MATERIAL FOR THE SPINE

Material For the Spine concentrates accumulated knowledges from Paxton’s study of walking, Contact Improvisation and Aikido practice to explore the movement possibilities in the spine and the connections between the head, pelvis, and vertebrae. This solo practice is a meditative study of a series of exercises, body puzzles and ideokinetic imagery.

“With Material For the Spine, I was interested in alloying a technical approach to improvisational results. It is a system for exploring the interior and exterior muscles of the back, and aims to bring the light of consciousness to the dark side of the body, the dark side of the body, that is, the sides not much self-seen, and to submit sensations to the mind for consideration.” Steve Paxton

 

Otto Ramstad, is a dance artist who makes performances, video works and installations for theaters, galleries, museums and different site and context specific encounters. He has an MA in Choreography from KHiO.

 

For twenty years he has been collaborating with Olive Bieringa as BodyCartography Project. The mission of BodyCartography Project is to engage with the vital materiality of our bodies to create live performance that facilitates a re-enchantment of embodiment, relationship, and presence. BodyCartography has been creating performances, films, installations, and festivals internationally in urban, domestic, wild, and social landscapes. He has toured throughout North America, Europe, Brazil, Japan, Russia and New Zealand.

 

Most recent performances at Weisman Museum, Minneapolis; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dance Place, Washington DC and Marlo Grendhus, Skjåk, Norway. He has had fellowships from Foundation for Contemporary Art, 2015 and McKnight Foundation, 2010, amongst others, and funding from MAP Fund, National Dance Project, American Composers Forum and National Performance Network, amongst many others. 

 

He has been an artist in residence at K3 Hamburg; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Carleton College, Minnesota.  He’s done commissioned for Lyon Opera Ballet and PS122, NYC, amongst others. He has danced for DD Dorvillier, Miguel Gutierrez, Sara Shelton Mann and Kitt Johnson.

 

His most current work Lineage looks at learning and how we learn, care, preservation and archiving by drawing lines between his learning of experimental dance and somatic practices, specifically Lisa Nelson’s Tuning Scores, Steve Paxton’s Material for the Spine, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s BMC and emergent the learning of his Norwegian cultural heritage which has been invisible to him. Through exploring his Norwegian great grandfather John Ramstad’s life and the places he moved through he is reflecting on what it was to live in a body in rural Norway 100 years ago.

 

He is the recipient of an Arbeids Stipendieum from Norsk Kulturrådet for 2022-2025.