BROADREACH | AGES 50+

Icelandic dancer and choreographer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir, an Aerowaves Twenty23 artist, brought her powerful piece WHEN THE BLEEDING STOPS to Dublin in April 2023. Working with a group of women living in Dublin, Lovísa hosted preliminary workshops remotely before arriving in the city and leading an onsite workshop with BROADREACH participants Remi Ajike, Majella Biernat, Kate Connaughton, Amanda Daly, Sheila Drumm and Phil Stewartmyar at CoisCéim‘s Studio in Fairview, Dublin 3. At this workshop, which took place on 28 April the day before her professional performance, the group prepared to join Lovísa and dancers, Kristjana Stefánsdóttir, Line van den Boom, Ólöf Ingólfsdóttir,  Sveinbjörg Þórhallsdóttir, Þórey Sigþórsdóttir and many more on stage at Project Arts Centre.

BROADREACH WORKSHOPS | online & 28 April 2023 at CoisCéim Studio

PERFORMANCES | 12.30 & 3.30pm at Project Arts Centre

 

As a woman in her mid-forties, award winning dancer and choreographer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir has become fascinated by menopause and middle-aged women. In her performance work When the Bleeding Stops, she addresses the excruciating silence and taboo that seems to engulf this topic in Western society, as well as her personal experience of aging as a dancer.

 

After suffering an injury five years ago, Lovísa was forced to reconsider her relationship with dance and the body. This process opened her eyes to the silence around menopause and her own lack of knowledge on the subject. She began researching and interviewing menopausal women, as well as posting an open invitation online where she invited middle-aged women to participate in her project. Before she knew it, she was working with a group of women from a cross Icelandic society.

 

Since then, Lovísa has also worked with women living in Norway and Denmark.

WHEN THE BLEEDING STOPS invites the audience into a world of vulnerability, shame, empathy, and humour. The work transports us into the privacy of the participants’ homes, and dives deep into the many layers of the female experience associated with menopause and invites us to laugh, cry and celebrate with these women.