Dance-maker with a curatorial practice, working across Indigenous, diasporic, and community-based contexts.
About
Marit-Shirin’s practice engages with questions of memory, migration, and embodied knowledge, focusing on how experiences that are not always visible or formally recorded are carried and transmitted through the body. In a time marked by displacement, shifting identities, and contested histories, her work considers the body as a site of continuity, negotiation, and transformation.
Rather than approaching these questions through representation alone, she develops her work through situated processes, collaboration, and attention to lived experience. This allows each project to remain responsive to its context and to include multiple perspectives and forms of knowledge.
Within the field of dance, her practice contributes to an expanded understanding of choreography—not only as the composition of movement, but as a way of engaging with social, cultural, and political realities. Working between performance and installation, and often through evolving collaborative formats, the relevance of her work lies in its capacity to create spaces where complex experiences of identity, belonging, and memory can be encountered beyond fixed narratives, and where artistic practice operates as a form of inquiry into the conditions of the present.
Photo by Simon Eliasson
-
EDUCATION
2020 - 2021 - Stockholm University of the Arts M.A in Fine Arts specializing in International Performing Arts
2012 - 2015 - Stockholm University of the Arts (DOCH) B.A in Dance Performance
2010 - 2011 - Listaháskóli Íslands, Reykjavík. Contemporary Dance Programme
UTSTÄLLNINGAR/SOLO & Group EXHIBITIONS
2026 - “Bar Mark” with Louise Najavaraq Fontain, HAUT Scene, Nordatlantens Brygge, Astrid Noacks Atelier Copenhagen
2023 - “SOYL” at Weld
”Deleting White Spaces”2022 - “Firebird” Butoh digital performance, Sapporo, Japan.
2020-2022 - Improvised Dance Solos, Tic Tac Art Centre, Brussels
2020 - “SOYL” performance at Dellie Maa, Indigenous Art & Film Festival, Tärnaby
2019 - “SOYL”, Sapporo Pirka Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan
2019 - “SOYL” with Sung Eunji at AIRY Artist in Residence, Yamanashi, Japan
2019 - Odolabo おどらお, International Dance Festival, Osaka, Japan
2018 - L’argonne Circus Collective Studio, Brussels, Belgium.
2018 - “Humans & Soil” Solo edition, Globala Veckan, Linköping, Sweden
2018 - “The Female Samurai” ARTSPACE stift/Netzwerk Aks, Millstatt, Austria
2017 - “The Female Samurai” Folk & Kultur, Eskilstuna Sweden
2017 - “The Femaile Samurai” Kanna Fall Art Festival, Onishi, Japan
2017 - “The Female Samurai” Municipal Art Innovation Centre, Osaka, Japan
CURATORIAL WORK
2024-2025: - “Jårrh!” Aejlies Saemien Jarnge Artistic Residency focused on experimental choreography and movement in Dearna, Sápmi2026 - ongoing: “Dellie Maa - Jårrh!” Festival. Indigenous film and dance festival in Dearna, Sápmi.
CHOREOGRAPHIC WORK
2025: “Rrîtm” Place Specific Performance and workshops in co-production with Norrlandsoperan, Scensverige and Gaaltije - Saemien Museume
2024: “No Friend but the Mountains”
Independent project, performance and videoinstallation2024: “Nomad” by Arthem - Romska Teatern Gothenburg and Riksteatern.
