Tap dance / choreography Janne Eraker
Duration: ca 45 min. Coproduced by DansiT Rhythm is a Dancer is a contemporary tap dance performance with rhythms and grooves, developed according to new game rules and with a curious and investigating attitude. The audience is invited in to the most elementary of tap dance; the tiny steps that together form rhythmical motives. We zoom in on the smallest detail, and widen the perspective out again to oversee a myriad of sound and movement, contextualised by visuals, words, situations and sounds. The dancer becomes a guide to a new world, like a direct translator of a personal story, in an unfamiliar, but universal language. The tap dance is used as a rhythmical tool in the interaction that the dancer has with the music, room, audience, and with the conceptual frameworks that she has put up for herself. With unconventional methods it’s deconstructed, and then constructed again. And then it’s thrown around with her other vocabulary, consisting of jazz dance, contemporary dance, text and percussive music. The piece contains unexpected turns, fun-facts from real life, virtuosic tap dance and intense listening. Rhythm is a Dancer is a solo-project of contemporary tap dancer Janne Eraker, where tap dance finds new forms and expressions in body, text, space and objects. The piece contains both solid tap dance and contemporary dance. With one foot in each camp, Eraker navigates between conventions, cultures and methods, and aims for an autobiographic settlement on the myths and fictions between them. She measures time, space and language in acoustic values, and traces the sound of skin, walls, clothes and the voice. The tap shoes get a new meaning, fabrics reveal their sound quality, the room is turned upside-down, and the rhythms are recreated as something visual. Her body, with tap shoes on, improvises with focus on sound and rhythm, to create audible and visible compositions. Rhythm is a Dancer is a personal performance, where everything is based on Eraker own references as a dancer. She invites you to see and hear the tap dance in a new way, and generously lets you enter her work and life as a tap dancer. The project is a continuation of the pre-project Friction, which had its focus on similarities, contrasts and method-exchange between tap dance and contemporary dance. With Ingrid Berger Myhre and Siri Jøntvedt this was researched on several levels like: culture, tradition, dogmas, technique, aesthetics and methods. This collaboration continued in Rhythm is a Dancer. Also others have contributed as outside-eyes: Lidy Mouw (NL/D), David Parker (NYC), Hilde Rustad and Ida Uvaas. |
Premiere on May 25, 2019, at Sentralen, Oslo
Shows at: Arts on Site, New York Clacquettes Club, Liége, Belgium Fram Festival, Nesodden Oslo Jazzdansfestival, Scenehuset Blå Grotte, Fredrikstad DansiT, Trondheim Sentralen, Oslo A stunning piece! David Parker, The Bang Group |