We move on a different plane from everybody else. Every day, one of us has passed by here. Each time with a certain focus. As if mere passing by was not enough. As if dry, flattened chewing gum and repeated itineraries were not only elastic but also changed their taste once you paid a different kind of attention to them. For Charlotta Ruth, choreography is a language able to express and reclassify the in-between, the behind, the before and after – and the imaginary. Choreography can restructure the static and the given. It can also help to handle speed. The performer/choreographer employs choreographic thinking and clues to create, explore and propose new associations between people, objects and phenomena. Moreover, choreography can be helpful in overcoming dictated rules.

As part of a work scholarship from the City of Vienna in 2024, Charlotta Ruth created a practice she calls ‘chain creations’. While systemically and aesthetically, it has clear overlaps with Ruth’s passion for treasure hunts, this practice does not involve a planned route with a specific goal. Chain creations are a creative practice that starts to look closer at every-day patterns, relationships and movements and to see what can become of them once they are recontextualised and translated.

Charlotta Ruth uses methods of performance, choreography and gameplay to systematically experiment with time and perception. Her work is based on a deep interest in collective thinking, concrete contexts and places and on an exchange of ideas among different media. Her pieces have been co-produced, commissioned and presented, for example, at MDT, Museum of Modern Art and Dansens Hus in Stockholm, at Tanzquartier Wien, brut Wien, WUK performing arts, Brunnenpassage and City Games Vienna. Since 2017, Ruth is connected to the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she finished her PhD in artistic research (2022) and is active in various roles at the Angewandte Performance Laboratory (APL). She is also a lecturer in the MA course Applied Human Rights at the Vienna University and a guest researcher with SciFi Elise Richter PEEK research project Outerwoman headed by language artist Cordula Daus. Charlotta Ruth’s research and publication foci include participatory sense-making, the art of asking questions, asynchronous communication and the creation of liveness in digital/online communication. In 2024, she is using the one-year work scholarship awarded to her by the City of Vienna for Choreographic Traces and Chain Creations. www.charlottaruth.com/