Douglas Rosenberg’s latest film The Sea was shot on Fårö, Gotland 2024 in the same kind of magical landscape that Ingmar Bergman returned to in several of his previous black and white films. Karin Brygger (Sweden), who has worked with Douglas Rosenberg (US) in several contexts, has spoken to him about the production, dreams, and how the film came to be.[1]
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Let’s start from the beginning. Who are you, where do you come from and what has shaped your artistic choices?
I am from Northern California, in what we call the San Francisco Bay Area, and that environment was in many ways crucial for my artistic work. I grew up at the end of the Beatnik era, a time marked by protests against the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement. In the late sixties and early seventies, hippie culture was also a strong influence on Californian culture. My teachers at school were an eclectic bunch, many with experience of the Korean War and World War II. Surprisingly enough, several had studied experimental art and were oriented towards the worlds of European and American avant-garde art and independent film. When I started high school, I went to a kind of experimental school that was integrated into regular school. I was exposed to experimental pedagogy and completely new forms of teaching. My art teacher was young and had studied art at university. He was different, broke the pattern of how I perceived teachers; he was not one of those older men who came from the war. He inspired me to understand that I wanted to be an artist, and I tried different forms of art: painting, drawing, dance. And above all, ceramics, which was the big thing at the time. I thought that was my calling. But then high school ended, and I became a carpenter. At the same time, I became part of a small group of older friends who all had the same teacher as me. My conviction that I should pursue ceramics was strengthened in this group, where everyone already knew what they wanted to pursue. I started college and suddenly actively sought out theater and dance performances, cultural experiences. I came to see Samuel Beckett’s «Waiting for Godot» and it changed my entire perception of the world as it was, yes, my universe became different. Maybe that’s the answer to the question?
The experiences of these different impressions somehow gathered inside me. I started watching films, so-called «foreign films», and drove long distances to cinemas that showed Herzog, Bergman and all the filmmakers who were outside the mainstream culture. I changed. I started taking dance lessons, collaborating with choreographers…
I remember you once telling me that you dedicated yourself to witnessing dance. Of course, you have done much more than that in the dance world, but would you like to describe what that means to you? To be a witness of dance?
Hm. Did I say that? I have written an article called “Witnessing Dance”… Well, I came across video equipment, through a local TV station. Until the early seventies, that kind of equipment was reserved for those who worked on TV, for example, and it was extremely difficult to get hold of. But I managed. I also continued my education and started at the San Francisco Art Institute. I spent a lot of time with a choreographer at this time and was always in her studio. It became obvious that what happened in the studio, rehearsals and training, was never documented. Dance was only visible during performances. I started documenting the dance that was going on in the studio. That became my work. For 10-15 years on I worked with this, documenting dance, also at the American Dance Festival [a festival that has existed since 1934]. I always saw dance through the camera… And that’s how I came to be who I am: someone who creates dance specifically for the camera.
Jessica Lindgren-Wu
The Sea, your latest film is an hour long and the first film you’ve shot outside the US. The entire production was done in Sweden. Why Sweden? What is genuine or exciting for you about the Swedish landscape when it comes to creating screen dance films?
When I was in my twenties, I saw Bergman films. For me, these films were a kind of mystery, they were sexual, psychological dramas… The beauty was striking, and I had never seen films like that before. Bergman stayed with me. During the pandemic, in 2020, I made a film – Song of Songs (read more about the film at Loïe 12). When I work these days, I always think, “This might be the last thing I do.” That feeling increases my ambitions, I am aware that what I produce will be what I leave behind one day. That is how it is now, with books, texts, films. I made Song of Songs in my early sixties with the realization that I wanted to bring out the best in me, to hold myself truly accountable. The responsibility was on me, my age, and filmmaking itself. For me, it meant that when I stood in front of the camera, I would also perform in front of the lens in the way I have demanded that others do throughout my life, with presence and exactly as I was at that moment. I wanted my age to be visible, no matter what audience this film would have, I would be there. In the process, I wrote a list of things that had inspired me throughout my life, it was music, faith, Kabbalah, different filmmakers, and also on the list was age, time. Song of Songs became a “mash up” of the components on the list. Just like The Sea, Song of Songs is black and white, just like the films that once meant so much to me. So, this is the beginning of the process…
After that film was finished, I was lucky enough to come to Sweden for a residency through dancer/ choreographer and filmmaker Ami Skånberg and spent a month in Jonsered. During that period, Song of Songs was shown in several different places. I was also invited to show it at the Bergman Center on Fårö a little over six months later and returned to Sweden. It was a magical experience for me to stay on the island that was Bergman’s home, to show my film in his private cinema, to experience this landscape with my own body. I have no words for that experience, but it awakened a desire in me to make a film that literally followed in Bergman’s footsteps, that was shot in his environments. When I returned home, I worked on the idea for about three years before traveling back to Sweden in the fall of 2024 and began a collaboration with producer Andreas Nordblom. I brought an old friend with me – David Dorfman – from the US, a dancer and choreographer and also brought another professional dancer (Benno Voorham) to the project, but the main group of dancers are amateurs and from Gotland. They are all in what we call “their third age”, that is, between 60–80 years old. It was a fantastic group and a fantastic experience.
