“An audacious and deeply invested performance dripping with guts”
– Audience member Maya Dalinsky (dancer & choreographer)

In Song of the Flesh Tuva Hildebrand invites you to witness a practice-based choreography; a study on the power relations between perception, behavior, body and language.

Song of the Flesh is a raw lo-fi moving landscape of sensation, desire, emotion as motion, gesture and sound. A leap into the unpredictable, vulnerable and absurd. Through practice the work attempts to understand the act of recognition and the formation of the self in relation; the spell and limitations of language. It is fascinated by the too-muchness of the body; a body that leaks, spills over and may unfold itself.

Song of the Flesh attempts to exist in the fullness of the unfinished; of always becoming and never arriving; of not knowing together.

The choreographic practice is supported by a live composed immersive soundscape by Uli Ruchlinski, which highlights the obscurity of the movement material. As well as a minimalist light design, also created by Uli Ruchlinski, entwined with the sound. Ruchlinski works with the concept that light and sound are inseparable and emerging together in the creative process, in close dialogue with the movement.

The project is initiated by choreographer and dancer Tuva Hildebrand, and its process is a collaboration between her, choreography and practice coach Jeanine Durning, dramaturg Sally O’Neill and light and sound artist Uli Ruchlinski.

“Hildebrand invites us with the utmost care into an inner life, where the sorrow of primal force washes over us in movements I have longed for without knowing it. A composition that departs from the expected dramaturgy and offers glimpses of new movements and sounds, new beautiful life, a reclaiming of life. The totality is airy and feels self-evident but has traces of both precision and community.

Song of the Flesh is a punch in the best sense of the word, and Hildebrand has landed in a landscape from which she will be able to operate for a whole lifetime.”

– Jonna Wakeham Ölund, Scenkonstproducent

“Tuva Hildebrand takes a risk when she surrenders to crying, to the animalistic, the guttural, and the wordless sounds. It’s impossible to pretend or to make things up in that sphere if it’s going to be real. If it’s going to become reality. At first, I wonder, much like before a very difficult and daring circus trick, how it will end. But as the performance continues, I become increasingly convinced – and very moved – by the fact that she approaches this being from its stripped-down materiality. There is no external influence in Tuva’s performance. On the contrary, she demonstrates a physical and craft-based skill, and a courage that goes deep. She becomes body. She becomes story. And transformation. The score that forms the dramatic transformation is obviously very well investigated, to a rawness that leaves me astounded. Not even when she adopts human form towards the end and invites the deceptive meaning of words do I doubt the reality she conjures.

I believe I see in Song of the Flesh something in humanity, beyond the social, that opens my longing for a freedom that touches madness. It also borders – mixed with sorrow and despair – on a joy in being beyond all doubt.”

– Joel Heirås
Stigbergets Jazzteater

Workshop and community grief practice:
In relation to the performance a workshop in the practice behind Song of the Flesh for either professional dancers or people from various backgrounds can be offered (1.5-3 hours long).
A Community Grief Practice can also be offered, which is a two hours concept that Hildebrand has shared weekly for three months in Malmö as a part of the development of Song of the Flesh. It is a ritual of processing grief individually and as a collective.

As part of the work on Song of the Flesh, Tuva Hildebrand has invited several local dancers in Malmö to work with her in the studio, as well as held various forms of public dialogue through process showings, workshops, collective practice, and discussions. Through the development of the practice behind Song of the Flesh, closer relationships are being formed with institutions and colleagues in Malmö, with the international dance community (especially in New York) and with a diverse audience of Malmö residents.

Song of the Flesh has been developed in 2024 with development support from Malmö City and during the spring of 2025 with support from Region Skåne and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. It is a co-production with Dansstationen and has also been supported by Karavan Scenkonstrum and Alma Söderberg Studio. It premiered at Dansstationen on April 17 & 22 2025.

Artistic team
Lighting design, sound & music: Uli Ruchlinski
Choreographic & practice coach: Jeanine Durning
Dramaturgical support: Sally O’Neill
Producer: Kajsa Antonsson
Trio practice: Yrsa Heijkenskjöld, Khamlane Halsackda and Katarzyna Paluch
Studio research company: Jilda Hallin, Lisa Nilsson, Pål-Axel Berger

Hildebrand also thank and acknowledge her teachers Eva Karczag, K.J. Holmes, Stephanie Skura and Jan Rådvik, as well the dance practitioners in her lineage who have influenced her practice in person such as Nina Martin, Karl Anderson, Deborah Hay, Ruth Zaporah, Levi Gonzales, Luciana Achugar and more indirectly Larissa Velez Jackson, Kathy Westwater, Steve Paxton, Joan Skinner, and Lisa Nelson.

The work consists of a solo (50 mins) and a trio (20 min), but can be offered as just a solo.