Iwa Herdensjö is a woman of many talents. When not orgainizing tango club night KLUBB Dekadent, she works as an assistant to the artist Bella Rune, who amongst other things is responsible for the costumes at The Knife’s live concerts. As if dressing them wasn’t enough, she also got together with Sepidar Hosseini to choreograph their music video “A Tooth For An Eye.” Sepidar and Iwa are also part of DomDugliga, a club dance group.
Tell us more about your work.
Textiles, patterns and video are often what my work is about, and I recently graduated from Konstfack. In 2008 I went to Buenos Aires to learn tango and since then I’ve been stuck.
I organize KLUBB Dekadent together with Liv Pettersson and Erik Green Pettersson. Liv was in the same class as me at Konstfack and is now a freelance costume designer and a producer for two free theatre groups. For the time being, Erik is in Buenos Aires, the native town of the tango.
Explan what Klubb Dekadent is?
KLUBB Dekadent is party and tango in one, the best of two worlds that I think connect way too seldom. The aim of the club is to open up the tango for a broader audience, but also to arrange a tango night tailored for Stockholm.
Tango has a long tradition, it appeared at the end of 1800s in Buenos Aires and then spread in the 1920s. Since then, it has developed in various directions, but I experience a fear of change. I believe it depends on the fact that tradition is so strongly connected to another city and another context that is quite different from Stockholm. There is an anxiety for placing tango in contexts other than the traditional – and there are also strong conventions about good taste and what is “genuine” tango.
Tango is nothing you stumble over, but a culture that is generally found in cellar premises and for the initiated. The image of tango, rose in the mouth, slicked-back hair and fishnet stockings is so far from what tango is, but with the tango hiding in a cellar, it’s difficult to create new images. I feel it’s wasteful that so many people in this way miss the magic! KLUBB Dekadent is supposed to be stumbled over, danced with, having a drink!
What exactly can we expect from your tango nights?
With all due respect for broken-heart tango, the passion and seriousness are there – but with a lot of humour. We play up-tempo tango from the golden ages, 1935-55. Tango legends like Canaro, Troilo, Di Sarli, Biagi and others are mixed with all that is good and fun, as long as it has tango tempo.
What is your favourite night spot?
Except from Dekadent I would say Natten, always Natten! I also like Kakan’s clubs. She knows what songs to shake to.
What’s your plans for the future?
At present I’m really looking forward to the summer, and hope for tango to open the doors to Mosebacketerrassen. This autumn we continue at Etablissemanget once a month. I can see this developing and including many more ideas in various contexts.
What do you think about the future of Stockholm night life?
I hope more special club nights will pop up, not just dance and music-wise, but experience-wise. Nights that you can predict before you have experienced them are hopefully over. Overall I feel that there is a need for more interesting club happenings in Stockholm.
Do you feel like you are a part of some kind of movement?
Absolutely. To me, tango is about communication and total presence. The experience of the moment. You need to give another person all your attention but still be conscious of yourself and your own body. In tango you decide everything together, you give and receive, trusting each other to make it work. It’s physical communication where you explore power constellations, initiatives and roles but also learning more about your physical identity. I am sure that there is a need for this type of expression. In relation to society itself, highlighting independence. But maybe mostly because of the fact that today we’d rather use our brains than our body, as if there is no connection between them. Physical intelligence is underestimated.
I think KLUBB Dekadent is definitely a movement. Tango with its form is very dynamic, it is about improvisation and a feeling for the present moment. The tango scene in Stockholm is – in contrast – static. In the tango night life there are a lot of hierarchies, conventions about what’s good and bad taste. Who to dance with and what music to play has become really elitist and nothing that I would like to associate with the dance at all. The nights look more or less the same everywhere, even if the tango audience changes and has different tastes. We want to be a club in movement, responsive to the audience right now and, above all, available even for newcomers. See you!
Learn more about Iwa’s work here:
