Inner Song

Helena Franzén is a dancer and choreographer with nearly 35 years in the field. She has created more than 90 works for the stage and toured in Sweden and internationally, with her own productions or on assignments for institutions such as Skånes Dansteater, Göteborgsoperan’s dance company, Norrdans, The Edge, Nytt Dansk Dansteater, Regionteater Väst and others.

Helena Franzén is also a popular teacher and mentor. She teaches regularly at many dance schools and dance companies around the world. Helena Franzén has shared her practice and experience with dancers through her ’Embodied Awareness’ workshops. In 2019–2020, Helena Franzén presented a major retrospective exhibition, ’Mitt dansande liv’ (My Dancing Life) at Dansmuseet in Stockholm. For 10 years, she has created dance films that have been presented at several international dance film festivals.

In 2007, she was awarded a ten-year artist grant by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. In 2011, she received the City of Stockholm arts scholarship and the Swedish Theatre Critics’ Association’s dance award. In 2014, Helena received the Gannevik grant from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, with the following words:

“A choreographer, whose artistic practice appeared stringent and mature from the start. Since then, she has engaged in an uncompromising and consistent exploration of the endless movement potential of dance, in close collaboration with music. She is a dance artist who creates articulate physical poetry through her own extreme body control, together with her dancers.”

Håkan Jelk has worked in dance since 1995. He started working with Dansens Hus, Moderna Dansteatern, Cullberg Ballet and with independent choreographers such as Cristina Caprioli, Margaretha Åsberg and Liza Penkova. In 2011, he began a collaboration with the choreographer Helena Franzén, taking documentary photography of the process of creating dance. The collaboration has since developed and deepened, today they develop performance ideas, set design and lighting design together.

Håkan Jelk and Helena Franzén have created dance films that have been shown at international dance film festivals since 2014. Håkan has also exhibited photography and video installations with dance as a starting point.