© Jan Egil Kirkebø
Mette Ingvartsen Brussels
Giant city - Evaporated landscape
What is that, a body in a world of constant movement, change, transformation. A body that drifts through giant cities that consist of incessant flows of information, people, air, money and yearnings.
The young Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen forges a peculiar link between the challenging tradition of conceptual dance and the playful curiosity of contemporary culture. In her choreographic science-fiction she presents dancers who are not looking for a place to settle, but rather for a way to endure and integrate the countless changes undergone by their bodies. They do not know where they will end. Rather, they explore what happens to their bodies while moving. What kinesthetic memories do they have, how do they communicate, what do they imagine? What kind of sensations do they experience and how do they share them with one another?
"Evaporated landscapes" is the second project of the Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen at this years steirischer herbst festival. While the dancers in "GIANT CITY" imagine landscapes, environments, situations, seeking to find out what emotions, intensities, speeds and forms of expression nomadic bodies are capable of, "evaporated landscapes", in contrast, imagines a landscape devoid of people: an empty artificial world in constant transformation. Light, sound, soap bubbles, foam, shadows and misty landscapes of dry ice create a scenario that is partly reminiscent of a romantic past, partly of the artificiality of a none too distant, possible future.
From 1999 she studied in Amsterdam and Brussels where she graduated from the performing arts school P.A.R.T.S. in summer 2004. Since 2002 she has made several performance works among others Manual Focus, 50/50, to come and Why We Love Action, IT'S IN THE AIR (2008) a collaboration with Jefta van Dinther and the YouTube project Where is my privacy (2008/9). Her practice includes writing, making, performing and documenting work.
NXTSTP partners: steirischer herbst festival (Graz), Festival Baltoscandal (Rakvere)