Anne Linn Akselsen, ““Documentation project – teaching contemporary dance. Conversation with Janet Panetta.”, Talk, Departments of Dance.

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Anne Linn Akselsen, ““Documentation project – teaching contemporary dance. Conversation with Janet Panetta.”, Talk, Departments of Dance.

Anne-Linn Akselsen in interview with Janet Panetta, related to the research project “Contemporary dance – a workbook”, about different methods for teaching contemporary dance or teaching dance to contemporary dancers.

Janet Panetta is a legend in teaching ballet for contemporary dancers. She has developed strategies for how to convey this classical technique to dancers from various backgrounds, and she always manages to get across the importance of the basic elements in ballet as universal tools – The principles of alignment taught in the exercises and combinations have been developed to build a firm technical foundation and to allow freedom of movement. Rhythm, line and weight all become learning tools that can be transferred to other styles of dance.

This interview is the first of many and this work created the base for the research project that aspires to document and create written traces of the different strategies and methods for teaching contemporary dance today, and in this case, how to teach this specific technique to contemporary dancers.

Contemporary dance is a broad, collective term for many different approaches to dance and choreography in the present. When talking about teaching contemporary dance, we often talk about invention, and development of new approaches to understand and develop physical practices. This project aims to map different practices and approaches to contemporary dance – exploring how artistic practices is translated into a conveyable language, and how practices from other artistic and scientific fields have been used to create methods for teaching contemporary dance. In collaboration with the artists, who are the driving forces and authors of their respective practices, the project aims to contribute to a more open culture of sharing of methods and practices and give a broader understanding of the complexity of the art form. The discourse around issues such as “what is technique”, and how we relate to new and traditional forms, can through this research project potentially get a broader theoretical basis, as well as provide documentation on artists’ experience with this work.

The research project will be based om interviews and reflections and will eventually culminate in a book.

Anne-Linn Akselsen has an extensive career as a choreographer, performer and teacher. She has her education from the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm and from P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, where she completed both "training" and "research cycle". She has worked as a dancer in Rosas with choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, as well as freelance for choreographers such as Salva Sanchis, Jean Luc Ducourt and Heine Avdal. After graduating, in addition to dancing for others, she has continuously choreographed her own works and started the company "Human Works" in 2009, in collaboration with Adrián Minkowicz. Human Works has created several full-evening performances and toured extensively in Europe.Anne-Linn has choreographed several commissioned works, including for the Norwegian National Ballet and Aura Dance Company and received several awards for her choreographic work, as 1st prize at the Baltic Movement Contest for best solo choreography "Sing me, for your life, in a Portuguese Folia, the reason for your happiness ”, and she is the recipient of «Statens Kunstnerstipend» Norwegian National Scholarship for Artists. She has taught both ballet and contemporary dance at festivals and for dance companies internationally, as well as for institutions such as P.A.R.T.S., SEAD and the Royal Swedish Ballet School. From 2013 to 2016, she was a faculty member and program coordinator at P.A.R.T.S. and from 2015 to 2018 she was employed as a university lecturer at the University of Stavanger. She joined Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2018 and is associate professor and head of the Bachelor Program in Contemporary Dance. In the period 2019-2021, she was also prorector for education at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

From a young age, Janet Panetta studied ballet with Margaret Craske, Antony Tudor and Alfredo Corvino at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School. At 14, she became Margaret Craske’s teaching assistant, which served as on-the-job training for her lifelong career in dance education. Janet joined American Ballet Theatre in 1968, and later began her foray into modern dance as a member of Paul Sanasardo’s company. She went on to work with Robert Kovich, Neil Greenberg, Susan Salinger, Peter Healey, and countless other modern companies, while continuing to teach. In the 1980s, she began working internationally, and in 1984 the French asked Janet to be the only ballet teacher at their newly created school for contemporary dancers. Her class consisted of twenty students, all of whom went on to professional careers, including the renowned choreographer Jerome Bel. In her 1989 New York Times article, “Why Certain Performers are a Breed Apart,” Jennifer Dunning of the New York Times called Janet’s performing, “Quietly indelible, intense and sharply focused, with a smoky, smoldering aura.” She definitely got that right! Janet currently works with P.A.R.T.S. and with Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wupperthal. In addition, she teaches at Impulstanz in Vienna each summer, and maintains her own New York Studio, where she serves as artistic director of International Dance Dialogues, a program that hosts many European artists workshops and lectures.

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Anne Linn Akselsen, ““Documentation project – teaching contemporary dance. Conversation with Janet Panetta.”, Talk, Departments of Dance.

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