DancePod #59: Panel: The Upheaval

Panel discussion recorded on 13 June 2026 at Malmö Konsthall as part of Malmö City’s Democracy Week, ‘Malmö möts’.

In 2025, Choreographer Philippe Blanchard, dramaturge Maika Knoblich, and Skånes Dansteater initiated an ongoing inquiry into how the Performing Arts Society might assume a more active, accountable role in addressing the current ecological crisis. 

In a time when the climate emergency is accelerating, our questioning moves beyond emissions data and toward a critical reflection on the ethical dimensions of our methodologies, the infrastructures that sustain them, and the symbolic economies in which they circulate. In this context, we are developing a dance work that draws on Édouard Glissant's philosophical concept of opacity. In our research, we ask: Can we imagine artistic practices that embody this ethics of opacity—practices that do not seek to extract or explain, but to relate, resonate, and respond? 

In our panel, we want to enter a discussion and think together about what art can communicate and provide during times of crisis that other disciplines may not. 

Panel:

Phillip Blanchard, specialized lecturer, teacher, curator, and artist in Sustainable Methodology in Performative Practice

Max Liljefors, professor of art history and visual studies at Lund University.

Lucy Smalley, Project Leader KOAS, Malmö Konsthall

Moderator:

Maika Knoblich, Performance Artist, Choreographer, Theater Light Designer