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00:00:28 00:00:32
We think this is the centre.
00:00:33 00:00:43
We are not 100 percent sure. We think you might have different opinions about what’s up with the centre.
00:01:09 00:01:19
We think it might be important to stand in the centre when you’re supposed to say something important.
00:01:22 00:01:29
But we are not sure if it is possible to do it with words.
00:01:30 00:01:33
We can try.
00:01:43 00:01:55
We are not sure if it is possible to do something important with shaking. But we can try. We are trying.
00:02:12 00:02:15
We are warming up.
00:02:28 00:02:33
We are kind of getting into it.
00:02:38 00:02:46
We are standing in the centre and we think we should do something simple.
00:02:47 00:03:02
We will take you through some pictures, some moving pictures from our history.
00:03:04 00:03:12
We might understand afterwards why we did it.
00:03:15 00:03:34
We are shaking from the spine, produced from the shoulders, but more thinking about some kind of music than the body.
00:03:35 00:03:46
We are feeling the left thigh rocking it. It must be the base.
00:03:47 00:03:51
Well, we will come back to this.
00:03:52 00:04:04
We are starting from 2002.
00:04:20 00:04:23
We’re actually doing a monologue…
00:04:28 00:04:39
…but we have an idea to do a video piece inside the monologue, which is about like pushing something.
00:04:40 00:04:43
An ongoing, very practical movement.
00:04:44 00:04:56
So we get a really cheap piano and we push it. We push it over the Liljeholms bridge.
00:04:56 00:05:07
It is kind of this weather, it’s very slippery. And somehow we decide to have some kind of summer shoes on.
00:05:09 00:05:21
We are so happy about this pushing, we come from a wish to be very practical with the body.
00:05:21 00:05:36
We have been in so many lousy theatre projects that we hate so much. So we are kind of getting out the anger of having to be a fairy one more time.
00:05:37 00:05:51
We are pushing it with exactly the whole body. And it’s very heavy. And we are also happy that we don’t get caught by the police.
00:05:51 00:05:57
But maybe the camera is our alibi for this.
00:05:58 00:06:12
We get on top of the bridge and the sun starts to shine. And we rest on the piano, a little bit like it’s our friend.
00:06:12 00:06:29
The photos are super-romantic: This babe with heels on, furry coat, watching the ice on the bridge. Some crazy symbolism there.
00:06:29 00:06:42
But then we bring the piano down to the cellar, a sound-isolated cellar, and we break it with a - how do you call it, a jimmy, like a crowbar.
00:06:42 00:06:49
We take it with all our power - and it’s also okay, because there’s a couple of cameras there.
00:06:49 00:07:02
And we get to smash the piano really good, pull out the strings. So it’s almost like you rip one of those director’s bodies apart.
00:07:03 00:07:13
You push it really hard. And you still have that dress on - which I would never have today - and then you push it until it breaks.
00:07:13 00:07:27
And when it finally falls over… The top lid is flipping, like the last breath of someone.
00:07:28 00:07:30
It’s really exciting.
00:07:30 00:07:33
Okay, the next picture.
00:07:35 00:07:47
You have to imagine a big leather chair, super big. You have never seen anything big like this. I mean it’s not like in a children’s play, it is just very big.
00:07:47 00:08:09
And me - we - are kind of wearing Sue Ellen Ewing. We’re not her, we’re just like wearing her, some kind of drag queen.
00:08:10 00:08:17
Just in a few years, I couldn’t - we couldn’t - identify any more with high heels.
00:08:18 00:08:31
Well, the thing is: Sue Ellen Ewing was very strong for us in the 1980s because she was our baby-sitter. We went to see the soap opera Dallas after school every day.
00:08:31 00:08:45
So it was very inspiring to see this very beautiful creature drinking like crazy, waving with a gun and be unfaithful and all that stuff.
00:08:46 00:08:50
Wow could you be so beautiful and do such ugly things?
00:08:51 00:08:57
I practised her lip-move. It’s very hard!
00:08:58 00:09:02
I will just fake it now, okay?
00:09:07 00:09:14
The idea is to look super neutral, still flirting a bit with your eyes, but be very upset.
00:09:18 00:09:23
You have to be that also - so I have to get into it. But I think you get the picture.
