In this text, I look at the intersection between motherhood and choreography. The text tells me about asymmetries and power relations, much like all of my choreographic work. The humor brings me closer, makes me vulnerable. I try to expose myself, knowing irony will create a distance that I try to refrain from. Yet, the more vulnerable I say I am, the stronger position I get. That's the thing with power, even in the position as a choreographer. Nonetheless, this is where my interest lies - to keep exposing our positions, trying to get closer and closer, both to each other as well as to the work.


Ofelia Jarl Ortega (b. 1990) is a Chilean-Swedish choreographer and performer based in Stockholm. Her work centers around vulnerability and femininity, often with a suggestive erotic aesthetic; where questions around power and group dynamics are at the core of her investigations. Her work has been presented both nationally and internationally since 2015, at venues such as ImPulsTanz, Vienna, MDT, Stockholm, Arsenic - Contemporary Performing Arts Centre, Lausanne and Moving in November, Helsinki.

SCREWBALL DANCES
Ofelia Jarl Ortega

EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK 'A BOOK OF DANCES'
BY ANNE NAUKKARINEN

CALLING

An introduction
The piece has its own inner logic. I believe my current state makes me see an inner logic of things. I'm malleable, soft and sensitive. I'm attentive, reactive and responsive. This hormonal state makes me open, reflective and analytic. Motherhood does this to me.

My intentions are clear. I want to highlight and use their relationships as material. There is a risk of crossing some lines, of course, but the intentions are good. A good start. We all have to trust my intentions,
or rather, my skill, my skill to highlight and use. I say we, because I want to consider it a collective work. Because I need them to be included and together. I know it will help the work. We all know different things. I learn from my kids. I know that you need to sleep now. Trust me. We all bring our different expertise, and if I share my strategies and tools, I have hope that they will be autonomous, not depending on me when it comes to the premiere day (the day they turn 18), and that they have agency, trust and care enough to make choices in real time, negotiate live on stage, and to own the different outcomes, to enjoy and play with them.


Judgemental
That’s nice! In relation to not nice, to ugly, to boring, to too much, too little. In relation to everything I don't want them or need them to do in order to make this piece. It’s a selective process and I start to judge my
way of selecting, processing, and how I choose. I have a value system I bring to the rehearsals. I try to be specific and supportive, open-minded and fun, smart and generous. I want to bring what welcomes things.
Yet I bring the value system. The things that I don't want I simply don’t mention. I forget to talk about them. I don't see them, I don't recognize them. I definitely don't say “no”, or “I don't like it”. Oh, no quiero que
hagas eso, Fernanda. I say no more to my kids than to my dancers, but I want more specific things from my dancers than from my kids.


We, and I say we because we’re definitely connected, are still breastfeeding. Silvio craves milk from me. Nandy has traveled all the way to Zürich to be with us these weeks, and as an extended but close family member, she receives my “parental leave money”. She has been with Silvio all morning and now she has brought him to the studio to eat. We take a short break - my body knows immediately what is about to happen and starts producing milk. The dancers crave more specific feedback from me. Sometimes I leak, it seeps out of me.







The choreographers' monologue
...You’d have to activate the props, the curtain, the table, the rug and the tablecloth, and the bells. It has a consequence and a sound. You cannot ruin it. But don’t overdo it. But you have to touch it. Only you can do it. You can all do it once, tops, or twice. Tops. Articulate the speech. Decide if it’s audible or not. It's ASMR. I want it to tickle me. I want to make the same faces as you when I see you. Yes! These are your exact placements and positions, but it doesn’t matter if you get there or not. You have 5 minutes to get there before the music starts. It’s important to end in a line, but don’t do it together at the same time.

“That wasn’t funny... this is really not working
don’t do that... try not to... refrain from... I'd do...
I’d prefer if you... yeah?, but, maybe... perhaps...”

So I speak to my dancers the way I speak to my kids.