MEDIATHEK

„The feeling of going“ is a large scale Dance/Music work by British choreographer Ben Wright for the Swedish Dance Company Skånes Dansteater, The Malmo Opera Orchestra and Chorus (16 singers) and soloists (3). Set to the entire album GO, by Sigur Rós’ frontman and Nordic Music Prize winner Jónsi Þór Birgisson, the work has been fully orchestrated by Jonas Nydesjö and had it’s world premiere at The Malmo Opera in October 2013. It completed a second season as part of The Swedish Arts Biennale in May/June 2015.

With his international team of collaborators, including Tony Award winner Projection Designer Finn Ross (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), Wright has conceived a new type of music-theater where choreography creates the foundational element of his spectacular operatic staging, elegantly combining music, dance, design and video projection.

Drawing reference from classic children’s fiction such as Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild things Are and The Wizard of Oz, Wright has developed a poignant narrative thread through Jonsi’s original material. After the onset of sleep, the work follows a lead character’s journey into an exponentially expanding world; dancers and singers become memories, aspirations, shadows and wild beasts. As the staging unfolds audiences are led through a series of encounters, separations, dislocations and surprises, beginning within the confines of a small log cabin and through a rotating forest to eventually meet the rising sun. The production utilized the full capacity of The Malmo Opera stage and employed the award winning Swedish musician/actress Edda Magnason (Waltz for Monica) as a key vocal soloist. The production was created for Malmo Opera using a 22 x 22 meter performance area and 12 meterside stage in both directions. It requires full flying capacity and was designed to work with the theatre’s 19 meter revolve. In GO, Jonsi sings of solitude and communion and the joy of irrationality, he encourages a necessity to live brightly and perhaps more insightfully to learn to ‘let go’. Playing eighteen sell-out performances (1000 per night) the production attracted a wide audience demographic including opera, musical, dance and theatre attendees. The work is family friendly but also resonates with more adult themes. “In a time when contemporary dance includes less and less dance, Skånes Dansteater has created a profound story with momentum, yet with an experimental post-modern tone.” Sydsvenskan