Jessica Lindgren-Wu
The landscape in The Sea is really exciting, almost mythological. You emphasize it by making the film in black and white. That the film has references to Bergman is obvious in many ways, but I have also thought about how it kind of “disturbs” – or becomes an opposite to the depressive Bergman, who digs deep into the darkness of human life. The Sea also explores – at least I think so – man in depth, but this group of dancing men expresses so much joy. It is as if the film encompasses the entire life cycle, and it is constantly surprising. While Bergman depicted the most difficult things in life, I think that vulnerability, closeness, joy are The Sea’s strongest elements. That is – all the best things in life. That makes me curious. You have worked with men and vulnerability before – for example in “Breakfast For My Father.” And with older men. Do you want to say something about your choices?
The men in the film are all from Gotland. Just as the landscape means one thing to you, and one to me, they have a special relationship to it. Many of those involved had worked on Fårö, perhaps even helped out on a film. They also had specific relationships to Bergman. For me, it is beautiful and poetic to work with these men, not least because of their age. Much of the closeness you point to comes from American culture, or simply from the world of boys. These are games that are reinterpreted in choreographic scenes, The section called Flocking, for example, is based on or what we call in English Follow the leader boys who gather with their arms around each other to build community, team identity. Wrestling is also included, and hide and seek – yes, the typical games that boys play are woven into the dance. And the flag – which is so often part of the scout movement, for example.
Ah, the flag. For me, it meant something different because it is white…Peace?
Yes, the white flag means surrender, giving in. It’s generally something men can’t do…
Why can’t men surrender?
Hard to answer. But in any case, in American culture, it’s built into the idea that you never give up. We are a continent of immigrants, and the US is built on the idea that you should lay the foundation for your life yourself. If you’re going to make it, you can never give up. It’s a backbone of American society. I think it’s something quite positive.
If we’re going to approach the theme of age…Which is always somehow intertwined with time. Your film is slow, beautiful. Is the choice to have older men in front of the camera a choice based on desire, or does it also have political implications – is it a question of representation?
Yes, so the lack of older bodies is true in all forms of culture and artistic expression. Drastically put, our culture is done with humans as artistic objects or subjects too early. In the dance world it is exceptional: for women it is in their late teens and through their twenties that they are at their peak. Then they can possibly take their place in contemporary dance. The general gaze is far too limited.
For me, of course, it is a reason to work with older bodies – I have done it before in different constellations and think it is beautiful, and poetic. Especially when it comes to dancers. It is a choice on my part that also has to do with art history, with legends like Allan Kaprow who have meant a lot in my life and who, among other things, brought the everyday into art. Kaprow rebelled against inscribed limitations in cultural expression. For me, what lies outside those limitations is more interesting and in relation to people’s bodies I think it is more rewarding to work with people whose lives are inscribed in their bodies, where experiences have left their mark. I have thought a lot about my parallel career as a university teacher of art. As a teacher, I am getting older, but I am constantly teaching students who are always around the same age, from say 18–19 up to about 30 years old. I was also 30 years old once… but while I am getting older, the students remain young…
If I had made a “typical dance film”, the dancers would have been in their thirties, beautiful, perfect. But I want something different: I have a conviction that those in front of my camera should be around my own age.
As for masculinity…Hm. Why is it that relationships between men, male relationships, seem to dissolve over time? I just saw a film, The Banshees of Inisherin, where the older man one day suddenly just tells his younger male friend to stop talking to him. And the younger one doesn’t understand anything… Why do men disappear?
Jessica Lindgren-Wu
For those who have an eye for it, there is a lot of Jewish culture written into the film. For me, these elements were natural to see and incorporate into my gaze, but I also have a trained eye. When I reflected on it, I thought of one of your articles, which postulates that Jewishness “was there all along” – this applied, of course, to 20th-century art and film. I could say the same about your artistry in general. Was the incorporation of Jewish cultural heritage into The Sea deliberate or do you think it just sort of seeps in as you work?
