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LISA JANBELL [SE]

Lisa Janbell is an artist, choreographer and dancer based in Stockholm. Her practice rests upon many years of dedication to ceremonial and ritual performance, rooted in collective processes. Janbell’s work is genre transcending, shifting between contexts and collaborations, and draws knowledge from the social dance principles of the techno subculture alongside ceremonial practices. Using the body as a vessel for ritual and collective memory, she seeks choreography and performance to open pathways to the transcendental and devotional, to the mysteries and divinatory, spaces where the negotiation between the individual and the collective is both unfolding and dissolving. She invites audiences into provisional places she herself longs to inhabit, where belonging is desired rather than given, and where bodies might rest, be seen, and meet in shared presence, at once vulnerable and unyielding, meditative and intense.

In recent years her trajectory has shifted from techno driven ritual formats in underground and club contexts toward somatic dance practices intertwined with sound technology and live electroacoustic music. Her works have been presented across Sweden, Europe and Cuba, at venues including MDT, Dansens Hus, Riksteatern, Norbergfestival, Augenblick Mal Festival (Berlin), and Teatro Raquel Revuelta (Havana). She has also created commissioned works, such as choreography for the Studio Barnhus A/V show at Sonár (Barcelona) and Way Out West (Gothenburg).

Recent projects include Deep Leap (2025–2026), a choreographic sound work where movement generates live sound through body worn technology and microphones on stage, DEVOTED (2024), a collaboration with composer Dijle Neva Yigitbas bridging live music and choreography through a devotional practice, and SWEET & STICKY (2023), a site specific choreographic work with live electroacoustic music created with architect Jelena Mijanovic.

She studied Cuban folk dance at El Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, pursued further dance studies at UFBA in Brazil, and holds a degree in cultural anthropology from Stockholm University. Since 2010 Janbell has been part of the performance duo and music project Dos Oké with Camilla Sivam, creating electronic prayers in ritual formats, the cradle of her works.

In 2024 she was awarded a ten year working grant by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

DEEP LEAP

LISA JANBELL [SE] - DEEP LEAP - April 23, 2026 - MDT, Stockholm, Sweden - 20:00
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  • MDT, Stockholm, Sweden
  • April 23, 2026
  • 20:00

DEEP LEAP

LISA JANBELL [SE] - DEEP LEAP - April 24, 2026 - MDT, Stockholm, Sweden - 20:00
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  • MDT, Stockholm, Sweden
  • April 24, 2026
  • 20:00

DEEP LEAP

LISA JANBELL [SE] - DEEP LEAP - April 25, 2026 - MDT, Stockholm, Sweden - 15:00
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  • MDT, Stockholm, Sweden
  • April 25, 2026
  • 15:00

DEEP LEAP

LISA JANBELL [SE] - DEEP LEAP - April 26, 2026 - MDT, Stockholm, Sweden - 15:00
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  • MDT, Stockholm, Sweden
  • April 26, 2026
  • 15:00

Photo credits: Angelina Bergenwall

DEEP LEAP

Deep Leap is Lisa Janbell’s upcoming work. It unfolds over the course of one year through different residencies in Sweden, from May 2025 until its premiere on April 23, 2026, at MDT in Stockholm.

This project is currently looking for touring opportunities. If you are interested, please reach out via email.

Deep Leap is a choreographic sound work where dancers generate live sound through body-worn sensors and onstage microphones. Each body becomes an instrument, building layers of sound in real time. Movement and sound are inseparable, inviting a shift in perception: where choreography becomes sound, and listening becomes a physical act.

The work unfolds as an intimate choreographic concert: stripped down, sensuous and immersive. The audience is placed close to the performers, experiencing resonance through vibration, presence and raw energy. Technology is visible but never dominant; it amplifies fragility, force and emotion rather than simulating or distracting.

Deep Leap navigates our technological present without losing what is human, fleshly and soulful. Set between sound and movement, digital and flesh, the work drifts through shifting states, a liminal space where hopeful and dystopian, playful and grieving, fragile and unyielding coexist. Figures, energies and messages surface and dissolve, suspended in a place where creation and disappearance coexist.

The piece strives to offer the audience a hypnotic, somatic and emotional experience, uniting the body’s physical presence with technology while opening a space for resonance and imagination.

Premiering at MDT Stockholm, April 23, 2026. Followed by a Swedish tour with co-producing partners, designed to tour further internationally in flexible formats and venues.

With support from Kulturrådet (the Swedish Arts Council), in co production with Dansens Hus, Dansinitiativet, MARC, MDT and Riksteatern (National Swedish Touring Theatre)

Credits
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Idea, concept and choreography: Lisa Janbell
Co-creating dancers: Cajsa Godée, Rebecca Livaniou
Sound designer and composer: Adde Huumonen
Artistic sound engineer: Sade Kasiri
Light design: Jonatan Winbo
Costume: Amanda Hedman Hägerström
Dramaturgic / artistic advisor: Karina Sarkissova
Producer: Puma Lagos

Deep Leap is co-produced and developed through residencies at Riksteatern’s Production Residency for Dance, MDT, Dansens Hus, MARC, and Dansinitiativet.
Supported by Kulturrådet.