Liv Schellander: Hypernurtures

In her new solo work, choreographer Liv Schellander explores the ambiguous and controversial mutual relationships between humans, animals, nature, and spirit. complex and vibrant relations within the cluster of human–animal–nature–spirit. Can we, as a presumably empathic species, acquire a deeper understanding of vitality, resilience, and connectivity by encountering non-human life forms? Hypernurtures sensitively weaves movement, voice, sound, and scenography into a hybrid sensual landscape in which whispering and vociferous bodies meet to express themselves both softly and radically.

Hypernurtures is part of Liv Schellander’s long-term series Strange Natures A research that explores human contact with the more-than-human worlds and the potentials this brings forth for enhancing sensorial versatility and intuitive forms of knowing.

Inspired by grief and hope for a ‘planet body’ in crisis, the project focuses on perspectives of co-existence, ecological imagination, and hyper-objects: things that expand beyond our grasp, that lack reliable shapes and elude the distinction between nature and culture.
‘This body feels like a burning nervous system army of tiny lovers dancing through dark city forests hijacked by other dimensions. A whispering entity that yearns for a utopian mode of encounter within a force field of supernatural nurture. It’s a slow-motion timelapse on the materiality of the felt sense and the oral imaginary as vessels of pleasure, fantasy and connection…’

Liv Schellander is a choreographer and performer. She has been developing her Strange Natures series as well as, with Lena Kimming and Alexandra Wingate, the Animalarium project since 2020. In 2022, she will be part of Michael Turinsky’s new ensemble piece. In 2019, she worked on Tricks for Tips at steirischer herbst with Manuel Pelmuş and with Doris Uhlich on the choreographic realisation of Habitat/Halle E. Her collaboration with Sara Lanner and Jasmin Hoffer, Volume, had its world premiere at the 2019 imagetanz festival. Liv Schellander has a BA in dance theatre, acquired at the London Laban Conservatory and an MA in choreography at the Institute of Dance Arts in Linz.