00:09:24 00:09:35
By the side of the chair there is a couple of whisky bottles in the padding of the seat. And there is a purse with a gun.
00:09:38 00:09:45
It’s time to shoot the audience - I know… I did.
00:09:45 00:09:50
I shot each bastard that did not like the performance.
00:09:52 00:09:57
Now I’m gonna try.
00:09:57 00:09:59
Ah, I’m shaky.
00:09:59 00:10:02
It was a - it was a gun.
00:10:03 00:10:06
So this feels different.
00:10:09 00:10:16
Alright, so much better than 2003. Maybe it’s me!
00:10:22 00:10:33
Next project: 2005. No one is completely evil. It’s the logic follow-on.
00:10:34 00:10:41
We have been obsessed with Contact Improvisation for a while. And we are now deconstructing it.
00:10:42 00:10:46
I mean the whole project was about compromising and how to collaborate.
00:10:46 00:10:55
It didn’t work. We were very angry, and we didn’t like each other’s tastes at all.
00:10:55 00:11:05
So we did a film, that we could project, about our quarrels in between the actual dancing and stuff.
00:11:05 00:11:16
We did - it’s hard without a partner - we did… like you were all the time suggesting something and then letting it go.
00:11:24 00:11:28
…I think you get the idea.
00:11:40 00:11:45
No one is completely evil. Still a lot of violence.
00:11:47 00:12:03
Our next project. 2006. Three composers, three playwrights, three performers.
00:12:03 00:12:10
A lot of methods already created, to relate to the previous failure.
00:12:10 00:12:24
Like, we have to use voting. We have to use different kind of methods to not have power relationships too much. We need to know when things are gonna happen. We need to control it.
00:12:24 00:12:42
We need to discuss hierarchy, before we even enter the room. And we need to look upon certain ways of… when is the moment to vote? Is it after two hours of discussion, or is it after five? Or are you gonna go home and think about it and then you come back? What is the most fair? And who can speak at what moment, and so on?
00:12:44 00:12:57
Also very process-oriented stuff. Like we show first after one week, and then we show after five weeks and we show after seven weeks. And then we switch the scenography and stuff like that.
00:13:01 00:13:07
This was also the project when I went into knitting.
00:13:11 00:13:15
Somehow a very…
00:13:16 00:13:26
Because of the symmetry, I think, and the shape and the actual production of something.
00:13:26 00:13:35
That’s so concrete. And after touring two years you have a really long thing that you can take a look at.
00:13:35 00:13:42
Like ‘Oh my God. We really toured this shit!’ Alright.
00:13:42 00:13:57
There was a lot of heritage. Who inspired you actually? Maybe your grandma? And why did she sit there and hold her breath?
00:13:59 00:14:06
And control, and expressioning the small, how to…
00:14:06 00:14:15
I’m miming this now and this creates a totally different sensation. So it’s just…
00:14:16 00:14:22
There is actual wool happening here. It’s really long.
00:14:22 00:14:25
And everybody wonders, what she’s gonna do with it?
00:14:25 00:14:29
It’s not useful anyways, and she is producing like crazy.
00:14:31 00:14:34
There was something like…
00:14:44 00:14:50
IngerIngerInger it was called. That’s three female names, the same name, in a row.
00:14:50 00:14:58
We managed to not get one review that was like ‘Oh, this women project.’ They didn’t say that.
00:14:58 00:15:03
We were very precise with rhetorics. Even though it was so obvious.
00:15:03 00:15:15
But it was all superstars involved in the project. So they maybe had that huge respect of putting words into our mouth. Yeah.
00:15:20 00:15:39
IngerIngerInger inspired us to continue thinking about working methods, power, rhetorics, stuff.
00:15:43 00:16:04
Who is in the centre? And who can stay there, if they get occasionally invited for one project? And if you fail, can you still stay, or at least be somewhere in the periphery?
00:16:06 00:16:24
Well, we somehow were inspired by a lot of stuff happening in the field. And we thought it’s time to create a network that creates another centre. And so we did.
00:16:25 00:16:33
It was called WISP - Women in Swedish Performing Arts. And it gathered a lot of performers.
00:16:34 00:16:39
More or less questioning the notion of ‘women’, ‘Swedish’ and ‘performing arts’.
