With her dance performance Grua, Chantal Krasniqi breaks with convention and forges her own path. After performances on stages in Germany and England, the work is now being shown at Åsa – where it was originally created.

That happened in 2023, when Chantal Krasniqi applied for a programme slot in the dance courses’ event Back to the Woods. At that time the piece was an improvisation; only Chantal in the room, alone with the light and her body.

Since then, the choreography has developed and been performed on dance stages in Hamburg and London. On 23 May the piece will be included in the democracy festival Åsadalen.

Word for woman
Chantal studies on Åsa’s street dance course One Style. With her solo performance Grua, she explores how patriarchal structures shape movements, gestures, and rituals.

The title comes from Chantal’s native language, Albanian, and means Woman and/or Wife. The word, like the performance itself, contains identity and tradition, but also resilience.

– It’s a piece about sexism and about taking control of yourself and your life. And through dance, exploring what you can carry with you from your culture and what you can leave behind, Chantal explains.

Many of the movements she loves originate from her homeland Kosovo and Albanian culture. Within that culture, there are also outdated gender roles and a tradition of female oppression that Chantal refuses to accept.

Beautiful but heavy
In Grua she experiments with how women are traditionally expected to be: how they should move, behave, and present themselves in order to please men.

As inspiration she draws on Kosovo wedding traditions. She performs in a gold-embroidered bridal dress – a dallam – with a broad-shouldered vest, wearing high heels, with full styling and make-up. These traditional attributes of feminine beauty carry a double meaning.

– The costume is beautiful but heavy – both literally and figuratively. The women who wear it also carry the expectations of those around them on their shoulders: to always be perfect, to never complain.

In her rebellion against such traditional norms of femininity, Chantal draws strength from hip hop. In her culture it is seen as inappropriate, even vulgar, for women to dance hip hop.

Playful rebellion
– As a woman you’re supposed to be elegant, not smile too much, not be too serious, not take up space or make overly expressive gestures. That’s an idea I want to break apart.

So when Chantal dances hip hop to Albanian folk music and folk dance to rap music in the performance, it is both rebellious and playful.

– I jump in my heels, I stamp the floor, make big movements – all the things you’re not supposed to do as a woman, she laughs.

The message of the performance reflects Chantal’s own break with the gender role she was expected to follow.

– I grew up in a family where the expectations for men and women were very clear. Women were supposed to stay at home, clean, let the men eat first, take care of younger siblings and cousins—while boys could go out freely. All these restrictions were expected, and I never liked them.

The child turned feminist
Her refusal to live that kind of life made her a feminist already as a child, she says.

It has been tough, at times painful, to break away from the demands and expectations of those around her. But at 21, she now feels she has taken control of her life.

– Had I followed the traditional path, I would probably already have two kids, be married, living in my husband’s family’s house, serving coffee all day, and that would be considered happiness. But that’s not my idea of a chosen life. I want to forge my own path.

Text: Henrik Wising

Grua is performed in Studio 1 at 13:15 May 23.