Biography
“My art is my activism and my teaching, my teaching is my art and my activism, and I want to keep it moving”.
My work is a hybrid between dance, choreography, healing rituals and visual art and is anchored by a persistent and evolving inquiry into relation, touch, attention and movement in all of its senses – social, experimental, political, and aesthetic.
As a dancer, artist, researcher and teacher I am interested in our body ́s innate ability to respond physically to the environment, and the surprisingly ways we are constantly creating relations, and composing our bodies in space.
As an artist I create, direct, and perform, locating my practice beyond commodification as a critical and empowering practice.
I hold an M.F.A. from the Danish National School of Performing Arts (the dance department). Currently I am a artist and researcher at Aarhus University, IMC (Interacting Minds Centre) with the art/science collaboration Experimenting, Experiencing, Reflecting (EER), a project between Aarhus University and Olafur Eliasson Studio, Berlin. With EER I am developing Performative scores, exploring how performance art practices may be merged with scientific inquiries to study and prompt reflection upon notions of togetherness, bodily connections to space, collaboration and knowledge transmission.
With my work Performative Scores I investigate how scoring as performance art holds a capacity to redefine and craft sensory and transformative journeys that articulate novel forms of aesthetic embodied attention, with an emphasis on interconnectivity, that transform the public space into an artwork. My work has been performed at The Tate Modern London, Trapholt, DOKK1, The Lab Station Copenhagen, Copenhagen University department of Arts and Cultural Studies and Studio Olafur Eliasson.
I have been researching, practicing and performing the post-modern dance form contacting improvisation for more than 20 years and is deeply interested in its bodily movement capacity and expression, as an art form both in practice and in theory.
I practice and teaches contact improvisation nationally (DDSKS, The Academy of music, dance and Theatre, CORPUS The Royal Ballet, The Royal Academy of fine Arts, Ophelia Acting School etc.) and internationally at festivals, and in open workshops.
Additionally, I am an educated schoolteacher, Hatha Yoga teacher, Rosen Method therapist, and Conscious Touch therapist.
My publications include:
Jensen, Dorte Bjerre & Boelsbjerg, Hanne Bess At røre og blive berørt- berøringens betydning for relationsdannelse, 15-19. Editor Mette Raunkiær. Omsorg Nr. 3. 2021. Nordisk tidsskrift for palliativ medisin. Fagbokforlaget.
An article that examines how touch is affected by our understanding of body and space, exemplified through research in contact improvisation, phenomenology of the body and process philosophy.
Jensen, Dorte Bjerre “Facilitating Thinking-Touch through Process Philosophy and Contact Improvisation” in Thinking Touch: Philosophical pedagogy and practice. Perspectives on Partnering and Contact Improvisation, Editor Malaika Sarco-Thomas: Cambridge Scholar Press 2020.
A volume that highlights the significance of touch in the development of 21st century art-making, pedagogy and performance philosophy.
“Kontaktimprovisation.” ”Dans og Kamp” Dans 22. Bevægelse. Koreografi. Performance. Editor Mie Lykke Nielsen: Frydenlund, 2018.
And online publications, see:
https://www.eer.info/activities/sharing-perspectives-3
https://www.eer.info/activities/performative-scores