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Yelena Arakelow 



                                                                    Instagram ︎ 







Unsure Materials for a variety of Numbers, Picture by Sarah Lu Fischer, Weaving time, Ásmundarsafn 2025








Challenging the flow of the dancing body, my performance practice combines Writing as a Practice, Voicing of a Moving Body, and the Asscrack Dance Practice.

My artistic work is rooted in expanded choreography, collaborative processes, and dance improvisation. I'm invested in notions of ridiculousness, the unfolding of attention, and the nude/naked/explicit.

I like to test the boundaries of How dance art can be, and as a result, my choreographic works are often experimental, interdisciplinary, and created in alternative spaces.













Moving sideways, Attempt Nr.3_Dagur Jóhannsson








Yelena Arakelow (b. 1993, Zürich, Switzerland) has been active in Reykjavik's dance scene as a dancer, choreographer, producer, and teacher since graduating in 2018 with a BA in Contemporary Dance from the Iceland University of the Arts.

In June 2025, she graduated with an MA in Dance from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) and has since relocated back to Reykjavik, where she is working freelance within various solo, collaborative, and collective projects:


She is an associate artist of Dansverkstæðið for the season 2026/27, during which she will be researching a new work titled "Doppelgänger".


After a two-week residency at Dansverkstæðið in November 2025, Yelena performed her current solo work "Studio Hours in Oslo", with the asscrack at heart at Something | Happens Studio (formerly Harbinger). She continued the research during the Island Connect Residency in Zlarin, Croatia, and will showcase the performance in Zürich at PASSAT Art Space in October 2026.


The collective Improv for Dance Enthusiasts (est. 2021, Reykjavik) performed "How to_Build a Stage" on rejection and safer space in Zagreb (September, 2025), in Reykjavik (March, 2026), and is confirmed to be further developed in Iceland, Italy, and Croatia in Spring 2027.


The project "Stages", bringing together twelve dance artists from the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland, successfully took place throughout August at Dansverkstæðið and the Nordic House Iceland. The project was organised by the North Atlantic Islands Dance Network (est. 2022, Reykjavik), Yelena's role being the main project leader and dancer in the choreographic works by Búi Rouch (FO) and Sóley Ólafsdóttir (IS).