space for meditation, a place where you can focus on anything else but work and just co-exist with others doing their thing. We think that being able to do this can (if you want) be exactly what we need in order to actually do work. If you don't want to do work it's ok too.

The Edie & Edie practice is critical towards structures within the dance world and society at large. A dance world that is based on hierarchical structures and a society where the individual is praised and collective engagement hard to find. By doing the Edie & Edie practice we suggest that we work in relation to each other with as flat structure as we can.

We do the practice to music. The music is divided in three playlists marking the three different parts of the practice. The music should be music that makes us wanna move around. It's quite personal. And we believe what is personal can also be universal, or not, that's also fine. The music can be changed, but only before we start in order to have little interruptions in the practice whilst doing it.

Through our collected knowledge of dance practices we dig deeper into norms and traditions concerning dance in order to open up ourselves to thinking and doing differently.

We keep an open mind towards different dance references that inhabit our bodies.

We welcome different styles that we have loved to hate and hated to love.

We use improvisation as a tool, and we are aware of that improvisation, when it comes to dance, and those traditions that follow, are creating specific aesthetics and ideals, movement- and body- wise. The most important thing is to allow them to exist in the practice and in our bodies. To say yes no matter what and yet to still be aware of what we're doing and where we position ourselves within those aesthetics and ideals. Sometimes we are critical sometimes maybe not. In any case we aim for awareness. The practice is not about erasing but rather to embrace the bodily knowledge that we possess and that we, in different ways, have stored since we started to practice dance. “We” being who ever does the practice and “we” also being Edie & Edie (Amanda and Emma).

The Edie & Edie practice aims to be a place where we can be and dance in however ways we want and where we can deconstruct and build up new ways out of old habits, where the love and desire to dance pushes us forward as well as the cynicism and skepticism towards old boring traditions and ideals.

We think of the practice as a way of making conscious choices rather than aiming to produce authenticity or originality when it comes to the movements. We have a strong belief that a search for authenticity only ends up in reproducing old habits and that aim for originality only gives us artistic headache. If originality happens it happens and after we might not even have noticed and we're back to square one. We believe we already have enough shit stored to work with another century. This is not saying that we do not look for new ways. Yes, we do in fact! That is one of the most fun and important things of the practice. We're looking for new ways to navigate through old habits. Ways that will open up rather than close. Ways that will be constantly changing rather than ending up somewhere. The Edie & Edie practice is a road trip on the dusty roads of dance through the desert of traditions.