1.
It is Thursday the 13th of November and it's the premiere of Trio Variations danced by Hana
Lee Erdman, Louise Dahl and Liz Kinoshita at MDT in Stockholm.

Erdman is stepping in a circular pattern on the wooden floor. Her steps drive forward, without
stress or hesitation. She carries everything with her in each step. Erdman crosses her legs,
increases speed and starts dancing.

Erdman and Dahl are stepping circular patterns on the wooden floor, together but not the
same. Erdman exerts a force on Dahl, Dahl exerts an equal and opposite force on Erdman. In
a pedestrian couple's dance they circle, push and pull each other. Occasionally a shared
gravitational pull occurs that they can’t resist. Dahl spins and her movement spreads in the
room like a calm whip.

Erdman, Dahl and Kinoshita are stepping circular patterns on the wooden floor, together but
not the same. They form a herd. With the alertness of players in a game they gather at
collective landmarks to then lose themselves in wild life. They constitute a network of
floating members and the air around them thickens, like an invisible connective tissue.

Kinoshita crouches and reaches her hand towards the ceiling. She decelerates, collects the
momentum in her hand and brings Trio Variations to its end.

2.
When I arrive at MDT in Stockholm to see the performance Trio Variations I receive a small
paper bag. In the bag I find several wooden sticks, rubber bands and instructions. I put it in
my pocket and it is not until I sit at my kitchen table some days later that I take out the
contents of the paper bag. I impatiently fiddle with sticks and rubber bands trying to decipher
the series of images in the instruction. I get nowhere, I barely manage to connect anything.
From the images in the instruction I understand that I’m supposed to build a structure where
the sticks are held together by the tension of the rubber bands but I’m not even close. My
rubber bands slack and I don’t manage to create stability instead the small tension I create
collapses when I let go of the sticks. I give up.

A week later a friend is visiting. She sits at my kitchen table, in the middle of a temporary but
strong identity crisis, she doesn’t know what to do of herself and she picks up the paper bag
from Trio Variations. She engages with the puzzle, she gives up on the impossible instruction
and turns to the internet for help. Some time later, there it is. Six wooden sticks are held
together by the tension of six rubber bands. It is a stable and flexible three-dimensional
structure. The stability is created by tension in multiple directions and none of the wooden
sticks touch each other. My friend pushes the structure by pressing her hands towards each
other, the structure receives the pressure and when she releases it bounces back.

3.
Most buildings are constructed with the continuity of compression from top to bottom, like a
stack of bricks. One could think that a human body is constructed in a similar way, like a
stack of body parts with compression from head to feet. But a body is structured as a whole,
as a network of interconnected tissues. When a body is exposed to pressure it distributes in
the entire structure, rather than being concentrated in one area. Similarly Trio Variations is a
network of interconnected movement and not a stack of steps. Three dancing bodies move as
an uninterrupted whole and one part is never acting alone. The action of distributing
movement both locally and globally dissolves the separation of those same categories.

The word integrity comes from the Latin word integer which means whole or complete.
Integrity can on the one hand refer to a person's quality of being honest and having strong
moral principals. Someone with integrity doesn’t constantly change and adapt to different
situations but remains consequent to their commitments in every encounter. On the other
hand integrity can refer to the state of being whole or undivided. This state or characteristic
of being unified and sound in construction can be ascribed to things like a sturdy bridge, a
human body or a dance performance.

Trio Variations is building trust with each turn and deepening commitment with each foot
moving down to earth. It is stable and not rigid, it moves and maintains integrity. Trio
Variations is undivided, meant to be eaten whole, in one bite and digested directly into the
body of the hungry observer.

BY REBECKA BERCHTOLD