PH: Chai Saedi
AFTERLIFE
by Louis Schou-Hansen and Karoline Bakken Lund
Premiere:
Oslo International Theater Festival, March 12-19 March 2022
Co-production: Black Box Theater / mimosa—studio, Oslo / Palmera
TOUR
Palmera, Bergen, Norway 9+10 April 2022, My Wild Flag Festival, Stockholm, Sweden 2+3 Sep 2022, Suprainfinit Gallery, Bucharest, Romania 23+24/6 2023, Femidomen, Nesodden, Norway August 2023
Afterlife is an alternative history, a site for speculation and ambiguous interpretations of a renaissance that never really happened. The work flirts with the idea of the death of classical ballet, while leaning into subtle irrationalities and dark humor.
Afterlife revisits the origins of the ballet at the Renaissance. A time when the genre was mostly made out of folk dances for white aristocracies, and where a history of violence and exclusion began to take course. By playing with counterfactual fantasies and “what if” questions, Afterlife breaks into, and re-imagines the foundations of the classical ballet and its possible other futures. Three performers explore reconstructions and the absurd symbolic gestures of original dances from the late renaissance. They seek to alter oppressive narratives, they look for common grounds and aim to infiltrate a history that never belonged to them.
Read more:
Choreograher Louis Schou-Hansen in converation w. Runa Skolseg
