I am Tuva — a performer, choreographer and somatic practitioner, with a dedication to improvisational forms. I’m based in Sweden and New York; and open to new collaborations as a performer in both places.

My own artistic research often deals with themes such as intimacy, care, (non-)violence, eco-queerfeminism, affect, the power of language and states beyond it. The work I make is often either participatory where the audience is guided through a sensorial journey or based on improvisational scores which allows for a vulnerable interaction between audience and performer.

My work life consists currently of four pillars all supporting each other: (1) researching and teaching somatic and improvisational forms, (2) making and performing in small-scale work for black-box and alternative spaces, (3) a writing practice and (4) curation of workshops, classes, festival and lectures related to somatics, improvisation, artistic experimentation and activism.

I’m dedicated to the physically rigorous, poetic, process-oriented, deeply psycho-philosophical practice of improvisation and certain somatic dance practices. I’m dedicated to investigate the linguistics and semiotics of improvisational and somatic pedagogies (and to understand how language affects how we move through the world). I’m dedicated to stay connected to a community and lineage within improvisation and somatic dance practice which is global and rhizomatic, in the margins of the dance market, not very well funded but oh so intelligent, creative, political, spiritual, loving and of dance historical importance.

As a performer and maker my background (see CV) is in contemporary modern dance, somatic movement techniques, theater and circus, as well as a personal interest in social activism, philosophy and the healing arts.

My somatic and improvisational practice is influenced by interests in philosophy, political activism and in-depth studies in techniques such as BodyMind Centering, Skinner Releasing technique, Alexander technique, contact improvisation and my close mentor-apprentice relationship with somatic dance pioneer Eva Karczag. Our mentor-apprentice relationship began 2017, but I have studied with her since 2013. During 2011-2018 I lived and worked in New York for the organisation Movement Research and choreographers Heather Kravas and Stacy Grossfield among others, as well as studying with female pioneers within improvisation and somatic dance practice such as Stephanie Skura, K.J. Holmes, Eva Karczag and many more. In 2018-2020 I carried out my MFA research in somatics and artistic practice and its connection to social-political change at Högskolan för Scen och Musik in Gothenburg, and is still finishing up my MFA thesis today.

Venues I have performed and shown work at are Dansstationen, Inkonst and Atalante in Sweden and The Kitchen, the Chocolate Factory Theater, JACK, Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project St. Marks Church, the Dixon Place and Jersey City Theater Center in New York.

My positionality is that I am white, non-binary / female and pan-sexual. I grew up with a leftist single mother in a low-income household in the small working-class city Landskrona, Sweden, and every other weekend I spent with my father who’s a researcher and professor in philosophy on the island Hven is south of Sweden. Growing up I practiced circus and theater as a family chore as my mother is an acting and circus teacher, performed regularly at Landskrona Teater and was active in the youth left party. My journey moved on to the Swedish Ballet School in Malmö, a contemporary dance conservatory in the UK (NSCD in Leeds), an acting school (Meisner Technique) in New York, to finally find what felt like my artistic home in the Downtown dance scene in New York, with its influences from the Judson Movement, and combination of dance, improvisation and somatics as a rigorous art form, as healing, as theoretic and as political. Since 2009 I have dedicated myself to somatic and improvisational forms within dance, and today I am attempting to create a bridge between the post-Judson dance community and the dance community in Sweden. I have an invisible disability with an immobile ankle after four surgeries and a rehabilitated replaced anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, which has informed my interest in norm critical thinking within professional dance practice.

In 2022 I initiated Plattform for Improvisation & Somatics (PIS) in Sweden, together with dance artists and somatic practitioners Ina Dokmo and Karolin Kent. PIS is a plattform with the purpose of supporting in-depth somatic movement practices and improvisational techniques of international quality, through workshops, classes, festivals, lectures, panel talks and reading groups. Its intention is also to carry out these practices with more political awareness than our early lineage of practitioners.

Today I live just outside Malmö, Sweden, in the countryside on a tiny farm where I grow my own vegetables and spend time close to the ground. I enjoy slowing down to listen carefully, speed up to dive into the unexpected and tune into all of my senses…

For work inquiries email hildebrand.tuva[at]gmail.com