Anxiety

Disciplines: music and dance

Performers: Jens E. Christensen (DK), organ     

A performance with seven ceremonial dances dedicated to Per Nørgård’s Canon for Organ, Cycle 1-7.  Between each dance the two dancers establish a relation or a “mask” which corresponds directly to one of Søren Kierkegaard’s so-called pseudonyms. In Kierkegaard’s philosophy the immediate experience when relating to oneself is a feeling of loneliness in a totally open horizontal landscape, where the only thing to take for granted is oneself and the necessity of choosing and making reality. Non-church ceremonies adapt the ego by their outer form, eliminate and analyse the ego and are characterized by their repetition and careful, concentrated performance, with a feeling of rarity and renewal: a spiral formed repetition. Framework of the performance is Olivier Messiaen’s Le Combat de la Mort et de la Vie. The concept of the performance has been made by stage director Thomas Hejlesen. Jens E. Christensen plays the organ.

This performance-dance project was developed in continuation of earlier works including both theatre and dance inspired by Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical writings and concepts. Some basic concepts of Kierkegaard are essential to this project, to mention just a few: the concept of anxiety, where one relates to oneself, a feeling of existential loneliness, facing nothing and the concept of repetition, where repetition is the meaning and in theatrical form a ritual.