Six short stories on being a performer and what we (don't) own

1. INTERLOPER

«Inherent in being a performer there is a kind of a psychological voyeurism, where I get to actually figure out so much about the composer or what they have put into this piece. To some extent, performance is a massive exercise of empathy…» With these words, the violinist and broadcaster Nadia Sirota, introduces The Performer: Part One on her podcast Meet The Composer. In the episode, she explores the role of the performer and reflects on her own experiences performing the music of others. 

To Sirota, the performer is a kind of «interloper»; a person standing between the composer and the audience, interpreting the work by embodying the musical score. Reflecting on how “weird” this constellation actually is, she says: «I don’t ever really experience a piece of music unless I inhabit it. Unless I get to perform it.»

I first listened to The Performer episode a couple of years ago and was deeply moved by the narrative Sirota had woven. I’ve always strongly identified with the role of the dancer, the role of the actor, though it hasn’t been without its challenges. At the start of my career, it seemed only natural to want to work for as many choreographers as possible. I craved the experience of being on stage, where the real dancing happens. Choreography didn’t particularly interest me, and I certainly didn’t see myself as someone who would tell others what to do. Observing dance from the outside felt like the least exciting part of our art form. Instead, I wanted to, as Sirota put it, «inhabit». 

Although the world of music differs from that of theatre or dance, I felt an unexpected connection to many of the ideas she shared. It made me reflect on the performances where I “replaced” other dancers, a role often seen as the lowest in the prestige hierarchy of performing. When I tell people that I performed in The Dog Days Are Over, a choreography by the Belgian choreographer Jan Martens that toured around the world, I’m often met with a disappointed “Oh, but you weren’t part of the original cast.” 

To me, being a performer is precisely about being both «original» and, at times, deliberately not. Of course, it’s wonderful to be chosen by a choreographer and to co-create a work of dance, but I believe there is also great skill and creativity in filling the gap left by a dancer. How do you embody a choreography crafted on—or even by—the body of another? As the replacement, you not only inhabit and experience the work of art (its logics, relationships, ideas), but you also gain, in a ghost-like way, an insight into the «original» dancer who is now absent, almost channeling their presence and craft.

Nadia Sirota, «The Performer: Part One,» Meet the Composer With Nadia Sirota (2014-17), accessed at New Sounds.

2. CAKE

I had never really considered copyright in relation to my work as a dancer until Irina Eidsvold Tøien, a law professor and part time lawyer at CREO, made a statement that caught my attention. Sitting in a meeting room on a sunny May day in Oslo, she said, “They made a mistake. I believe that performers should be able to claim copyright.” 

Nearly a decade ago, Eidsvold Tøien published Creative, Performing Artists (2016), a book based on her PhD research, in which she examined the legal position of performing artists under Norwegian law. With a background in theater herself, she wanted to explore a crucial question: «Do performers have, or should they be granted, copyright protection?»

“Copyright for what?” was the first thought that came to my mind. Eidsvold Tøien explained that, unlike in the USA and Canada, performers in Europe do not hold copyright. Instead, they rely on a weaker framework known as neighbouring rights. This allows performers, for example, to request that their name be included (or omitted) in the credits of an artwork and grants them moral rights, protecting them from harmful imitations. According to this legal framework, performers can also negotiate royalties for the restaging or broadcasting of their performances, although, based on my own experiences, this is rare in the non-commercial dance and theater sectors.  

Despite the existence of these neighbouring rights, Eidsvold Tøien points out that they fail to protect the artistic dimensions of a performer’s work. She explains, «If an actress brings a very specific, creative, and original interpretation of Ophelia but, for some reason, has to leave the production, there is no protection for her work or craft. Another actress can simply watch a recording of the play and freely copy that interpretation.» 

That has been me—the replacement—I think to myself. Throughout my career, I’ve watched countless recordings of choreographies, including on low-quality VHS, and may have, to some extent, “copied” another dancer’s interpretation. And isn’t that how we learn? By watching, imitating, even “crushing» on other dancers’ ways of moving? Imitating—copying, even stealing, if you will—that which speaks to us.

As I speak with Eidsvold Tøien, something opens up. I mentally scroll through my CV and feel the need to stress that «working as a performer for others» can mean many different things, with creative processes varying immensely. It reminds me of discussions in the visual arts about the roles of craftsperson versus signature author. But in contemporary dance, many creative processes go far beyond a dancer merely interpreting or adding «expression» to a choreography.

Pina Bausch, the German choreographer and dance theater pioneer, was groundbreaking in the ’70s and ’80s when she encouraged her dancers to draw from their personal lives, bringing dance material and theatrical scenes into the studio for her to shape. This methodological shift is often seen as a historical turning point, where dancers gained a voice and became individuals with life expertise, contributing far beyond technical skill. While this approach introduced a new dynamic to working relationships, it also sparked debates about the commodification of performers’ private lives and the implications for authorship. Despite these criticisms, this method—or a version of it—has, I would argue, become standard practice in contemporary dance today.

