I’m Lost Without Your Rhythm documents a choreography workshop involving amateur Romanian dancers and acting students at the Periferic 8 Biennial of Contemporary Art in Iasi, Romania (2008). Led by renowned Swedish choreographer Anna Vnuk, the movement of bodies do not coalesce into a singular performance. Rather, the itinerant dance is weaved by Billing’s film into several days’ activity and continuous process of live improvisation between the choreographer, dancers and local musicians —observed by a sporadic flow of onlookers.

The project guides the participating individuals and the audience to explore contemporary choreography and its significance within the cultural context of a small city such as Iasi, where there are few opportunities to enter the field of contemporary dance. Noting the practice of choreographers such as Yvonne Rainer and her explorations of everyday movements, Billing’s film investigates individual subjectivity and the question of how one might perform being. Paying tender attention to minute details, the work centres the mind on the social body: the body among others, the body aware of itself. The work’s soundtrack combines percussive elements of improvised, live music performed at the Biennial in Iasi as well as a version of the song ‘My Heart’ (originally written and performed by the Swedish drum and vocal duo ‘Wildbirds and Peacedrums’ in 2009). The dancers’ movements, the activities taking place around them and the rhythm of the music are reconstituted into a new kind of choreography: motions that are akin to the everyday struggle and the labour in overcoming institutional obstacles.