🇸🇪 Contact Improvisation in Sweden

Overview

Sweden's Contact Improvisation scene centers on the Stockholm–Gothenburg–Malmö triangle, with active outposts in Järna, home to a Waldorf/anthroposophic community that has long hosted movement arts, and in Umeå in the north. The practice has deep roots here: Benno Voorham, based in Sweden since 1995, co-organized the ECITE (European Contact Improvisation Teachers Exchange) conference in the country in 1998 and 2002, and Måns Erlandsson has taught and performed CI in Sweden since the early 1990s. In 2022, Swedish practitioners marked the 50th anniversary of Contact Improvisation worldwide with a dedicated "Performing Underscore" celebration. The clearest annual fixture is the Nordic Impro Meeting, a self-organized, participant-led gathering — no paid teachers, the schedule built collectively — held annually since 1996, rotating each year across Scandinavia. Alongside it, a connected Cross-City Program regularly links Gothenburg, Malmö, and Stockholm through a shared series of modules, coordinating the three-city core rather than running events in parallel. Regular local practice is anchored by city-based jam groups in Malmö, Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Umeå, and by venues ranging from professional dance-artist studios (Danscentrum Syd, Danscentrum Väst) to residential retreat-style hosts (Solvikskolan, Lillsveds folkhögskola) and an established jam venue in Stockholm's Hökarängen (Tegelscenen).