The performance Liminal States serves as an escape from the visual sphere of our existence into the energetic embodied aspect of living. A space of liminality where experiences happen on the threshold of consciousness. 

The desire behind this work is to dialogue with internal spaces that are beyond the persona. To put a focus on where the transformative happens and can be experienced as corporal liminal states of abyss. Ultimately it can be seen as a meditation on the elusive but powerful sub-currents of our lives. 

The work is based on an ongoing artistic research conducted by the choreographer into altered states of perception through phenomenological embodiment. It is the last in a trilogy dealing with the notion of larger forces that act on us beyond our conscious mind. The trilogy consists of; Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018), Boundless Ominous Fields (2024), Liminal States (2024). The original composition was created by Peter Rehberg for the performance Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018). Creating a new performance Liminal States (2024) on Peter's music is a tribute to the decade-long collaboration between Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir and Peter Rehberg until his passing in 2021. The music composition will be released on vinyl on Editions Mego in January 2025. Pre-release at the Liminal States premiere 1st November 2024 at the City Theatre of Reykjavík in Iceland.

For the last 15 years Margrét  has been addressing various facets of the pathological imprint of the social political body within our own bodies and its de-conditioning in her choreographic works. As well as research into the deep tissue release practice FULL DROP. She considers her work involving de-conditioning as a direct political gesture and activism. In a larger sense her performance works engage in the ongoing discussion of healing, feminism, interconnectedness and notions of energetic citizenship within the choreographic context. The performers use her FULL DROP practice to access different body states and altered states of awareness. So called HYPERSTATES of high resonance and sensitivity. These body states are celebrated as visceral denials of the externally and internally imposed imperatives to achieve, and draw a contrast between the neoliberal logic of hyperactivity and productivity by presenting an alternative kind of energy and strength. Forming a corporeal language that serves as a doorway into the subconscious which allows for radical questioning of our inner and outer realities through new knowledge and perception of ourselves.

Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir

Icelandic Brussels based choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir studied dance in Holland and then worked as a performer with various performance makers in Europe during the period 2001-2014. She lived in Berlin during the majority of her international carrier, creating and touring her dance performances internationally for over 2 decades. Supported by cultural platforms and institutions, and theatre and dance Festivals across Europe. She showed her work and collaborated with the Sophiensaele theatre in Berlin 2014-2018. Along with her own projects she did various commissions.

She premieres two new stage works in 2024,Boundless Ominous Fields  at the international Side Step festival at Zodiak centre of dance in Helsinki in and Liminal States danced by the Icelandic National Dance company, at the City Theater of Reykjavik.

In 2013 her performance work started taking shape from her ongoing in-depth research into a working method she titled FULL DROP that accesses physiological and subconscious sub-worlds.  A process which included mapping out a new category of performative body language, ways of developing it and transferring the knowledge both practically and theoretically to the wider international dance scene and academia. She considers her work involving de-conditioning as a direct political gesture and activism. In a larger sense her performance works engage in the ongoing discussion of healing, feminism, interconnectedness and notions of energetic citizenship within the choreographic context.

Margrét Sara co-curated four performance events in the Flutgraben Performances event series in Berlin 2019-2020. Her work has been written about in various publications within the context of academia and the arts. In addition to her own productions Margrét Saras has done extensive artistic research and worked collaboratively on interdisciplinary projects during the last years. Current long term collaborators are  Finnish dancer artists Karolina Ginman and Marlon Moilanen and British electronic composer and cellist Lucy Railton. As well as Canadian phenomenologists Prof. Susan Kozel, Their newest collaboration is choreographic installation of a  AR /AI archive of somatic states from the choreographies of Guðjónsdóttir, which opened at the ICI in Berlin February 2022 within the context of the symposium “Phenomenological Reductions / Variations: Bodies, Literature and Technology”, curated by the philosophers Federica Buongiorno and Alberica Bazzoni.

Margrét Sara collaborated for 10 years with British electronic music composer Peter Rehberg from 2010 until his passing in 2021.

She  co-founded the production house Panic Productions in Iceland with choreographer Sveinbjörg Þórhallsdóttir which was active from 2004 – 2009, and focused on producing and initiating collaborative performance works with international artists for the Icelandic stage and beyond it.

Concept
Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir

Dancers
Elín Signý Ragnarsdóttir, Erna Gunnarsdóttir, Félix Urbina Alejandre, Una Björg Bjarnadóttir

Music
Peter Rehberg

Light design
Jóhann Friðrik Ágústsson

Stage design
Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir

Costumes
Karen Briem

Artistic advisor
Anja Röttgerkamp

Video:
Afstrakt