Dansopera: Everything my body thought

Danceopera Aenigmata gives the performance “Everything my body thought” – a performance where dance and opera unite physically, visually and auditorily.

Aenigmata explores three different artistic expressions in the performance: opera singing, the folk dance polska and dance improvisation.

Opera singing and polska can stand next to each other as separate expressions, but also meet with respect for the different aesthetics of the expressions. The performance also crosses borders and turns into thoroughly choreographed “opera dance”, where dance improvisation becomes the means of transport.

Although the various expressions are separated, they also have a lot in common: You handle several different parameters in parallel. The presence in the couple dance towards one’s own body and that of the partner. The awareness of all the signals that both parties exchange, the movements of both, and the impulses from this in combination with the music that drives the different moments in the dance, as well as a constant awareness of the body in the room.

All this is touched on in the opera song. Through the awareness of the singing instrument inside the body – a three-dimensional instrument that you cannot see, but constantly feel and hear. The opera character’s thoughts, feelings and reactions that are expressed through the text and music. The impulses that come from all this, combine in the character’s will, drive and actions and constantly relate to the other characters and the overall plot and context, space and time.

– When our different artistic expressions meet and unite, new perspectives arise that help us see outside the framework of the respective expressions. We find new methods to work with and we find new ways of understanding our work and its relationship to the world we live in.

– The physical work is very much about investigating what drives the singing and dancing. What comes first, the dance or the song? What happens to the voice when the dance is allowed to rule? And what happens to the dance when the song takes over? Is it the music that gives the impulse, or is it a thought, a feeling, a reaction?

Combined, dance and opera, dance opera/opera dance, become a concentrated force field of emotions, where words and actions are accentuated and enhanced by the movements and aesthetics of the dance. The body can think and speak together with the voice and become a completely physical expression of the music.

Dancing and singing opera at the same time is demanding, but at the same time it feels natural to combine. At an exposition for artistic research, someone in the audience said: “Honestly, I’m not very interested in opera, but I like dance, and when dance was now combined with opera, I got a completely different experience of opera singing. I liked it very much.”