Gunilla Heilborn

A grandly chaotic choreographic exploration

In Verk och dagar (Works and Days), Gunilla Heilborn tackles a two-part work for the first time, combining a journey to ancient Greece with a meticulous (and at times somewhat chaotic) examination of her most widely toured work – This is not a love story.

With humour and a dash of melancholy, Heilborn guides us through a lecture performance in which, like a seasoned investigator, she scrutinises this 14-year-old piece. Through film, projected images, interviews and recollections, she traces a map of the work’s fragmentary texts and scenes, while exposing hidden backgrounds and references that were perhaps never meant to be found. Part two is a theatrical experience, in which dancers Ludvig Daae and Kristiina Viiala perform texts and choreographed material. Grandiose images are created that highlight what we carry with us, what we remember and what we would rather forget. Heilborn’s parallel interest in ancient Greece re-emerges, but not to give us a history lesson – rather as a skewed mirror for our own time, employing a humorous filter to help us re-evaluate This is not a love story and our own slightly convoluted journey through time and space.

Dansnät Sverige has previously presented the following works by Gunilla Heilborn: Give it Some Time (2020), The Knowledge (2016), This is not a love story (2014) and Åtjärn Stories (2006).

Gunilla Heilborn

Choreographer

Gunilla Heilborn is a choreographer and film maker based in Stockholm. She is obsessed with research and spends most of her time reading about memory techniques, medieval cities or ancient oracles. By combining text, movement, video and images, Heilborn creates a fascinating and captivating form of expression – both entertaining and challenging her audience.

Her artistic career began with radio and film studies, as well as choreography at the School of Dance and Circus (DOCH) in Stockholm and with Anna Halprin at the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop. Since then, Heilborn has enjoyed great success in both theatre and film. 

Ludvig Daae

Dancer

Ludvig Daae is a choreographer and dancer based in Oslo and Stockholm. He has a fondness for long-term collaborations, unusual stage settings and pop culture references. His work often navigates the borderland between the personal and the conceptual – frequently with a dose of self-reliance, glitter and meticulous research.

After studying dance at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and touring extensively as a dancer for Deborah Hay and Mårten Spångberg, among others, he has created works for such as Cullberg, Norrdans and the Royal Swedish Ballet School. His solo production MM has been performed over 100 times in ten countries and was named one of the best theatre pieces of the year in Portugal in 2014.

Ludvig has previously toured with Dansnät Sverige with his own works: Meningen med livet (The meaning of life) in collaboration with Tove Berglund (2023 and 2024), as well as The Viral Dance (2020) and Hyperfruit (2017), both in collaboration with Joanna Nordahl.

Sophie Augot

Dancer

Sophie Augot is a dancer, actor and choreographer based in Stockholm. She trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, the University of Dance and Circus, and Stockholm University of the Arts, and has for many years worked in close collaboration with choreographers Björn Säfsten, Cristina Caprioli, Kenneth Kvarnström and Örjan Andersson. She has also taken part in projects by, among others, Anna Koch, Sidney Leoni, Mari Carrasco and Anna Källblad, as well as worked as an actor at Helsingborg City Theatre, Riksteatern, Stockholm City Theatre, Regionteatern Blekinge Kronoberg and Turteatern.

In 2023, she created the piece MISS together with Philip Berlin. At present, she is in the early stages of developing her own artistic language and is working on the solo piece Kiddo, which will premiere at Turteatern in 2026.