Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir
When the bleeding stops
When the Bleeding Stops addresses the silence, the taboo, that seems to surround menopause in Western societies as well as Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir’s own personal experience with aging as a dancer. The performance depicts a world of vulnerability, shame, empathy, and humour. It carries us into several participants’ privacy, therein delving into the many layers of menopause-related experiences that are read as female. When the Bleeding Stops celebrates life in all its phases!
“[I]t is precisely the simplicity that makes it effective, stories that cry out in a huge context. The work deals with the inevitable desire to dance. It is about the feminine and about the story that lives in the body. The work manages to highlight the unspoken and invisible, which we did not know we missed until it stares at us and demands to be acknowledged.” (Nína Hjálmarsdóttir, Víðsjá, RÚV, National Radio of Iceland)
“When the Bleeding Stops is an entertaining, refreshing, and revitalizing look at a topic that, even today, is too often hidden and shamed. A feel good celebration of the beauty and power of middle age.” (Eliza Reid, writer and the First Lady of Iceland)
Concept, choreography, text: Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir; performers on stage: Kristjana Stefánsdóttir, Ólöf Ingólfsdóttir, Sveinbjörg Þórhallsdóttir, Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir (and local participants); lighting and sound design: Brett Smith; video design: Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir with Brett Smith; with thanks to: Sigrún Ólafsdóttir, Alexander Roberts, Brogan Davison, Egill Ingibergsson, Rebekka Ingimundardóttir, Valdimar Jóhannsson.
Special thanks to all the local participants who took part in the project.
Funded by the European dance network Aerowaves, supported by the Alliance of International Production Houses, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.