Initially, I found Eidsvold Tøien’s way of thinking rather peculiar. At the same time, it felt refreshing to consider authorship and ownership from a legal perspective. Eidsvold Tøien emphasized that one reason she feels strongly about her research is that performers, both in Norway and the EU, represent one of the most precarious groups in the arts community: «Performers love what they do and do it well, but they aren’t making money from it. One reason is their position in the legal field.»

In her research, Eidsvold Tøien refers to the «cake theory»—the assumption that the more groups involved in copyright, the smaller each piece of the “cake” becomes. While this might seem logical, Eidsvold Tøien disagrees: «If there are no performers, there is no cake.» Instead, she believes that granting performers more ownership will improve their work: «The better the performer, the bigger the cake.»

Dr. Irena Eidsvold Tøien is an Associate Professor at the Department of Law and Governance at BI Norwegian Business in Oslo. In the past she has worked for TONO, Norway’s composers’ organization. Currently she is combining her teaching and research with a position as an attorney with Creo, Norway’s largest union for arts and culture. 

My interview with Eidsvold Tøien took place on May 15, 2024, at CREO, Oslo.

3. POWER POINT

I wonder why copyright and therefore ownership have always seemed to me somewhat tainted, something I’d rather not touch. I prefer to think of myself as «belonging» to the work—a kind of open-source or copyleft approach to creating performance art. Or at least, that’s how I believe I should feel about art. After all, my views on ownership in the arts don’t exist in a vacuum; they reflect my context and the specific moments and places where dance discourse was being shaped. 

This past September, I was reminded of that context when attending Kritikersalong: Hvem eier koreografien?(Critics’ Salon: Who Owns the Choreography?), a discussion organized by the Norwegian Opera & Ballet and Norsk Kritikerlag. The event was prompted by a recent ballet production in which the dancers were credited as co-creators. While this may be a relatively new development in the world of ballet, for someone like me—a dancer primarily navigating the independent field—co-creation is far from controversial. 

During the conversation, four panelists—a dancer from the opera, a union representative, a critic, and an educator—each brought their unique perspectives to the topic. While the two hour discussion barely scratched the surface, I was at least left with one reminder: even though dance often feels like a niche art form, there is immense diversity within it. Being a dancer at the opera is very different from working in the independent field, not to mention how different the Norwegian context is from anywhere else. Despite the union representative’s recurring attempts to steer the conversation back to legal and pragmatic concerns, it became clear that one’s own relationship to ownership is shaped not only by economic or institutional context but also, dare I say, by personal beliefs.

«Is the era of the individual choreographer coming to an end?» the invitation for the Kritikersalong read. The question reminded me of Antje Hildebrandt’s 2013 video essay, The End of Choreography. In it, Hildebrandt speaks of a world where choreography can be anything, where dance no longer has to resemble dance, and originality is replaced by a culture of editing, sampling, stealing. The line between choreographer and dancer has blurred, and the choreographer may be disappearing altogether—either transforming into a rockstar visual artist, or, as she concludes, “withdrawing, voluntarily and involuntarily, from the scene and being replaced by dancers, curators, objects, text, images, machines, or PowerPoint presentations.”

The End of Choreography captures what I would call «a moment in time»—or perhaps a moment in my own time. Listening to Hildebrandt, I was struck by the optimism that once infused this discourse in choreography, as if a revolution had just unfolded, bringing new possibilities and urgent questions to the table. Yet here I was in 2024, sitting at the Oslo Opera, more than a decade later, listening to panelists still grappling with the elusive nature of authorship—déjà vu?

Kritikersalong: Hvem eier koreografien? (Who Owns the Choreography?), held on August 28, 2024, at the Oslo Opera House.

Antje Hildebrandt, The End of Choreography (2013), accessed at Vimeo. 

4. VENTRILOQUY

«In the year 1967, the author was pronounced dead.» This is the opening line of an artist talk by my friend and colleague, Franziska Aigner. She sent me the text about a year ago, after a phone conversation in which we discussed what she describes in her writing as the «troubling participation inside someone else’s body of work.»

A gallery in London had recently invited her to speak about her art, but as a critic of artist talks and their tendency to «reanimate the link between author and authority,» Franziska instead chose to discuss the least prestigious aspect of her work: «the humble and humbling work of making work for someone else.»

Franziska has worked as a performer for several renowned artists, but she is also an artist in her own right and holds a PhD in philosophy. This multifaceted background likely enables her to critically examine the role of the performer and its relationship to authority. In her talk, she describes collaborative processes as «messy affairs,» explaining that performance always holds «a moment of ventriloquization.» Performers must speak in the author’s name, interpreting what the author intends—even if the author may not fully know themselves. For Franziska, the general rehearsal is a turning point, a moment when trust and authority are transferred to the performer, and she humorously adds, «they’d better not mess it up.»