00:16:39 00:16:54
Wanting to develop stuff… to see if there were other ways of relating to the big power houses, all the way from the individual body.
00:16:54 00:17:06
Who is there? Am I there? Is she there? But we are here. Okay, come here. Or I go there, and we gather.
00:17:06 00:17:14
To the process-oriented questions of method and how you look upon material in good and bad equality.
00:17:14 00:17:22
Who the fuck is stating the quality? Am I, or she, or you?
00:17:23 00:17:37
We worked an enormous amount of hours. We were more by the computer than anything else, of course.
00:17:43 00:17:53
I’m pressing down my heel and letting the other one just float away. I can exaggerate, if you want. Woosh…
00:17:55 00:18:00
It depends also on how much you actually pretend that you are walking.
00:18:01 00:18:05
You can also lay back. Nothing is happening down here.
00:18:07 00:18:10
You can really be in a storm.
00:18:13 00:18:22
I guess it’s all projections. How you deal with all that power stuff.
00:18:26 00:18:30
So we were really many, many, many.
00:18:32 00:18:41
Great feeling. We work with art, power and empowerment as the notions to grasp things.
00:18:43 00:18:46
I think this is ready now…
00:18:52 00:18:58
Of course, parallel to this I needed to do some really small stuff.
00:18:59 00:19:11
I was wondering how my feet were doing. And how I could do something with closed eyes and really be by myself.
00:19:16 00:19:31
I thought also it was important to gather some energy. So I went into music, just dive into some music.
00:20:04 00:20:15
The piece was called Dancing Barefoot and we learned by heart seven songs of Patti Smith. It’s her song: Dancing barefoot.
00:20:16 00:20:33
And it was about being a concert. Or both feeling the text and voice coming out, but more the energy of things.
00:20:34 00:20:45
We didn’t sing. We didn’t have headphones. We just learned it by heart. So we even could hear the guitar solo.
00:20:51 00:21:00
Wow. This, we really have to go into, to do it right. Feels good though. It’s a little rest.
00:21:03 00:21:13
Wow, the rehearsal period was so exciting. I had to be in my living room, just listening to her. Just really noticing the music.
00:21:14 00:21:18
I think it was the most concentrated project I ever did.
00:21:32 00:21:37
The next project is called Roses and Beans.
00:21:38 00:21:48
And this is not a costume change, it’s just that the legs are really different, if I have other shoes on.
00:21:49 00:22:05
It’s practically impossible to do this material without having the shoes we’ve been are performing this in since 2010. It doesn’t work. And I had to work it.
00:22:07 00:22:16
So this is an extension of the legs that’s part of this activity.
00:22:22 00:22:38
The audience is in an rectangle - like this. There’s no magical light. There’s a little bit… like you come to someone’s party, but it’s just a room, maybe just working lights.
00:22:40 00:22:54
This part of the performance is called ‘500 steps for equality’. Of course, we don’t say that to the audience, but I’m gonna reveal everything now for you, what’s going on.
00:22:56 00:23:05
I’m also gonna question the notion of 100, because it’s really hard to count in silence at the same time, now that I’m gonna reveal everything to you by talking.
00:23:05 00:23:13
So, don’t you count! I’m gonna do like how I feel 100 are, alright?
00:23:14 00:23:26
We have actually already agreed - like kissing the people we know, and asking them if they are okay. So this is the moment when you say Are you ready? - Yes, we are ready.
00:23:31 00:23:35
One…
00:23:46 00:23:48
For us, it’s very embarassing, this.
00:23:49 00:24:00
From having a social moment with people, and then going to this pretentious, ‘I’m not here’ look.
00:24:01 00:24:08
But that’s kind of the game, to dare to stay with it. Like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna do this’.
00:24:08 00:24:20
And I always feel my chin is a little bit jumping, because I wanna do something like ‘Haha, it’s a joke’. I have this social strange style.
00:24:20 00:24:30
We are two performers. We have pink blouses, green shorts, pink or green sneakers, equally hairy legs and pink nail polish.
00:24:30 00:24:24
We even curl our heads - hair, hair! - a little bit our heads also - to be able to do this pretentious material.
00:24:41 00:25:46
What we do like, is that we do clean the space.
00:24:47 00:25:00
And we give some time for them to look. To look at us. And we can just let them do that.
