THIS IS GRAND is a dance performance that proposes new relationships between and transformations of known parts, that de-contextualize pieces of dance- and art history to propose a sequel, a concert of covers, a continuation of an always ongoing collective innovation. THIS IS GRAND engages with intensity. Dance’s potential to abstraction is merged with a romantic idea about team spirit.
Taking off from the dances that are embodied through education and personal dance histories, performance memories as well as socio-culturally constructed and internalized images from movies, music and art, this piece is a re-organization of what seems to have been part of forming our idea about DANCE. In this specific case, sports backgrounds meet reading Butler in the bedroom, dance school meets interests in creative commons and open source.
Grand allegro and conducting takes a central position. And ballet indeed sometimes appears as a commons. It is a potentially abstract and a-personal form. It is made up over such an extended time that it seems less important who made up a specific step than what can be done with it, or how the shared definition of it makes it become a common that we all can use and develop. In ballet forms, shapes and qualities often are used as means to express something other than the dance itself. If we instead think of dance as an end, if we try to express the dance as a thing rather than considering it as a means to self-expression, how can the way we use it change what it is?
This energetic and enthusiastic but hardcore duet uses found vocabulary, including more than a few big jumps. It appears as tough but has soft intentions of supporting, using and developing.
With and by: Ellen Söderhult and Mandi Tiukkanen
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/156469716
THIS IS GRAND was selected to the 2016 online festival “NEU NOW: Europe’s emerging artists” organized by the European League of the Institutes of the Arts. It has also been performed at Scala teatern, SITE, Sunday_RunUp, Feministisk Festival i Malmö samt på Orionteatnern i Stockholm. THIS IS GRAND har haft residens vid CCAP i Stockholm
Ellen Söderhult 