Franziska discusses the «good» and the «bad» performer. She is particularly interested in the latter—not in the traditional sense, but as an agent of subtle rebellion and disobedience. For her, this «bad» performer embodies a «certain anarchy of the soul,» infiltrating the work and challenging the author’s authority through their actions. To illustrate, Franziska references Judith Butler’s reading of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, posing the question, «Will you be my body for me?» To this, she makes the anarchic performer cunningly respond, «Yes, and everything I do will have been just what you wanted, will it not?»

Franziska Aigner is an artist who works at the intersection of music, performance, and philosophy. She wrote A certain anarchy of the soul for a talk at University of Bristol in October 2023. The text has not yet been published. 

5. EXPERIENCE

In 2011, Chrysa Parkinson posted her video Self Interview on Practice online. I remember that when I watched it, something clicked for me—and probably for other artists too, who identify more with the role of the dancer or performer than the choreographer. What I took away from that self-interview, is that a «dancer» isn’t simply subordinate to the choreographer’s ideas or someone merely executing steps, but rather a person with their own practice, ideas, and agency—entering the rehearsal space with a whole toolkit of references, methods, and resources. One of Parkinson’s definitions of «practice» is that it is «an active thought, a filter»—a way of processing information and making decisions accordingly. Parkinson also emphasized that we can come to dance from different places; we don’t have to dance exclusively to be committed to it. We can redefine what it means to be good at dance by redefining dance itself. Our dancing can be informed and influenced by other practices and art forms—music, drawing, philosophy, even baking. In this way, our dancing and everything surrounding it become a resource of knowledge and can stand as a body of work in their own right.

Parkinson coined the concept of  «experiential authorship» and has extensively documented what it means to her as a dancer and performer. In one of her recordings online, 7 Questions, I recently rediscovered a question I had asked her after a presentation of her research in 2016 in Stockholm. The questions aren’t directly recited in the recording; instead, we hear Parkinson’s repeated attempts, layered one over the other, to respond to seven questions that came from the audience. To my questions she responds by saying something about the distinction between authorship and ownership, but also ownership and control. She seems to want to make clear that she indeed “authors” her movement material—and by extension, her experience of it—but emphasizes with a clear voice, “I just don’t own it.”

In my conversation with Eidsvold Tøien, she explains that in Norway, performers have exclusive rights to reproduce their performances. This means that a dancer can, for example, use their movement material in a dance class or even incorporate it into another choreography. When I mentioned this in a recent conversation with Parkinson, she acknowledged the legal argument but pointed out that, once removed from its original context, the material often loses its meaning.

We do not own what we author within the work or context of others. We do, however, own our experiences. Parkinson seems to suggest that as performers, we are the authors of our own experiences. This reminds me of something I learned through my involvement in the MeToo movement. When dancers began sharing their stories, both online and offline, there was an understandable fear of being accused of defamation. Our experiences suddenly held a certain currency, albeit a risky one. Once a story becomes part of a police investigation or a pending court case, it’s not so clear anymore what can or cannot be shared. In court, I sat with my colleagues, listening to defense attorneys cite extensive studies on «collaborative storytelling» in an attempt to convince the jury that the dancers in the civil party had influenced one another’s memories of events, and co-authored their experiences so to speak. This tactic ignored the well-documented patterns of the perpetrator’s behavior of course, and instead sought to destabilize the victim’s narratives. Meanwhile, lawyers on our side of the aisle had continually emphasized that as long as you share only your own personal experience, freedom of speech will protect you. No one else owns your experience, they would say.

Chrysa Parkinson is a Professor of Dance at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH). She has worked as a professional dancer in the United States and Northern Europe. Since 2011 she has directed the New Performative Masters education at SKH. Her research on the performers’ authorship and documentation of experience can be accessed through Research Catalogue. 

7. NOT MINE

I’m not sure I entirely trust this advice, at least not in this day and age. And it’s not that I distrust the justice system (I’m not that person), but the law often follows its own logic, with attorneys sometimes crafting the most outrageous narratives to win a case. I feel conflicted about the legal logic versus the artistic discourse on authorship and ownership, and it’s a tension I find compelling—a space to sit in, and reflect. Copyright was originally created to protect artists, yet in many ways, it can also hinder us. I feel a strong resistance, as though I want to «think away» ownership altogether—throw myself off a cliff into the monstrous sea of Artificial Intelligence. At the same time, I must admit that despite my commitment to being a dancer and working with and for others, I was always searching for a kind of «room of my own.» This meant not only committing to an art and dance practice, but also having something I could truly claim as mine—something I could have some control over. Like these words, this text, even though most of them are not mine. Dancing through the dances of others, thinking through the thoughts of others, experiencing through the experiences of others. Moving through as if crossing spaces. Insisting on in-between-places: never truly belonging, never knowing what is yours, what is mine. 

This is the first text I’ve written with the help of ChatGPT. It’s been an experience of confusion, excitement, and mourning over, what I believed, were my own writing skills. I hear from many colleagues that they «just use it wisely.» But I think we’re fooling ourselves.