longitude & latitude
my name is pavleheidler. i go by pavle or pav.
i like to say that i was born in a country that doesn’t exist; & not only because that’s literally true. it’s a way for me to distract the people who want to know where i’m from from the complicated question of nationhood by giving them a puzzle to solve. plus, saying “i was born in a country that doesn’t exist” sounds like a beginning of a story, which—as an artist and a storyteller—i am really fond of. i identify as trans non-binary and neuroqueer (i am autistic with adhd). my pronouns are they/them.
stockholm
i always through of bruxelles as the city i was going to grow old in. bruxelles was where i came into my own, where i met my first true friends as an adult; it’s where i made my “first” work, and where i stood on a balcony and—for the first time in my life—asked the person i was standing next to to come home with me. i live on the other side of the square, i said pointing towards my building. were it not for the trees, you’d be able to see my building from here. the bed we spent the night in was where i learned what it feels like to be loved unconditionally. it’s also where i first started reading gender trouble.
leaving bruxelles was one of the hardest decisions i ever had to make. the year was 2013, i was twenty four years old and completely incapable of orienting professionally. moving to stockholm felt risky, awkward. scandinavia was famously expensive, cold, and dark; nothing like the world i grew up in. when i asked mum for advice, she almost screamed at me; why would you be moving further up north? what’s wrong with you?! everyone in their right mind would leave belgium for the south. my decision was finally rooted in friendship, as most friends i made since i moved away from home came from sweden. there must be a reason for that, i thought.
i arrived in stockholm on a warm, august afternoon. twelve years later, i can hardly believe i’m still here. how have i lived here for more than twice as long as i ever lived in bruxelles? and yet, here is where things started falling into place for me. here, in the archipelago, in the city on the water.
short bio
like many professional dance artists, i started dancing early on in life. through long-term exposure, dancing’s become an integrated part of my life. more than a profession, it’s how i’ve learned to approach and appreciate being in the world. professionally, i operate as a movement-and-word artist and activist, an educator, curator, and a queer critical thinker who specialises in developing research-oriented performative practices within the expanding fields of dance and choreography. my work-ing is meant to be encouraging of the continual re-form-ing in and of the intersectional and the emergent field of queer critical practice.
i am currently touring in two productions in Sweden and abroad, one made for neurodivergent younglings by dalija aćin thelander, and one discussing the value of laughter (in this economy?!) made by jannine rivel. most notably, i’ve worked with the 2024 recipient of the prestigious golden lion, choreographer Cristina Caprioli, for the better part of my late twenties and early thirties dancing, writing, speaking, choreographing, book-making, video-editing, etc.
the practices i am developing and engaging, i think, are first and foremost embodied practices, which necessarily makes them emergent practices, which necessarily makes them liberatory practices; in as much as working with the body, creating space for the body–or: body–necessitates critical study and the re-thinking of the existing structures that currently create and organise spaces for bodies.
pavleheidler (they/them) (ADHD-autism)
I am a professional member of BMCA (Body-Mind Centering® Association) and a registered Somatic Movement Educator of Body-Mind Centering®. You can find my BMCA profile here (link).
2023-
Body-Mind Centering Practitioner
in training with Embody-Move, licence holder for the School of Body-Mind Centering®
UK
2018-2023
Somatic Movement Education
Embody-Move, licence holder for the School of Body-Mind Centering®
UK
2013-2015
MFA New Performative Practices
Stockholm University of the Arts
Stockholm, Sweden
2008-2012
Training and Research Cycle
Performing Arts Research and Training Studios
Bruxelles, Belgium
2006-2008
Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance
Salzburg, Austria
BMC® and Body-Mind Centering® are registered service marks of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission.