In the north west European society where I live and work I am experiencing a strong culture of a front. Future-forward-leaning, goal oriented, uprightness. A culture where vision, knowledge and control are strongly related to each other and to our front.

Strength, health and success are highly valued and preferably being fronted in social medias on screens in front of us.

As a dancer I grew up in a dance studio with a mirror as the clear front, always witnessing the frontside of my body. Nowadays as a performer I am fronting an audience constantly...

But what about my back?
What about the backspace of our bodies? The parts of our bodies we can’t see ourselves.
What about the spaces behind us?
What about our past?
The hidden parts. The shadowed or dark sides of our lives that make us complex human beings?
What's in between?
What about our vulnerabilities?

How could a shift in our awareness from front oriented to back oriented have an effect and maybe even re-shape our perception of time, movement, and relation to oneself and others? In other words, by bringing awareness to our backspace and periphery I’m curious how it will affect our being and relating in the world we are living in.

What if we would make a front with our backs? And by doing so, I’m wondering if it, the shift, can deconstruct or diminish structures of norms and power?

Since I am interested in, and working with the dance that is to be performed and seen by others, I am wondering: how could such a bodily experiment include both the witness and the performer? I’m curious what is, or becomes, the relation between our back/front and witness/performer when we play with facts, fantasy and fiction to swop places of front and back.

Hopefully, this exploration creates an observation that requires our concepts of things to shift.

Matilda Bilberg, Stockholm, May 2023