i ended up completely re-choreographing a piece i had been working on before i left LA and using the track i made with Rick to present new work at a choreographers showcase i had been waiting 6 years to perform in. i added 3 other tracks to what we made and told my 9 dancers that what was once a piece about loosing myself to motherhood was now ALSO about loosing my home. i took the intimate catharsis from Sweden and performed it three times in a row to over 600 people in industrial downtown LA. the high was beyond anything i could have expected. so many people cried, so many people held their breath for 15 minutes, so many people begged me to never stop making work like this. 

i honestly didn’t really achieve that because i decided to bring my entire family. the fantasy of staring at a white wall for hours of uninterrupted thought did not happen but having a giant space to myself, for even 15 minutes was something i could smile about for days. i felt like a queen and realized how much i need my own studio in LA. the fact that i am 42 and have been making work for 25 years without ever having a studio to myself is kinda bananas. 

 the stillness in Sweden is my highlight. it is unlike any stillness i have every experienced before. the glass look of the water, the swans on the ocean, the reds, yellows, oranges and greens of the trees. it was so still some mornings that my own breath was almost offensive to my body. i found that to be profound. 

it helped me realize that we are never really healed and that that is okay. that that is beautiful and unraveling and perhaps the best part of loosing everything-the understanding that the grief is now your friend. knowing that so many others have experienced what my family went through and seeing the complete willingness of these artists to help and to be present and to listen was so beautiful. i will carry that in my heart forever-knowing that if we all lose our everything again, what we have is each other and the power of that is something that will never burn. 

Jasmine is a choreographer, dancer, instructor and co-founder of WIFE. She has done movement direction for Beyonce, Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez among many artists and performed with companies such as Hysterica, Blue13 Bollywood, Collage Dance Theater, & Ryan Heffington’s Fingered. Her work has shown at Hammer Museum, MOCA, LACMA and internationally.
Other performances include Soft Sex, Istanbul Light Festival, TEDx SoCal, KTCHN, We Are The World, Frequency Festival, Jane’s Addiction and Hecuba at venues including Zebulon, the El Rey, the Wiltern, The Ford, and The Orpheum.
Jasmine has a degree in History from UCLA and trained in contemporary dance at The Edge Performing Arts Center in Budapest, Hungary. She has been teaching dance for the past nineteen years in and around Los Angeles, Copenhagen and Mexico. 

@jasminealbuquerquecroissant
https://jasminealbuquerque.com

BKN is located on an island in Norrtälje municipality, Sweden. It’s a costal region covered with almost boreal forest. It’s a quiet place only some 350 people live across the island. It’s connected by a bridge to the mainland and is 2 hours north east of Stockholm. The public transportation for greater Stockholm area brings you to the doorstep. If you come directly from Arlanda Airport it takes about the same time. Björk in Swedish is birch and ö island, so yes you will see them every where along with aspen but more so you will encounter pine, heather and spruce. Moss and kitchen are much appreciated aspect of the nature here as well.
The darker half of the year you have a chance to see aurora borealis and from May the days are rapidly getting longer towards midsummer. It’s a four season climate with some snow in the winters and 15-20 degrees during the summer. In 2020 BKN was founded in two former school buildings, wooden structures that are over 100 years old. Resources include, in addition natures offerings, black and white darkroom, loom, sawing machine, wood shop, beamer, speakers etc. During the first five years BKN had over 200 artists. More from them >>>