Co-choreographer for artist Sofia Jannok
2023 - “Jarkelidh” Comissioned work by Riksteatern, Sweden2022 - “of itself : in itself” National tour, Dance Net Sweden
2022 - “of itself : in itself”, Dansens Hus Stockholm, Sweden
2021 - “of itself : in itself” Comissioned work by Norrlandsoperan, Umeå, Sweden
2021 - “Come rain or shine, We will dance!” Dansprogrammet, Riksteatern Stockholm
2020 - Work-in-progress “of itself : in itself” Ubmejen Biejvieh, Samiska veckan, Umeå, Sweden
LECTURES
2023 - Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden
2022 - Co-lecture, Decolonizing Seminar with Thuy Nguyen, Royal Academy of Music Stockholm
2021 - Lecture/Panel discussion, ReThink Festival, with CEMiPoS, Liv Aira, Marika Renhuvud, Katazyna Pastuszak, Norrlandsoperan Umeå
2021 - Lecture, Humans & Soil, Deleting White Spaces, Weld Stockholm
2020 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Cullberg Dance Company ‘Explorations of Now’
2020 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Discourses in Dancing Democracy OSCO, Hannover
2019 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Barents Dance Council, Luleå
2019 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Sapporo School of Freedom, Hokkaido Japan
2019 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Såhkie - Umeå Sameförening, Umeå
2019 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Galleri Tegen, Stockholm
2019 - Presentation, Humans & Soil, Dellie Maa, Indigenous Art & Film Festval, Tärnaby
RESIDENCIES
2026 - HAUT Scene with “Bar Mark” and Louise Najavaraq Fontain
2023 - SITE Sweden, Garage 29 Brussels with “No Friend but the Mountains”
2021 - Dansens Hus produktionsresidens, Stockholm
2021 - Norrlandsoperan, Dans i Västerbotten.
2020 - Norrlandsoperan and Dearna, Tärnaby, Dans i Västerbotten Umeå
2020 - Dansinitiativet, Luleå
2020 - NPO S-Air, Sapporo Artist In Residency, Japan
2020 - Riksteatern, Hallunda “of itself : in itself” Humans & Soil 2020 - Dans i Västerbotten, Folkets Hus Tärnaby
2019 - AIRY Artist in Residence, Yamanashi, Japan Humans & Soil 2019
2019 - Tenjinyama Studios, Sapporo, Japan Humans & Soil
2019 - Northern Sustainable Futures, Moskosel, Sweden Humans & Soil
2018 - Ricklundgården, Saxnäs, Sweden Humans & Soil
2018 - ARTSPACE Stift/Netzwerk Aks, Millstatt, Austria “The Female Samurai” 2017 - Shiro Oni Studios, Onishi, Japan “The Female Samurai”
-
EDUCATION
2020-2021: MA in Fine arts, Stockholm University of the Arts. Specialty: International Performing Arts, production work, organisation, leadership. Mentors: PeO Sander, Bodil Persson.EXPERIENCE
2017 - ongoing: Producer & Project manager for Humans & Soil
2024- 2025: Project Manager, Aejlies - South Sámi Cultural Centre in Dearna/Tärnaby
Co-developing frameworks for Indigenous and BIPOC artists, hosting, combining artistic research with community-building, Indigenous methodology, and ethical leadership. Administrative work including budget planning, application writing etc.
Main partner: Riksteatern (The Swedish national Touring Network) -
The aesthetics of Humans & Soil is a consequence of our re-membering
Humans & Soil is an artistic platform committed to decolonizing academic practices and revitalizing our ancient Indigenous relationship with the Earth. The project’s vision grew out of northern Sámi and Japanese Ainu perspectives. Conceived by choreographer and researcher Marit Shirin Carolasdotter in 2017, Humans and Soil has since grown into a platform that dynamically balances performance, research and activism across international partnerships. We have already collaborated with several regions in Sápmi such as Västerbotten, where Norrlandsoperan has recognised the project’s support of their Indigenous culture through its creative activity.
Today, Humans and Soil continues listening carefully to Indigenous peoples’ stories, conducting relevant research, participating in, conducting and hosting seminars. Simultaneously, we continue embodying and generating change in Humans’ relationship to Earth; through movement-based multimodal creative expression and active engagement in local indigenous and global environmental issues.
As project manager for Jårrh Residency (Dearna/Tärnaby), I co-designed frameworks to support Indigenous/ BIPOC artists; developed safety guidelines rooted in decolonial and relational ethics; and fostered environments of shared leadership, care, and collaborative research.
I also lead workshops, mentor artist-researchers, and build coalitions to enable practices that bridge performance, relational learning, and care-practices.
contact me for inquiries.