Matilda Rolfsson
About
My name is Matilda Rolfsson, I am a percussionist and improviser, who with my artistic research-project ”In Motion, Movements with Directions (- from within)" explore the interplay between music and dance in free-improvisation.
With a wider definition of the listening, inspired my dance- collogues, not only hearing, but also seeing, and sensing everything in the room, I’m intrigued by the idea of an interdisciplinary interplay between music and dance, where none of the artforms lose direction, and energy in the improvisation.
Highlighting the importance of seeing dance and music as equals, but still different, not compromised in hierarchies or language- barriers, I’m interested in reflecting on how a wholeness in an expression can arise from different and individual voices, also what imprint dance has had to my playing after years of interdisciplinary entanglements in free-improvisation.
Reflecting my sounds with the movements of the dancers gives me an expanded freedom to play and improvise freely in different, and even unexpected directions. Not only as a kinetic approach, when playing on my instrument, but also as an imaginative source that arises from the visual aspect of the dance.
To play like a dancer, as if the music was dance*, continues to be an artistic driving- force for me, advocating that there is very much taced knowledge that that needs to be putted into daylight, not least in the higher music education-system and scenes for experimental music, where I wish the two artforms would appear more integrated.
The more I engage with the subject of my artistic research-project, the more I’m fascinated of the rich and complex interplay that music and dance implies in free-improvisation. However, finding my artistic peers and their antidotes hasmade it graspable.
At the moment I am delightfully inside artistic processes with dancers: Anna Westberg (SE), Marcela Giesche (US/DE)and Bára Sigfussdottir (IS/NO).
I hold a Bachelor and a Master in performing music, Jazz and improvisation (Department of Music, NTNU, 2009- 2015) with integrated exchange- studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.
*Inspired by pianist Cecil Taylors quote: “I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes” . A.B Spellman, Four Lives in The Bebop Business, 1967/ 42.
Publications
2020
-
Duch, Michael Francis;
Rolfsson, Matilda.
(2020)
Fri Form.
Fri Form
Musical performance
-
Lindvall, Johan;
Lie, Marianne Baudouin;
Foss, Eira;
Laastad, Kyrre;
Holm, Klaus Ellerhuseen;
Sagstuen, Ina;
Garner, Natali Abrahamsen;
Fossheim, Lars Ove;
Rolfsson, Matilda;
Winther, Andreas;
Winther, Christian;
Rølvåg, Mette Henriette Martedatter.
(2020)
Trondheim Jazzorkester og Johan Lindvall.
Trondheim Jazzorkester og Johan Lindvall
Musical performance
Artistic productions
-
Duch, Michael Francis;
Rolfsson, Matilda.
(2020)
Fri Form.
Fri Form
Musical performance
-
Lindvall, Johan;
Lie, Marianne Baudouin;
Foss, Eira;
Laastad, Kyrre;
Holm, Klaus Ellerhuseen;
Sagstuen, Ina;
Garner, Natali Abrahamsen;
Fossheim, Lars Ove;
Rolfsson, Matilda;
Winther, Andreas;
Winther, Christian;
Rølvåg, Mette Henriette Martedatter.
(2020)
Trondheim Jazzorkester og Johan Lindvall.
Trondheim Jazzorkester og Johan Lindvall
Musical performance