News

Watch video from the rehersals

In March we will see the new outdoor performance commissioned by Stavanger2008 from Dansdesign, unfold and stretch heavenwards.

High up in the mountains of Sauda, in Djuvsbotn to be more precise, Dansdesign will cover the mountainsides with supreme physical performances in the air and on the snow. World-class jibbers will flood down the slopes, glittering in airy jumps and leaps, interwoven with brilliant, athletic contemporary dancers in baroque pleasures to celebrate the winter, the cold, the silence – and; its opposite in March – the yearning for warm weather, the fragrances and gardens in bloom.  

Dansdesign's performance touches on the field of tension between the individual's deep yearning for a good life, and nature's relentless demands on risk and communal action. With 90 performers, snow acrobats, skiers, dancers and musicians, life's pleasurable, touching and devoted contact with the great outdoors is challenged in a daring and energetic Dansdesign style, in a performance which will even demand an expeditionary mode and physical exertions from the audience itself.   

Skywards (tour en l’air)
The ski lifts will transport the audience to a huge, outdoor amphitheatre made from snow. With their backs to civilisation and faces turned towards a glittering wall of snow, they will be surrounded by the undulating mountain ranges and facing HIMLALEITE (heavenwards), the area where the solidity of the mountains meets the infinity of the heavens and challenge our dreams and creative powers. The south-western Norwegian word HIMLALEITE denotes exactly this interface between the earth and the skies, as a place to reach out for with courage as well as caution.

In the poetry of the snow, the drama of the mountains and caprices of the air, Dansdesign unfold their newly developed choreography of speed, imaginative jumps into the air, and not least; hazardous landings. The arts of dance, ski-acrobatics and balancing acts will unite with the Sauda choir Sonor to create a combined experience inspired by the air's swift turns, together with power, speed and lightness in aerodynamic surprises.   

The venerable ballet expression tour en l’air reflects an affection for the caprices of the air, where elaborate twists and heavenward somersaults encounter the dynamic mirror image of the surface.

The location of Djuvsbotn, with its history and mind of its own, has tuned Dansdesign into audiovisual contrasts. Their playing with dynamics takes place on several levels; from colourful high-tech, yet organic 3D animations of Marianne Selsjord, projected on to the snow's surface and accompanied by composer Bjarne Kvinnsland's arrangement of sounds from the site itself, drawing out the innermost fibres of the mountain's own voice. Some of the best musicians in the country will join nature's own memory bank of sounds.   

With the art of Dansdesign, and with the help of 90 performers on a glittering mountain slope, new and old technologies will become as one and vibrate in the heart of the mountain in a flamboyant orgy of snow.    Through the physical, dramatic power and sophisticated restraint of Indrani Balgobin's costume art, Dansdesign and Stavanger2008 seek to give the audience a sensation of a real encounter between man and nature. Dress warmly, bring a seating pad and a hot flask, strap on your skis and open up your senses to the very mountain's personal performance MOT HIMLALEITE!

Events completed: 1