GRASP OPENING: Thursday

We gather for a shared experience featuring highlights and previews from the programme. In addition to introducing the day ahead of you, the openings reflect a core value of GRASP: that art plays a crucial role in sustainable change. This is why every opening begins with an artistic experience. 

At Thursday's opening, you can experience a different kind of cardio performance that celebrates the wild and sensitive heart as a team sport. In a time when it can feel hard to move forward at all, HEART TO RIDE insists on movement as a way of training presence, sensitivity, and community as a muscle. 

In this performance, created by dancer and choreographer Joana Öhlschläger, a group of dancers come together in an unconventional cardio workout. They explore how to fuel and contaminate each other’s energy through sudden shifts, intimate proximity, and wide distances. Let yourself be swept up by the team spirit as HEART TO RIDE insists on a shared movement away from discouragement. 

Joana Öhlschläger is a German dancer and choreographer based in Denmark. Through various collaborations, she creates sensuous and surprising universes that – through humour and twisted clichés – invite audiences into places of physical recognition, imagination and feeling. HEART TO RIDE is presented in collaboration with Aaben Dans. After premiering at Roskilde Festival 2026 it returns to GRASP in a readapted version.  

Following the artistic opening, we will hear from speakers from the programme, including; 
 
Nikolaj Shultz, sociologist, author and Associate Professor of Social Theory and Ecological Thinking at Aarhus School of Architecture. 
 
Mariana Gomes, lawyer, founder of Último Recurso, advisor to the UN and former advisor to the President of Portugal. 
 
The artist group Hedestrik who presents a large installation made of raw-wool.  

This program is in English 

Credits for performance:
Choreography: Joana Öhlschläger
Dancers at GRASP: Carl Giacomello, Ella Östlund, Inaja Katharina Skands, Joana Öhlschläger, Léana Licius, Madee Cole, Mariana Antunes Graça, Miranda Josephine Riviere, Søren Linding Urup, Pórunn Guömundsdóttir
Dancers involved previously: Alba Sánchez Gel, Caroline Simon, Diana Gaálová, Gustav Emil Moller, Hilda Holm, Julia Bogelund, Julia Tejera, Karin Bergman, Naia Sif Adam, Nikki Samartzi, Sophia Mage, Vilda Palmkvist, Zé Couteiro.
Music: Simon Richardt
Costumes: Maya Livingstone
Special effects and light: Magnus Hjortlund
Dramaturgical sparring: Quim Bigas