please trailer.mov

A quartet with a pommel horse

This dynamic, choreographic work contains references to Ina Christel Johannessen's earlier productions. As in her previous works she explores a strong, physical and elegant style and form, but in this performance she also includes elements which depart from her own aesthetic style. The elegant artistic idiom is effectively smeared when dancer Dimitri Jourde performs vomiting sounds and spits on stage facing the audience. Johannessen breaks down the opposition between what is artistically beautiful and what is genuinely vulgar. In an energetic interplay between gender, desire, control and submission we are left with a sad feeling of inevitable involvement. Even the pommel horse, reminiscent of school gym halls, seems to have a more mythical function in the way Line Tørmoen frenetically balances and rides it. This creates associations with the story of Equus (play (1973) and film (1977) by Peter Schaffer, where desire for sensuality and intimacy is played out in the relationship between a young boy and a horse.

Kristin Torp has created a room with clean, white papered walls, a shadow play of a horse and seagulls on the back wall, and the rather stylishly placed pommel horse placed to the right on stage. The horse and the birds serve to transcend the boundaries of the room, sending us into the mists of interpretation.

Siren Leirvåg lecturer in Theatre Studies, University of Oslo


Choreographer: Ina Christel Johannessen

Dancers: Line Tørmoen, Dimitri Jourde, Vebjørn Sundby, Sittibancha Bamphen

Set Design / Costumes: graa hverdag as
Light Design: Kyrre Heldal Karlsen
Music: Alva Noto, Coleen, Goem, Fm3

Produced by: zero visibility corp.
Co-production: Montemor-o-Novo (Portugal), Tanzhaus nrw (Dusseldorf, Germany)

Supported by: Arts Council Norway

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• please
• zero