Anders Duckworth is a Swedish / British non-binary choreographer, performer and visual artist based in London. They graduated from London Contemporary Dance School in 2014 and, since then, has been making work that is cross-disciplinary and aims to blur the boundaries between dance and other art forms, often collaborating with artists and technicians from different fields ranging from designers and composers to analogue film specialists and computer coders. Their most recent piece is Well Lit, a collaboration with DanielPersson, exploring gender and cultural identity and their newest work, Mapping Gender is concerned with gender and landscape and is a collaboration with sound artist Dr Kat Austen and Nadia Miah a historical costumer. As a performer, Anders works with MaresavonStockert, Lea Anderson, Protein Dance and Requardt & Rosenberg among others. In 2019 Anders completed their MA at LCDS with a dissertation entitled Gendered Spaces: a perpetuation of inequality.
What are you most excited about joining the new group of Work Place artists?
To be part of an exciting cohort of artists working to push the boundaries and scope of contemporary dance and formalising my relationship with The Place who have always been very supportive of my practice. The opportunity to expand the possibilities of my work with the support and expertise not only of The Place but of the other Work Place artists.
Where do you seek or find inspiration for your work?
I am inspired by fine art, film, fashion, and sculpture particularly Roy Andersson and Ingmar Bergman, Rachel Whiteread and Rebecca Horn. Also by my lived experience of being a non-binary, severely dyslexic person and by the histories of people and of place. I am fascinated by the everyday, the activity of the city and the dances that we do to move through and connect.
What does it mean for you to be an artist in this day and age?
In a time where conversations are often so divisive, I see much of my responsibility lying in communicating the nuances of an idea in a way that can engage and touch people. I want to make work that moves people and also perhaps changes their perceptions - of dance, of performance, of social constructs.