Photo Milja Rossi
About the performance
Casino is what salsa dancing has been called in Cuba, referring to the place where you go to dance. Casino is also the title of this piece.
In Casino, Swedish-Chilean Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Nina Sandino from Nicaragua and Jao Moon from Colombia, move on a fictitious dance floor set in a Latin American club for couples dancing. Each dancer brings with them their own relationship to salsa, letting it reverberate in their body through a repertoire of historical and personal memories.
By the engagement of the dancers and the sounds of their steps, the music is present in its absence. In a subtle, restrained, detailed and playful way, the three dancers connect, and fail to connect, simultaneously.
Contextualizing salsa in Sweden
A big Latino boom took place internationally in the 90s and 00s, shedding light on artists like Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony. Of course, there have been Latino booms before and after that too. “Latino” is, as we know, not a genre in itself, as Latin America includes from Chile in the south to Mexico in the north. In Sweden, the early 00s Latino explosion made salsa very popular. Everyone was dancing it, including the Latin American diaspora.
Chilenos have never really had salsa as a national dance. Instead, it was very big in Cuba, Colombia and the Caribbean. There, every dinner ends with salsa dancing, and every birthday celebration is a dance. In Chile, the social dance has been cumbia, or the folk dance cueca. Nevertheless, salsa gatherings among Chilenos became huge in Sweden. The phenomenon grew in Sweden due to the big number of Chilenos living in the country post Pinochet’s dictatorship in the 70s-90s. For the exiled Chilenos, salsa became a way to connect to the Latin American background. It became a subculture within the diaspora. And to be Latino you needed to know how to dance salsa, a cliché that still haunts us in this piece.
Choreographer’s statement
“In my family it was only my uncle Rafael who danced. He even had his own salsa club at the opera restaurant in Malmö in the 90s. But as salseros mostly drink water while dancing, the club had to close down due to low drink sales, despite the well visited evenings.
When I first traveled to Chile as a grown up I met the blossoming reggaeton scene, and the feminist subgenre neo-perreo. For some years reggaeton was my connection to Latin America and my own heritage, until I stumbled upon salsa. The salsa music has always been part of what’s been played at home, but the dance had been hidden for me. Now salsa is all on my mind. And my newfound way of connecting to a Latin American diaspora, to be Chilean in Sweden, and to be a second generation immigrant.“
– Ofelia Jarl Ortega
Credits
Choreography Ofelia Jarl Ortega, in close collaboration with the performers
Performers Jao Moon, Nina Sandino, Ofelia Jarl Ortega
Light design Johan Sundén
Dramaturgy Quim Bigas, Andrea Rodrigo
Costume Erik Annerborn
Photo Milja Rossi
Trailer Karl-Oskar Gustafsson
Production Terry Johnson Johnson & Bergsmark
Co-production Dansehallerne, MDT, BIT Teatergarasjen
Residency support höjden studios, Stockholm and Dansplats Skog, Stråtjära
Supported by: The Swedish Art Grants Committee, The Swedish Arts Council and Stockholm Stad.
About the artists
Ofelia Jarl Ortega
Chilean-Swedish choreographer and performer Ofelia Jarl Ortega creates work exploring power within group dynamics. In the piece Casino she is joined by performers Nina Sandino from Nicaragua and Jao Moon from Colombia. Together they negotiate the next step on the dance floor, through personal relationships to salsa. Casino is presented at Dansehallerne on April 4 and 5 and below, Ofelia answers three short questions about the piece.
ofeliajarlortega.com
Interview with Ofelia
In Casino, what story does salsa tell?
In Casino, salsa tells any story you could think of.
In Casino I explore dance as a socio-aesthetic practice through the vocabulary of salsa. I had invited Jao Moon and Nina Sandino because I wanted to work around Latin American diaspora. I thought we would
whistle in the piece, then we realized none of us knew how to, but we had salsa in common. This is also to say, salsa was never the starting point of the work.
It started as a small thing, I wasn’t sure how to approach the topic of Latin American diaspora, yet I had to. Me, Nina and Jao share a Latin American background, although they grew up there now living in Europe, and I grew up here
The interview continues on the next page
(Sweden) with relatives there.
I hope that gives it a twist to the topic of diaspora, putting us all three in quite vulnerable positions, which I like, as we try to navigate this web of relationships and projections.
It’s salsa dancing in silence, but more than that, the communication and negotiation between us three on stage.
Why is the piece performed in silence?
For me it’s a very loud piece. I hear the rhythm, the noise and sounds we produce on stage; feet, floor, bodies, clothes, breath, laughter etc. It leaves space for what’s important for the piece - just the group trying to be together.
Silence, or rather, absence of music, is also one of the conditions. It makes it harder, since we can’t lean on the music. It narrows it down to us communicating with each other, in this case, through salsa dance.
What role does improvisation play?
I’m still trying to figure out what that term means to me and my choreographic practices, especially within Casino. It’s choreographed, following a score, but of course it’s a social dance too, and we improvise as well.
It’s both set and not, it follows formal choreographic choices next to the intricate power dynamics at play - that’s the improvisation.
Nina Sandino
Nina Sandino (She/they) born in Bilwi [“snake in the leaf” in the Mayangna language] on the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast, a reservoir of diverse cultures, indigenous peoples and ethnic communities. Nina is an architect and movement artivist, working independently as an eco social designer, choreographer/performer and dance facilitator. Their practice focuses on Afro indigenous queer futurism and ancestral communal knowledge. Nina’s work is moved by the urgency of artistic expression as a political action, and is interested in holistic practices, where rest, pleasure and joy work as radical tools for personal and collective empowerment. Their artistic practice is a joyful rebellion for self-preservation.
ninasandino.com
Jao Moon
The experience of growing up in the marginalized periphery of Cartagena de Indias Colombia turned Jao Moon into a political body. Living in an environment of constant resistance made them question the predominant social orders, this became the matter of Jao Moon’s work. Jao Moon’s work includes Memory of Dislocation, Everybody can be / Everybody can not be at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. The Lifetime of Fire –Manifestos for a Queer Futures at HAU, HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Anahuacalli Museum CDMX. His collaborations and works have been presented at: Volksbühne Berlin, Sophiensaele Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Pompidou Center Paris, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart Berlin 2024.
Practical info
Date and time
4.4 2025
20:00 / Artist Talk
5.4 2025
17:00 + 20:00 / Artist Talk
Dansehallerne’s address
Franciska Clausens Plads 27, 1799 Copenhagen V
Duration and stage
45 min in Blackboxen + Artist Talk for 20 minutes (4 & 5.4 at 20:00) - a conversation between Ofelia Jarl Ortega and producer and dramaturge Micaela Kühn Jara.
Accessibility
The venue can be accessed by wheelchair
About Dansehallerne
Dansehallerne is a national center for dance and choreography. Our focus lies in presenting and co-producing Danish and international productions for all ages. We are a gathering point for passionate dance audiences and professionals. From our center, we communicate professional knowledge of the art of dance, and we drive discussions about all aspects of the art of dance, at an intermediate level and in-depth.
Being a national center, as well as a gathering point for the local and international communities, we continuously work to ensure the best possible settings for artistic production and for the audience’s encounter with the art of dance. Every year, people from all around the country can experience the best that dance has to offer. And for several hundred artists, Dansehallerne is the yearround base and interface for professional activities within the field of dance.
Spring Program 2025
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