Workshop:
Spoken Dance
How does dance become text,
and language become movement again?
With Pernille Sonne & Lisa Rykena
How can dance be transformed into language—and language back into movement? How does a gesture become a sentence, a breath a sound, a choreography a story? This workshop explores the diverse paths of artistic translation: dance to text, text to dance, movement as narration or as an abstract soundscape. Here, dance is not understood as a purely nonverbal medium, but as the body’s soundful, emotional storytelling. Every step carries meaning, every repetition creates rhythm, and every slightest shift can express seduction, resistance, or intimacy. Between concrete description and poetic condensation, we explore how movement can be formulated linguistically or translated into sound—and how words, in turn, set bodies in motion.
The workshop consists of two parts:
In the first part, the workshop facilitators provide an introduction to fundamental methods for integrating audio description, performance, and dance. Using practical scores, participants will explore strategies for describing, expanding, or transforming movement. Questions of aesthetic accessibility play a central role here: How can description not only make something accessible, but also be an artistic act in itself? What narrative qualities emerge when language becomes part of the choreography?
In the second part, participants will work with selected scores from the latest dance production »Stripping Bolero« ↗ by the choreographer duo Lisa Rykena and Carolin Jüngst, on which Pernille Sonne collaborated as dramaturg. »Stripping Bolero« serves as a concrete example of the interplay between body, voice, dramaturgy, and the Aesthetics of Access, as well as choreographic research on seduction and dance.
The workshop will be facilitated by Pernille Sonne and Lisa Rykena. Having collaborated for several years in various contexts, they divide their artistic practice between movement, language, and accessibility. The workshop is an invitation to understand dance as a narrative, sonic, and seductive force—and to expand one’s own practice to include new forms of translation. The workshop is open to anyone interested, with or without dance experience.