00:25:00 00:25:10
I mean, the legs are super exposed and it’s a lot to look at. And to note this. And to see like ‘Hm, how different are they? Or how similar?’
00:25:10 00:25:18
Or whatever. You just watch maybe the people on the other side, and then you get a glimpse when we are passing.
00:25:21 00:25:26
I think that’s enough. 98… 99… 100… 1… 2!
00:25:29 00:25:32
Here is the relief. You get to watch it again, people.
00:25:35 00:25:39
Am I speaking to low? Can you hear me?
00:25:43 00:25:57
So we get to watch the people, and it’s very nice. We are not allowed to flirt yet. I mean not, we don’t flirt in the performance, but it’s like there can come up something small when you see someone beautiful once, and then…
00:25:57 00:26:10
But we can kind of connect to people. I have a feeling that if I walk here… I look at you. And then I can also bring you with me here. Maybe there will be something going on there, who knows?
00:26:10 00:26:24
If I walk like this. Okay, and I will find a favourite corner. I’m miming also the people now, it’s very nice. It’s good that nobody sits on the front row. It’s so clean for me.
00:26:25 00:26:39
Okay, and we are… I think this one is also concerning the gaze. And we are two performers, but we don’t look at each other, we just relate in the walking.
00:26:40 00:26:52
And maybe this is a little bit of an embarrassing social moment, but it’s also like you can feel… it’s also softening up a bit, sometimes!
00:26:53 00:26:58
98… 99… 100… and 1, 2, 3!
00:26:59 00:27:02
We do this uneven to give it a little bit a shift of rhythm.
00:27:02 00:27:07
The third chapter is about the feet.
00:27:07 00:27:14
They are the physical motor of the performance right now and it’s nice to notice them.
00:27:14 00:27:26
And we are noticing our own and we are noticing the other performer’s, and the other people’s.
00:27:28 00:27:32
What’s up with people’s foot position?
00:27:37 00:27:29
It is affecting our concentration a lot, because we somehow concentrate so much on the sole of the foot, so it’s really responding. And I feel my upper body is not as controlled.
00:27:59 00:28:13
And when I let go of looking and just feel, then really weird stuff can happen. But I still have the need to sometimes look at people and look at their shoes.
00:28:15 00:28:29
Sometimes it’s like I’m in a small character shift or just a try-out of how this one could be doing in my body.
00:28:30 00:28:33
Huh, this is nice.
00:28:36 00:28:41
Different genitals can grow out and we let them go again.
00:28:43 00:28:46
It’s a nice feeling.
00:28:47 00:28:53
98… 99… 100… 1, 2, 3, 4!
00:28:54 00:29:02
The fourth chapter is allowing some skipping.
00:29:12 00:29:17
And this is of course in relation to the other performer.
00:29:19 00:29:24
And to where you have somehow gathered some interesting information.
00:29:36 00:30:00
You bring in somehow your little dance history, at once. And you play with this, let’s say, not so intelligent dance! But, I mean, what the fuck?!
00:30:01 00:30:08
I don’t know. I also wanna somehow, like to say ‘Dance like this!’. So why not?
00:30:12 00:30:19
And we go to 98… 99… 100… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!
00:30:20 00:30:37
The next hundred is all about improvising on the material we already have done. I’m usually the lazy one. And we are keeping the rhythm, like this, most of the time.
00:30:38 00:30:45
It’s a very nice feeling. I feel it, like… here.
00:30:46 00:30:53
How to keep the rhythm with your genitals? - It’s this name of the piece, but I don’t tell it to people.
00:30:53 00:30:56
I just reveal it for you.
00:30:58 00:31:07
And the other performer might work like crazy performers. And I can relate to that. It brings me a little bit of energy - hop!
00:31:09 00:31:15
I hear the music. Well, and it brings me so much energy, so I have to go for it…
00:31:17 00:31:30
And then I might bring out a big flirt, if I feel like. Because this will be an important corner later on, so we have to heat it up.
00:31:32 00:31:38
You don’t know, but we gonna lay down on you. Better be prepared.
00:31:40 00:31:45
98… 99… 100, 101. No, 501!
