When The Bleeding Stops

In “When the Bleeding Stops” Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir addresses the silence and taboo that seems to engulf menopause in Western society, as well as her personal experience of aging as a dancer.

After suffering an injury five years ago, Lovísa was forced to reconsider her relationship with dance and the body. This process opened her eyes to the silence around menopause and her own lack of knowledge on the subject. She began researching and posted an open invitation online where she invited menopausal women to participate in her project. Before she knew it, she was working with a large number of women from across Icelandic society.

Several of the Icelandic woman are now part of the performance alongside local women from Aarhus who have been invited to participate and share their stories and dance.

“When the Bleeding Stops” invites the audience into a world of vulnerability, shame, empathy and humour. The work transports us into the privacy of the participants homes, and dives deep into the many layers of the female experience associated with menopause and invites us to laugh, cry and celebrate with these women.

The work premiered at Reykjavík Dance Festival in The Reykjavík City Theatre in 2021 and has been touring since. It has gotten excellent critical reviews and the local women participating in the project have described the experience as empowering and even life changing. When the Bleeding Stops was nominated as the most innovative performance of the year at The Icelandic Theatre Awards and Lovísa was chosen as one of the 20 specially selected Aerowaves artists in 2023 as well as a Crowd artist in 2023.

Lovísa is now on a mission to travel with the performance internationally, connect to local, menopausal women in each place, gather stories and dance videos from them, introduce them to her artistic practice and invite them to join her on stage. At the same time, Lovísa wants to create a social movement around menopause and take part in changing the narrative on menopause in Western Society.

Part of the creation of “When The Bleeding Stops” was done during an artist residency organized and supported by the Bora Bora Residency Centre in 2022.

Award-winning dancer and choreographer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir has danced her whole life. She started performing in her living room at the age of four and was a full time member of Iceland Dance Company for sixteen years. Lovísa toured all over the world with the company, as well as with other independent dance groups, constantly performing and creating and working with a wide range of wonderful artists. Five years ago, at the age of forty, she suffered an injury that forced her to reconsider her relationship with dance, the body, and her artistic practice.

This process, along with the vivid feeling of an ageing body, opened her eyes to the silence around menopause and her own lack of knowledge on the subject. She began researching and interviewing menopausal women in her local community. This led her to a masters degree in Performance Practice at Iceland ́s University of the Arts where she further developed her artistic practice. There Lovísa conducted research that revolved around ageing, connecting to the body ́s deeply embedded knowledge, history, and experience, and to the big tab: menopause.

She now works as an independent choreographer and a stage artist in Iceland and has created works for Iceland Dance Company, Reykjavík Dance Festival and Reykjavík City Theatre to name but a few. Lovísa has received awards and nominations for her work both as a choreographer and a dancer.