“The Artist’s Space”
– a contemporary choreography concert
by COMPANY B. VALIENTE / Gunhild Bjørnsgaard (Choreographer/Idea/Concept)
Sound is spacing the artists’ movements
light is moving the space
all intervene on each other
energetic, physical and personal
The density of the sound pushes the bodies into the space
or stresses the bodies to hold back
a scenography appears
white transparent lines
helped by light spots which are brightening up
which again give the bodies to come into new spaces
Focusing on sound and music, all expressed by the artists
the choreography concert search for, and challenge,
the limits between the sound and the movement
between the dance and the music.
“The choreography concert was a boundless happening
that met to the fullest. An artistic space without limits.”
“It appears now and then a pearl of a performance, one that does not
disappear so fast from the memory. The Artist’s Space is one of them… »
Critic from the premier at the International Festival of Music in North-Norway, 25. June 2014.
News paper: Harstad Tidene, music journalist: Inga Helene Juul.
“The Artist’s Space” by Gunhild Bjørnsgaard is a journey that finds its sources from
Iannis Xenakis – a unique and new aesthetic composer and architect, known for using physical, architectural and mathematical principles in his compositions.
• With her, she has the dancer Nina Biong, the composers/musicians Rolf-Erik Nystrøm and
• Eirik Raude, as well the dramaturge/artistic advisor Marcelino Martin Valiente. During the
• rehearsals, different scores of Xenakis have been played and explored by the musicians, and
• movements have been improvised by all artists. But through the creation time – a stronger
• personal expression in music and dance from the artists appeared, still having the theory and
• the architectural drawings of the scores in mind.
Gunhild Bjørnsgaard has been working for these last seven years, on the influences of the music and the dance operate on each over. Several professional performances have been made, shown in Norway and abroad. Musicians and dancers share on stage their techniques and confront themselves to their own limits. The inability to act, as a consequence of our mental and physical limits, is a central theme of the Company B. Valiente’s projects. The artists are facing constantly throughout the show, the limits of their knowledges. The three performers through prowess, virtuosity and excellence, raise the question of their own artistic practices.
Iannis Xenakis was borned in Romania/Braila in 1921, grown up and did his engineer studies in Greece/Athen, had his architect and composition studies and professional carrier in France/Paris. He died in 2001. He was known for to put the Major tonality concept aside and instead he used physical, architectural and mathematical principles in his compositions.
A critic from the previous production of Company B. Valiente ”Thousand rooms”:
A critic by the French dance journalist:
Gérard Mayen In the French International Dance magazin “DANSER”:
”…The combination of vocal, gestural and musical lines,
allow to operate in pure virtuosity, with a clear flow, which is so naturally, that it gives an impression of a performance which appears in real time, in front of our eyes.
– From “Les Plateaux” Sept 2012, organized by La Briqueterie CDC/Centre Développement Chorégrapique du Val-de-Marne.
PARTICIPANTS in “The Artist’s Space”
Production COMPANY B. VALIENTE (2014)
Choreographer/Idea/Concept/Costumes/Scenographie Gunhild Bjørnsgaard
Artistic advicer/Dramaturge/Scenographie Marcelino Martin Valiente
Dancer/Performer/Vocal Nina Biong
Composers/Saxophonist/Performer Rolf-Erik Nystrøm
Composers/Percussionist/Performer Eirik Raude
Co-producer: Bærum Culture House – the Regional scene of Dance in Norway.
Supported by the Nowegian fund for composer, the Norwegian Art Council, Norwegian Fund for Performing Artists, the Norwegian Embassy in Paris, CDC/Centre Développement Chorégraphique du Val-de-Marne, France.
Special thanks to CDC/Centre Développement Chorégraphique de Toulouse/Midi-Pyrénées and the International Music Festival in North-Norway/Harstad (Festspillene i Nord-Norge), Oslo Culture House/Tøyen by Stine Hårtuft.
Light technician Martin Myrvold