00:31:47 00:32:02
This is the moment that you feel you have been succeeding or not. But it’s okay. Just let that be there. Okay, good job anyways. Thanks. You don’t say that! You just think it. Then you walk out.
00:32:02 00:32:31
That’s the Roses and Beans. Well, about love and how love is organized and lived. And about love in relation to the pop and the private and the political aspects of love.
00:32:35 00:32:43
And in between we work with the network.
00:33:13 00:33:18
This is the moment, where I wanna make up beautiful stories.
00:33:24 00:33:32
Like about horses. How they run together on the fields.
00:33:39 00:33:54
I have no idea what to say now. Something with power and money and try-outs and tries to make things logic and precise and organized.
00:33:54 00:34:12
And somehow a lot of non-spoken stuff. When words are not important anymore, because every word is translated to something else.
00:34:21 00:34:31
When your body just reacts like there’s no borders to things.
00:34:31 00:34:50
When something so powerful can be the weakest spot, how do you negotiate with your own possible power?
00:34:51 00:34:56
Like saying, maybe we can try out own methods on ourselves.
00:34:56 00:35:10
Let’s do a workshop on leadership and how we collaborate and shit like this.
00:35:13 00:35:19
It really works to say ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ in this movement. Sometimes you like really want to be a break-dancer.
00:35:21 00:35:24
This is just mime, also.
00:35:28 00:35:37
And then, having to take the death position. Or at least halfway, like…
00:35:40 00:35:50
I have no idea, maybe I’m the one - maybe we are the ones who are misusing every word we are trying to say?
00:35:50 00:36:01
We might have nothing to really try, because, I mean, everything is just like worthless anyway.
00:36:03 00:36:11
The notion of feminism, what is it? There are so many ways to support each other. And that’s not supportive.
00:36:13 00:36:21
Art for art’s sake, or not. And how many meetings? And are we being politicians now?
00:36:22 00:36:36
And everything we say, will be used against us. At any moment. Or not face to face, just like behind.
00:36:36 00:36:41
I had to die, like that.
00:36:52 00:26:55
No.
00:37:01 00:37:10
The therapist says that we need to sweat the same amount as we are nervous or angry.
00:37:10 00:37:21
Like in the times when we were chasing beers, no bears! The other one is a good one, too…
00:37:22 00:37:32
So when we chase the bears, I mean, or when they are chasing us - I mix it up.
00:37:32 00:37:42
She said, she told me, that we should sweat the same amount that we sweat when we run away from a bear.
00:37:43 00:37:59
Alright, I’m with you. So I lay down in the blueberry field, for the summer 2011, and 2012.
00:38:00 00:38:06
There was no running going on, though, but I was thinking about running. And bears.
00:38:12 00:38:25
So, there was time for a solo piece again. And to… dream of the nature and stuff…
00:38:31 00:38:41
And build small relationships, if you do stuff together.
00:38:42 00:38:56
2012 is also the year of an intensive international project. Meanwhile, things are falling apart.
00:39:07 00:39:22
And when you think about how to build the platforms for people to dance on, you might as well try them on first.
00:39:22 00:39:43
And we said, let’s work with really gold and glitter and see how much we can sweat it, to somehow just shake the devil off your back.
00:39:46 00:39:55
And, in practice, just see if it’s possible.
00:40:20 00:40:25
We can think of so much while shaking for one or two hours.
00:40:25 00:40:33
Of course, about the closest sensations, and how to enjoy it.
00:40:33 00:40:43
Or things that are moving and not moving.
00:40:50 00:41:02
When we do it together with people, when we do it, material is transformed in between our bodies.
00:41:02 00:41:10
And we can’t help go into club-mood.
00:41:10 00:41:19
Or just somehow copy each other a lot.
00:41:19 00:41:26
It brings in some really joyful movement and moments.
00:41:28 00:41:37
I’m losing the words again. The shaking is like a practise against words.
00:41:37 00:41:45
We could never teach shaking. We could just do it.
00:41:46 00:42:02
We said, if you feel embarrassed, you can just copy me. It’s okay, shaking is for everybody. And we cannot control it.
00:42:17 00:42:32
We want to do a simple thing that could discuss with itself, somehow while it’s being done.
00:42:34 00:42:41
And we want to do a simple thing, which we could give away.
00:42:43 00:42:46
So therefore…