Driftwood at Weld and rates of change

Driftwood Anna Koch and Mikael Marklund Weld, Stockholm January 30 - February 1, 2026

Mikael Marklund, left, and Anna Koch. Photo: Fredrik Wåhlstedt

In a viewer’s mind, a dance takes shape not only as an accumulation of events and actions. The dance is also understood, more intuitively perhaps, through rules that seem to govern the performers’ behavior. Without revealing at least some sense of internal logic over time, the dance becomes something like a plastic bag filled with water and coated in oil — both too formless to hold and too slippery to carry.

Anna Koch and Mikael Marklund, performers and co-choreographers of the roughly hourlong duet Driftwood at Weld, are highly skilled craftspeople who know how to shape movement over time into an experience you can take with you. That is no surprise. This year, Koch and her teammates celebrate the twentieth anniversary of founding Weld, a performance venue and platform; Marklund is now back in Stockholm following a lengthy run of work with established and celebrated dancemakers beyond Sweden.

Driftwood confirms their expertise in part though the measured rates at which it changes. During the show’s initial minutes, the two are mostly non-intersecting, in sync if not in step. They traverse the sunken, concrete-walled space in either orthogonal lines or exact diagonals, in harmony with the straight, architectural lines their arms make, and in contrast with the irregularities of the object that hangs above them: Love Enqvist’s layered assembly of weathered planks of pale wood, like the remains of a hand-built raft, one scrap of blue fabric caught in its crevices, ends dangling. Together with Koch’s and Marklund’s rhyming yet unmatched costumes — also layered, also raw-edged — the environment of Driftwood suggests these two might have found each other marooned on a remote island. Upstage left, one corner of the Marley flooring is folded loosely over itself, like one page of a book that’s been dog-eared for future reference.

On that page, on the dance floor, the pair’s patterned movement continues. The bodies gradually orbit each other less mathematically and more theatrically, each spiraling into the other’s kinesphere as wariness gives way to engagement. Koch and Marklund regard us directly, bringing their audience into the evolution of this relationship. Swinging movements which, at the start, are proximally initiated, likewise give way to distal specificity, as Marklund in particular begins to mark points in space with his fingers and toes. Driftwood’s lighting cues, designed in collaboration with Casper Wijlhuizen, go from atmospheric to interjectionary. A strobe light flashes a few times like a silent alarm. The room goes nearly dark, then dim, then bright again, suggesting the cycle of seasons or perhaps a fast-forwarding through the two’s timeline.

Sound artist Rohaeen wraps ample margins of silence around each of Driftwood’s heterogenous zones: ominous winds, seconds-long morsels of energetic EDM, and a looping lullaby sung softly over the strumming of a harp. Like Koch and Marklund, these aural motifs also come closer to interaction.

In its final few minutes, Driftwood builds with some suspense to a kind of climax — but what? Is the final gesture, made by Marklund with a small, wooden axe, an act of sacrifice or of violence? Is it just a threat, or does he follow through? Just before we find out, the room goes dark again and the show ends. Out of the sunken space, out through Weld’s big glass door, and out into Stockholm’s snowy streets, we carry with us those slippery questions as another year finds its footing.

Zachary Whittenburg

Zachary Whittenburg has been a journalist, administrator, photographer, and grantmaker in arts and culture since 2008. A regular contributor to Dance Magazine and former dance editor at Time Out Chicago magazine, he has written for numerous additional publications including Critical Correspondence, Critical Read, Dance International, Flavorwire, Pointe, and Total Theatre UK.