Sonya Lindfors is a Helsinki-based Cameroonian-Finnish choreographer and artistic director. In all her work, Lindfors aims to shake and challenge existing power structures, empower communities and facilitate spaces for radical collective dreaming. We are delighted to welcome her to facilitate a 2-day lab this June.
We Should All Be Dreaming is a concept that focuses on the radical potential of dreaming as a restorative and subversive practice. It comes with a straightforward suggestion: we should all be dreaming radical utopian dreams of collective futures. Situating itself somewhere between a collective think tank, choreographed gathering, a workshop and research space, the project gently invites the participants to spend time together, listen together and dream together.
We Should All Be Dreaming (WSABD) is a long term collaboration between choreographer Sonya Lindfors and writer and activist Maryan Abdulkarim who are both interested in radical utopian and decolonial practices. The world around us is plagued by fear, anger and hate of the unknown but this project attempts a strategic deviation – it does not only fight against, react to or reveal the grim realities of the surrounding world but instead works as a platform of soft resistance by making space for communal coexistence. As one of the greatest voices of Afrofuturist aesthetic Sun Ra said: “The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible!”
Sonya will introduce participants to WSABD concepts and structure this lab with provocations, questions, and collective moving practices for dreaming, with the aim to co-create a space with participants. It is open to artists, thinkers and activists who are happy to work with movement.
Bursary places
Through dialogue with the lead artist and with thanks to Perform Europe support, we are able to offer 6 free bursary spaces. These are intended for artists who identify as under-represented in the dance field for reasons including race, dis/ability, gender orientation, or socio-economic background. To register your interest in a bursary, please send one line to info@independentdance.co.uk with the subject heading ‘bursary’. Bursary places will be offered through a lottery process if we receive more than 6 expressions of interest.
Deadline for registering interest in a bursary place : 14 April
Booking opens to the public : 20 April
Part of the project Feminist Futures: Towards antiracist and intersectional stages supported by Perform Europe. Feminist Futures is led by Fest en Fest and will host live presentations of We Should All Be Dreaming in London, Trondheim (Norway), Oslo (Norway) and Berlin (Germany), as well as a digital screening at the RE:LOCATIONS Digital Festival (Denmark).
Partners for the project include: Sonya Lindfors (Finland), Rosendal International Theatre (Norway), WILDTOPIA ApS (Denmark), CODA Oslo International Dance Festival (Norway), Oyoun Kultur NeuDenken gUG (Germany), LIFT Festival (UK), Independent Dance (UK), and H2DANCE/Fest en Fest (UK).
Concept : Sonya Lindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim
Co-producers: Spring Utrecht, Baltic Circle, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux
Sonya Lindfors is a Cameroonian – Finnish choreographer and artistic director that also works with facilitating, community organizing and education. In 2013 she received a MA in choreography from the University of the Arts Helsinki.
She is the founding member and Artistic Director of UrbanApa, an inter-disciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new discourses and feminist art practices. UrbanApa facilitates workshops, festivals, labs, mentoring and publications among other things.
Lindfors makes her own and collaborative works such as performances, curated programs and performative actions. Her performance works have been shown and supported by Beursschouwburg, Kampnagel, Spring Utrecht, CODA – festival, Black Box Theater Oslo, Zodiak – Centre for New Dance among others. She is a member of Miracle Workers Collective that represented Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Lindfors’s recent works We Should All Be Dreaming, camouflage (2021), Soft Variations Online (2020) centralize questions around Blackness and Black body politics, representation and power structures, speculative futurieties and decolonial dreaming practices. On a larger scale Lindfors’s time is divided between her own artistic work , educational work and working as the artistic director of UrbanApa. In all her positions she pursues creating and facilitating anti-racist and feminist platforms, where a festival, a performance, a publication or a workshop can operate as the site of empowerment and radical collective dreaming.
Lindfors has been awarded with several prizes, the latest of which being the international Live art Anti Prize 2018. During the season 2017 – 2018 Lindfors was the house choreographer for Zodiak – center for new dance.