I det förflutna - (Bygones)

The performance can be recommended as a point of departure for a discussion about questions that dancers ask one another on stage: is this dance? is there any meaning?

15 years have passed since Ingunn Bjørnsgaard Prosjekt first saw the light of day. “I det förflutna” (“Bygones”) unites all of Bjørnsgaard’s characteristic features. At the same time, she moves on, I would say; what she in a crude and subtle fashion addresses with irony she also makes ordinary.

One seldom finds a choreographer so consistently tied to own point of departure. With the tiniest of variations she has inched her way forward, opened spaces and closed them, given topics nuance. In terms of form and existentially speaking she suggestively engages in a clinch with the past and with life here and now.

Disrupts harmony
”Bygones” creates the feeling of a chamber play. The space seems closed, defined by a small wall bearing a light-grey vine pattern. Two men in grey suits, ca. 1950, Erik Rulin and Christopher Arouni, invite us into a quick, synchronic dance where legs swing playfully around and about the performers’ own axes, in unison and through the space.

The harmonious dance is interrupted by a woman in a green suit, danced by Halldis Ólafsdóttir. She stumbles on her high-heels, stumbles over her own feet, her own body. She is soon joined by Lone Torvik wearing an off-white dress from the same era.

The dancers are flexible, while their personalities are emphasised in terms of both expression and technique. It is an extremely complex, engaging dance; there is intricate symmetry, which moves organically in and out of solos, duos, trios and all in a synchronic development, frequently in mirror formations, like temporary sculptures.

Sound effects
Musician and composer Bjørn Klakegg is present on stage. Together with Rolf Wallin he creates music that could just as easily be referred to as sound effects: streams of echo-like, secretive and contrasting soundscapes.

In principle the performance offers a very correct experience. One can imagine two married couples dancing, and then breaking apart to seek out the emotion behind the couple, or relationship, which is what it is in fact about.

The performance addresses something timeless, while at the same time, a sense of resignation rises to the surface. But it does not sadden. Out of the resignation something new emerges; it is gently mannered; it does not swagger, does not boast. It is perhaps about reaching maturity.

The original title “I det förflutna " recalls Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”. What both works do, without overstating the comparison, is to view the past as dissolution and loss, to then write about it, dance it, in other words, explore it.

INGER-MARGRETHE LUNDE
(Aftenposten 01.30.07)