Listening multifocally, acting coalitionally… for we share responsibility 

The event I organized is part of a series; as the first episode (in Oslo), it focused on examining continuities and ruptures between historical and contemporary fascism from the perspective of dance.[*] The main intention was to share outstanding research projects — for example, tracing the political history of a dictatorship in the emergence of “new” and contemporary dance in a Southern European country, or considering what the politics of icons such as The Green Table and Laban's work provoke today. These histories continue to operate in current manifestations of fascism, and I felt it would be valuable to open them up to the Oslo scene — within the designated budget and time that Dansens Hus could allocate to a program of this scale, for which I am grateful. 

A comparison with Berlinale festival seems out of place. Working in the dance field in Norway, and presenting this program at Dansens Hus, I sought in this first iteration to explore what it means to own one’s history: how to narrate it and, as a dance artist and scholar, to act from one’s embeddedness in it—through discourse and embodiment alike. And then raise questions about antifascist strategies in dance in relation to form, gesture, habit, capacity for direct action, dissent and resistance to ableism. The research and storytelling from Portugal, Spain, and the former Yugoslavia were sophisticated and relevant—such entanglement of political history and history of contemporary dance in exhibition or performative is quite rare, and I found there was much to learn. The presentations were dense but rich, resonating with three performances (Olga de Soto, Manuel Pelmus and Frédéric Gies, and Isabel de Naveran) and a stand-up intervention that exposed and stirred up practical positions in dance in Norway (Sunniva Moen Rørvik and Miriam Levy). The conversations opened fault lines, dissenting arguments, and feelings fraught with fascism today — not only among the audience but also among the presenters. Many audience members commented that the stage at Dansens Hus became a place we could claim for a dialogue in which we are politically invested. I am surprised that Lervik didn’t take up any thought as a prompt to engage with and think through a little more thoroughy, and eventually polemicize with it in a more informed and specific way. Instead, the text dismisses the whole program in a blanket manner while skating along the surface in all directions with sarcastic jabs.

 The first episode of Choreographing Antifascism did not present, on stage, the voices of those currently most targeted by fascism. The days were, rather, dedicated to studying research-based cases that link different historical periods and geographies in a long durée. Is there nothing worthwhile in building such a longer arc, as, for example, Isabel de Naveran does in Wrap, History, Syncope, tracing lines from La Argentina through Kazuo Ohno to forms of nation-state building which are still at stake in current fascisms? Is her method of movement in thought not something to look to as a form of resistance? De Naveran’s performance was not even mentioned in Lervik’s review. Is theorizing and reflection by default “academic,” and should that be understood as “irrelevant”? Perhaps it is so for a mode of criticism that polarizes the intellectual and the emotional, lived experience and reflective perspective, the transnational and the Norwegian. Such thinking risks pandering to far-right agendas that seek to defund art, research, and critical inquiry — something we may well face as soon as the next elections in Norway. Lastly, I am troubled by remarks that suggest a lack of curiosity: Lervik does not seem to have inquired into how many of us in the program come from contexts marked by fascist regimes and antifascist struggle—where our grandparents fought fascism, and where we continue comparable struggles today in places such as Brussels, Oslo, Lisbon, Belgrade, Novi Sad. These positions were not foregrounded at Dansens Hus as lived experience, but they clearly inform the background of our inquiries.[†]

Choreographing Antifascism is not the last event on antifascism that I — and, I hope, many others in Norway — will organize; its focus and register will inevitably shift. As the historian and activist Jonas Bals reminded me the other day, only by bringing our different forces and competencies together — rather than dividing them — can we address the multiple facets and registers through which fascisation advances. The right feeds on us cynically fragmentizing and pitting positions one against the other on the left. We would do better to do the opposite: each contributing our part of intervention while also meeting, weaving, and exchanging our differences within a broader field for which we share responsibility.

Bojana Cvejić Oslo, April 18. 2026

 Footnotes:

[*] The first in the series of three episodes took place at Kaaitheater in Brussels, see the program here: https://kaaitheater.be/en/agenda/25-26/figures-fascism-and-antifascist-solidarity

[†] See the program at Artistic Research Week, Timelines I: On Perseverance, Solidarity and Revolt with Dora García, Saskia Holmkvist, Martin White and Bojana Cvejić” and Timelines II: Pirate Care lecture by Valeria Graziano and Tomislav Medak, which I organized on January 21, 2025 at KhIO. https://khio.no/events/2198