In general, I think that if you allow your cultural heritage, or what we might call “the Jewish” in this case, it takes the place it needs. The Sea alludes to a number of personal touchstones for me. I quote images from Ingmar Bergman’s films, and throughout the project I worked from childhood memories of the men in my life including my own father and the men and friendships I remember from his life. I also weave elements of Jewish life into the film, from the circular dance and the accordion music in minor to images that appear in the Old Testament, such as the men carrying sticks and branches, which alludes to the scene where Abraham’s son Isaac is described as carrying the sticks for the «burnt offering» that Abraham had been asked to make by God –
There is also a scene in The Sea where the men are seen sitting together singing and breaking bread, a scene that refers to the beginning of Shabbat on Friday night when Jews bless candles, wine and bread and the week’s work ends. And of course there is the biblical figure David himself, who can be seen as represented by all the men dancing before God. The power of the minyan (Jewish custom requires ten men to perform certain ritual obligations) is amplified, as the men are often closely grouped as if to gather the spiritual power of their dance. Finally, we see exactly ten men together in the final scene, naked as newborns, in a holy gesture as they together bless the sea.
How do you see screendance today – as a field? What are your visions for its future?
My hope is that people who are involved in screendance will get out of their “comfort zone”. Maybe start exploring the early dance films… I wish they would start asking themselves and their productions: what do I want to leave behind? What is my own artistic vision? In that way, the field would get both more, and new, energy. Screendance has become a bit of a victim of its own success. There is too much repetition –
The need for new energy and new, personal thinking also applies to those who show the films. That requires another step, a courage. If someone says to me: “I can’t show your film because it’s too long” or “Your film is too slow for me to show it”, that is of course up to them, what they want to show. But right now, very short films are the norm, but just like everywhere else in society, the more diversity in screendance, the better.
So screendance is also today characterized by what we call a “short attention span”…?
Yes, and it’s sad. I come from a generation that spent hours watching European films and American experimental films, Japanese films… that in turn go on hour after hour and that for that very reason carry something very unique, these productions are fantastic. Screendance, as genre and field, now that it is established and aging, must ask itself what it wants in this world –
If you could choose three words to summarize or describe the work with The Sea – what would they be?
There is only one, and that is enough. Magical.
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The Sea (2025)
Film director and dancer: Douglas Rosenberg
Choreography: David Dorfman and Benno Voorham
Cinematographer: Paul Wu
Producer: Andreas Nordblom (Nikki)
Dancers: men in their “third age”, from the Swedish island Gotland.
Photos taken during the production and illustrating this interview: Jessica Lindgren-Wu
An exclusive preview of The Sea through the «Dance Film Festival on Ringön» took place in the spring of 2025 at «Folk and Culture» (Eskilstuna). The Swedish premiere will take place at prestigious Bergman Week festival (Fårö, Sweden, June, 2025). In the spring of 2025, The Sea has also been shown at the Madison Film Festival in the spring of 2025, as well as in Portland and will be screened in in Prague (Festival tanécnich filmů, May 2025) and received the Best Feature Film award at the Berlin Kiez Film Festival. The formal premiere of The Sea takes place in March at Bodyvox Screendance Festival, in Portland, Oregon (link here), followed by the Wisconsin Film Festival in April, 2025 (link here).
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Douglas Rosenberg (MFA, San Francisco Art Institute) is the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an artist and a theorist working with performance, video, installation whose work has been exhibited internationally for over 30 years in museums, festivals, galleries and elsewhere. He is the author of Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image, published by Oxford Press and The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies, for which he was awarded the Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research. He is a founding editor of The International Journal of Screendance whose work has been supported by numerous grants and awards including, the NEA, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Soros Foundation, the MAP Fund in New York and the James D. Phelan Art Award in Video. He is most recently the recipient of the Creative Arts Award. His newest film project shot on the Island of Fårö in Sweden is called, The Sea. His most recent book (2024) is, Staring at the Sky, Essays on Art and Culture, published by Korpen Press.
Karin Brygger is a poet and writer of 9 books, including essays (her latest book will 2025 come out in Denmark and Czech Republic, in Canada 2027). She works as an assistant professor in Arts, Media and Storytelling at Skövde University (SE). You can find her articles and essays in Judisk Krönika (Jewish Chronicle), Dagens Nyheter (the biggest national newspaper in Sweden), Arche, Lyrikvännen and Danstidningen (Dancemagazine) among others. Brygger’s interest in desire as the core of human existence has also led her to indulge in the field of psychoanalysis. 2025 she will publish a longer essay on The Sea at Dos Nisele.
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[1] This is a translation of the interview from Swedish to English. The interview first appeared in Danstidningen. The translation is made by Karin Brygger with the help of Douglas Rosenberg.