Can you spot the Aerowaves artist?
5 October 2021Is there such a thing as an ‘Aerowaves artist’ today? Anna Kozonina searches for shared traits among recent Aerowaves works
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Aerowaves at 25 is a series of commissioned pieces that reflect on Aerowaves at 25 years old and consider where the organisation might go next.
Rather than revisit the past, we’re marking the moment with a specially printed publication featuring new texts by contemporary Springback writers, intercut with snapshots from history.
When I was asked to reflect on the image of the contemporary Aerowaves artist, I thought: oh God, that would require profound research and take a significant number of pages. Because there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ Aerowaves artist. They come from different countries, stretching from Greece to Norway. They have various dance backgrounds: from classical training and contemporary dance techniques to street dance, jazz, and traditional folk dancing, they vary in styles and aesthetics, and approaches to creating pieces. And, more importantly, they have different ideas of what dance is.
Aerowaves artists are never well-established choreographers with big dance companies and consistent support: often they are highly professional enthusiasts still fighting for wide recognition. Their pieces stick to a minimalist setup and involve a small number of performers. They are bold in their interpretations of what dance is, and that leads to a variety of aesthetics and genres and pushes them to continually collaborate with artists from different media.
But if we look deeper, we might find three seemingly meaningful things which today distinguish a collective image of the very ‘Aerowaves artist’. I would venture to assume that they are: (self)-reflection, (self)-irony, and reimagined virtuosity.
(Self)-reflection
Despite the highly sustainable myth of dance being ‘just’ the art of bodily expression, for the last hundred years choreographers, apart from developing different genres and styles, have been reflecting on the boundaries of art and the pressing issues of the outside world. From essentialist feminist sentiments of early modern dance to Cunningham’s musings on the body which would be denaturalised, dismantled, and then reassembled ‘by chance’ in an inhuman logic; from the urge to find the extraordinary in the mundane and push the boundaries of classic stage dance in the 1970s to ironic deconstructive gestures of ‘non-dance’; from Tanztheater to gallery performances – dance has always been here to give feedback to the world. Against this backdrop, Aerowaves artists are likewise smart and pretty passionate about the world around them, be it the theatre world or wider global issues.
Aerowaves artists are usually competent in the dance techniques they are practising but they don’t take them for granted. Being entangled in histories, fashion and even politics, dance styles themselves are often scrutinised by choreographers. In Inés Belli’s brilliant Postmodern Cool, five dancers recreate the common expectations of theatrical jazz, reflecting on and constantly deconstructing its rules and aesthetic regimes. Paweł Sakowicz’s energetic Jumpcore explores different types of jumping, ranging from ballet to rave, to question the politics of ‘lightness’.

‘Postmodern Cool’ by Inés Belli. © Tale Hendnes

‘Jumpcore’ by Paweł Sakowicz
Iris Karayan’s Unauthorised reflects on pop-cultural representations of the body, dance, and movement. And in her powerful solo Babae, Joy Alpuerto Ritter refers to Mary Wigman’s Witch Dance, exploring how vocabularies of contemporary dance techniques, Philippine folk dance, classical training, hip hop, and voguing in her body become part of one big heritage praising mysterious female power.
This self-reflection goes beyond deconstructing and reassembling different techniques and styles and extends to the dance world in general. In the hilarious Jean-Yves, Patrick & Corinne, Sidonie Duret, Jeremy Martinez and Emilie Szikora cast doubt on the concept of originality in dance. The slow, almost still Drift (I, II) by Mario Barrantes Espinoza and Thomas Bîrzan blurs the borders between dance and sculpture, questioning the common understanding of dance as the art of mobility.

‘Jean-Yves, Patrick & Corinne’ by Collectif És © Jean Louis Fernandez
And then there’s an urge to analyse the outside world and the role of dance in wider events. The hypnotising Harleking by Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi masterfully examines how seemingly ‘natural’ human emotions are always being constructed through relations of power and control in society. Markéta Stránská’s FLY!, ‘a physical life experience with one leg, one prosthetic leg and two crutches’, is a strong statement on how dance can empower people by discovering new opportunities for moving and living. And Premier Stratagème’s Forecasting explores our contemporary relationship with technology, revealing that, although in old-school media theory technologies are seen as extensions of the body, today our bodies are rather laptop extensions themselves.
(Self)-irony
Though (self)-reflection may come first, it doesn’t mean that Aerowaves choreographers necessarily produce highbrow art. A good portion of this analytical work usually comes with a pinch of self-irony, if not with a big dose of exquisite humour.
In Long Time No See!, humour appears in the language of proximity between two cultures. Through never-ending riffs on national identities and traditions and mutual in-jokes, Beatrix Simkó and Jenna Jalonen explore similarities between Hungarian and Finnish lifestyles.
The Feline Project by Dagmar Dachauer is as serious as it is hilariously absurd. It’s about cats. About internet cats. The performance transforms an abstract internet pet into a fleshy uncanny creature and makes you laugh and cry in a soul-touching ‘meow-meow’ song.

‘The Feline Project’ by Dagmar Daucher © Shananair
If like me you’ve always thought that cheerleaders are more scary and aggressive than encouraging, Kristin Ryg Helgebostad, the author of Cheers, thinks likewise. This performance both celebrates and distorts cheerleading dance, showing its ability to empower but also enslave its practitioners.
Thus, irony becomes a handy tool to address many issues inside and outside of dance, with fun and joyful inspiration.
Virtuosity reimagined
Aerowaves artists are usually virtuosos. They are virtuosic not only in the usual sense in terms of craft and formal qualities: they also push other aspects of their craft – their somatic awareness, ability to conduct research, or their dramaturgical choices – to new levels. There is a wide range of what can be considered ‘virtuosity’ here, and it gives us an insight into how diverse the field of contemporary dance is.
Compare two virtuosos: Anne-Marie Van in Cellule and Chiara Bersani in Gentle Unicorn. Both are personal performances of high intensity, the first based on explosive krump, the second on super slow movement and eye contact. Or compare two pieces with strong somatic awareness: James Batchelor’s Hyperspace and Lina Gómez’s Restraint. The first is hypnotising, self-immersed, calm, concentrated and poetic, while the second becomes more intense the more it puts the body into a state of tension and alertness.

‘UNDRESS/ Moving painting’ by Masako Matsushita © Paolo Paggi

‘Bouncing Narratives’ by Roza Moshtaghi © Josh Lake and Ben Pender
Or compare dramaturgical choices in Masako Matsushita’s Un/dress and Roza Moshtaghi’s Bouncing Narratives. The former unfolds its feminist narrative through playing with pure form and semantics of clothes; the latter, being a mix of dance and installation art, develops its dramaturgy by means of the specific organisation of spaces for movement and watching. Overall, Aerowaves artists reimagine contemporary dance virtuosity by pushing it out of its own old-school boundaries.
There is no such thing as a ‘typical’ Aerowaves artist but the whole spirit of that community could be caught in a few phrases: smart but welcoming, reflective but ironic, and, in its broadest sense, virtuosic.
By Anna Kozonina