What could a dance for the asocial body look like? How would it appear from bodies not comfortable with being in the scene of the event where dance often happens?

 

Together with dancer Tobias Sköld I want to examine a body language, which derives from insecurity and vulnerability. There is shyness to many great performers and it is possible to confront this by again and again putting yourself onto that stage, facing the fear.

   But what if we instead dive into that shyness and elaborate it? We both find it easy to identify with the awkwardness of body language when social situations change and require frequent subtle and unspoken differentiations in embodiment due to social customs. Some people are very skilled in knowing how to move and act in changing social forums; others can seem trapped in their own body and unable to navigate in a diverse vocabulary of body talk. 

 

4 years ago, we I came up with two characters called Sven and Svenn during rehearsals for a Christmas show. They originated as two theatre technicians who had to take care of the practicalities for running the show but at the same time perform in various dancing sequences. They could do whatever they were told to do and did it. However, it became clear that unless being told how to move and what to do, they had a hard time adjusting to different situations. They were nevertheless very good at noticing change in their own mood and could verbally express emotions on a fine scale between each other. Bodily it was, on the other hand, hard for them to express this broad variety of emotions.

 

   We want to examine the potential of these two characters in a duet.  

 

The residency provided by HAUT will give us the possibility to do that. We have already performed a first version of the duet and we are interested in developing this work into a longer performance. We want to use the time at Godsbanen to experiment with the vocabulary that we have developed so far and have a closer look at the material through the mentoring and feedback from Aarhus based artist. Since the characters originated as technicians we also imagine making use of the technical capacity of Godsbanen and work closely with the technical crew in order to see how the technical disciplines of specifically sound and light, can be active players in the work we are inspired to make. A Work about the asocial body, it’s hardship in fitting into changing social relations and the vulnerability in wanting to connect with the other.

 

   We want to open up our workspace during this period and collect input from the performing arts environment in Aarhus. Here we are thinking about former students from dramatic playwriting at DDSKS, students from the new Master programme  “Topography of A Story” and artistic leader of HimHerAndIT Productions, Andresa Constantinou, to mention a few. The work we will be doing has elements of dance, choreography, theatre and circus; so different sparring partners from various fields could be helpful for our developing process. Our work is based on embodiment, awkwardness, Swedish spoken in a Roy Anderson’esque manner, object/human interaction and dance. It is our wish to use the four days at Godsbanen as a short but immersive exploration platform that can help us to continue the work we have already started and use this as a springboard to create a performance which can be shown at various performing arts festivals from 2020 on. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

How can we expand our own ideas of performing? What happens if we try to even out the hierarchy between the props, the light, sound and the performers? How might it turn out if we imagine every single piece involved in the performance as a performer?

 

Together with dancer Jon Hoff, we would like to explore new ways of performing and to examine what it means to perform. As performers we already have an understanding of what it means to perform, but how might it look like if a mic stand could perform, and how could we as performers elevate that mic's performance?

These ideas come from an older performance Jon and I did in the spring of 2019 called “Måste vi fixa det om det är Sönder”. We were currently working with a couple of characters called Sven and Svenn which were created for a christmas show during our first year at Den Danske Scenekunstskole. They originated as two theatre technicians who had to take care of the practicalities for running the show but at the same time perform in various dancing sequences. However, it became clear that unless they were told how to move and what to do, they had a hard time adjusting to different situations.

The characters of Sven and Svenn helped us see things from other perspectives and we find it important to try to use the lens of Sven and Svenn in this project. Nonetheless this project is not about the characters, it's about how these characters would create a performance. They would use light, sound and props as crutches which helps them perform, because they wouldn't feel comfortable enough with only themselves on stage. This is where our ideas came from and it made us ask, how can we make anything that is part of the performances that we create, such as design, props, lights and sound,  possess as much agency and performativity as we already possess? 

We hope to be able to use the time and space of Teatret Zeppelin to explore how we can perform through light and sound. Can inanimate objects take as much presence as a performer and how do we give attention to them in order to make them perform?

 

One of our biggest methods of work is improvisation, which we will start our work from. We will also take inspiration from pop-culture-trends through video. 

We would like to use portable setups in our research to easily move things around and to try different angles of approach. This past year we have seen how useful live-streaming can be and we would like to take this into our exploration. By using a live feed from a phone or computer, projected into space, we will be able to drastically change scene, feeling, experience and perspectives in just a few seconds. The audience might not usually be able to experience how it is to sit behind the radiator watching the performance. We want to open up the possibilities for them to do just that.

We want to utilise the space to the fullest. As much of the space as we possibly can. We do not want to get stuck on the floor, front center. How do we perform when we can't be seen? What is performing when we’re not seen?

Because of the size and nature of the black box it gives us an opportunity to experiment with portable light and sound, like flashlights and bluetooth speakers. This gives up access to explore how light and shadow perform, how sound, stillness and location of light and sound changes their performativity.

It is important that throughout the research we remind ourselves that we want to work with props, light and sound instead of working the props, light and sound. How do we use the tools we have and avoid abusing the tools we have? We will try to keep an open conversation with the objects and tools we will have available to us.

Regarding working with scenography we would also like to stay in contact with puppeteer Rolf Søborg Hansen about a possible collaboration.

 

Currently we do not have a specific aesthetic in mind. We want to bring some fun in the process and work with things we find enjoyable. But, we also want to keep it open and not too fixed on how it would look or feel, even during the process. Hopefully the work of inanimate actors and performers together with us makes the space feel alive.

Will we be able to make you say “Such a great performer, that mic stand”?