TIDE

“It’s not dance, nor is it music. It’s movement, it’s sound, it’s breath.”

-Roos Vlogman, Festival Cement Dagkrant, 22 March 2017

Humans have an incredible capacity to be sensitive and perceptive, but we mostly don’t embrace it in our everyday life. Nowadays and especially in Western culture, this capacity has been reduced. We have become numb in order to be able to live in our busy and often times stressful reality. A starting point for creating TIDE was on how to reactivate this sensitivity.

TIDE is a duet resulting from the ongoing artistic exchange between Icelandic choreographer Bára Sigfúsdóttir and Norwegian composer and trumpet player Eivind Lønning. Coming from different fields within the arts, Bára and Eivind combine their experiences to create a piece where music and dance merge into one experience.

After years of separately developing their own personal methods of incorporating improvisation within structured frameworks, Bára and Eivind share their research in TIDE. As two performers, two bodies, two masses which slowly gravitate towards one another on stage, they commence a delicate game of music and movement. Like the tide, the alternate rising and falling of the sea due to the attraction of the moon and the sun, sound and movement gently push and pull each other back and forth through time. Connected and constantly influenced by one another. The vibrating relationship between sound and silence, movement and stillness flows freely and leaves its trace. For the audience, TIDE is a performance not only to be perceived by the eyes and the ears, but through the skin and the whole being.

'What is refreshing about TIDE is it’s focus, it’s brightness, it’s matter-of-factness, and it’s persistence, all of which, together, have a way of calming the mind of the observer, easing their breathing, and focusing their attention […]. it has a way of reconciling with reality, achieving then the ultimate […] act of transformation: by which the mundane becomes magical, abstract specific, stylised non-negotiable, detailed practical, and old: new.'

-Pavle Heidler for Dancers Writing, okt 2019

TIDE premiered at kc Nona Mechelen on the 9th of September 2016 and tours internationally.

Norwegian composer and musician Eivind Lønning (°1983) is one of the most prominent and active young musicians on the Nordic creative music scene, and is internationally recognised for his sensitive and highly personal sound. A sound which is not only perceived by the ears, but through the skin and whole being. His compositional material for the trumpet offers clear structures with strict framework, while allowing the freedom of improvisation within. His experience with extended playing techniques for the trumpet present a truly unique repertoire. Eivind has received several awards, including the Young Lindeman Award with Streifenjunko, the Norwegian Grammy in the categories contemporary music with Christian Wallumrød (2014), and jazz music with Marius Neset/Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (2015), as well as being nominated for the Nordic music awards twice.

CREDITS:
Created by Bára Sigfúsdóttir and Eivind Lønning
Choreography and dance: Bára Sigfúsdóttir
Composition and music: Eivind Lønning
Production: GRIP
Co-production: Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek
With the support of: kc Nona BE, Sláturhúsið Egilsstaðir IS, Reykjavík Dance Aterlier IS and Scenehuset Oslo NO.
With the financial support of: Arts Council Norway - Norwegian Icelandic Cooperation, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie of Brussels Capital Region, Mobility Programme Kultur Kontakt Nord,
STIKK / Performing Arts Hub Norway.