- Dance
- Decolonial Narratives
- SPRING coproduction
- NL premiere
Sweet Spot
Six performers pull you into Sweet Spot, a restless whirlwind of dance and sound. Drawing on the myths of Norwegian folk, a chain dance spirals into an alluring current where dances and fleeting fictions surface and submerge. With the haunting tones of the Hardanger fiddle, this queer performance explores the body as a site for ambivalence – where identity and power are constantly negotiated and mutating.
n the dance performance Sweet Spot, six dancers transform a traditional Norwegian chain dance into a wild, hypnotic whirlwind. The starting point is the leikarring, a folk dance where dancers form a circle hand in hand. Beharie pulls this tradition apart, allowing the chain dance to culminate in a possessed ritual where all control is surrendered.
The performance is based on legends of dancers possessed by demonic melodies; think of the myth of the red shoes that never stop dancing. It is a feat of endurance where the dancers balance between explosive eruptions and tender abandon. In this work, Nordic folklore is not treated as a fixed reality, but as something to be bent and stretched.
This approach is also reflected in the music. Composer Ingvild Langgård processes the sounds of the traditional Hardanger fiddle into a compelling, modern soundtrack. Visual artist Karoline Bakken Lund designed an environment in which objects and materials sometimes support the dancers and at other times work against them. Sweet Spot is the final piece of a trilogy about the queer body and explores how ecstasy and collective surrender can lead to new ways of being together.
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Credits
Concept & choreography: Harald Beharie
Close collaborator/artistic research: Karoline Bakken Lund
Performers: Loan Ha, Carlisle Sienes, Harald Beharie, Amie Mbye Irene Theisen and Ester Thunander
Set-design/sculpture & Costume: Karoline Bakken Lund
Light design: Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud
Musician: Ester Thunander
Music by: Ester Thunander, Ingvild Langgård, Carlisle Sienes and traditional Norwegian music.
Sound design: Gunnar Innvær
Faciliatator / dramaturg: Deise Nunes
Intimacy Coordinator: Lexie Koren
Producer: Kristina Melbø Valvik
Distribution/touring: Damien Valette
Co-producers: Dansens Hus, Oslo, Rosendal Teater (Trondheim) , RAS (Sandnes), BIT Bergen Internasjonale Teater (Bergen), Arsenic, Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne), SPRING festival (Utrecht), Zodiak – Centre for New Dance, Helsinki (Helsinki), MDT (Stockholm)
Residency support: Fabbrica Europa (Firenze), Kaserne(Basel) and Kilden (Kristiansand)
Supported by: Norwegian Art Council and Kristiansand Municipality
Thanks to: Hanna Siwaly, Sven Bartolomeo,Santos Cronstrøm, Marielle Sundt-Haugen, Annikken Wilhelmsen, Tore Lund, Hooman Sharifi og Torbjørn Kolbeinsen.
Norwegian Traditional Music (slåtter):
Håvards sorg after Håvard Gibøen, after Knut Buen
Tussebrureferdi på Vossevangen, after Anne Hytta, after Knut Buen
Soteroen after Vidar Lande
Dolkaren after Johanne Flottorp (after Salve Austenå) Sammetsgrunden by Ester Thunander
Springar på nedstilt after Håvard Gibøen, after Knut Buen
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