MUNCH And ØYA PRESENts
Manuel Pelmuș: Permanent Collection Tøyen
This year's festival artist will create a performance in the shape of a spinning live sculpture in collaboration with four dancers.
The performance can be experienced every day during this year's Øya Festival, at 17, 18 and 19, by the sculpture Vindfruen.
The performance pays tribute to the sculpture Vindfruen in Tøyenparken and to the neighborhood's history by mixing elements of dance history, collective memory, queer gestures, and protest movements, while the music from the festival becomes the soundtrack.
Ole Kristian Sjølie’s sculpture Vindfruen (The Wind Maiden, 1980) was originally intended to be installed as a floating artwork in the Oslo fjord. Like a weathervane, the sculpture would have moved freely in the wind, but instead it was permanently placed in Tøyen park. In Pelmuș’ new performance, four dancers will find inspiration in the original plan for Vindfruen as a living, moving sculpture.
Permanent Collection Tøyen is an iteration of Manuel Pelmuș' work Permanent Collection, which was performed in the exhibition Monumental during MUNCH’s opening week in October 2021. The work will return to the museum from 24–26 October later this year.
Concept:
Manuel Pelmuș
Dancers/Choreographers:
Frederic Gies, Amie Mbye, Anton Skaaning Thomsen, Jens Trinidad
Curators MUNCH:
Ingrid Moe and Trine Otte Bak Nielsen
Project Manager Øya Festival:
Kyrre Heldal Karlsen
Manuel Pelmuş (born in Bucharest, Romania, 1974), is based in Oslo. He is an artist with a background in choreography and dance and is interested in the idea of a live presence within the context of exhibitions, exploring the human body’s relationship to memory and the construction of history. In 2012 he was awarded the Berlin Art Prize for performing arts, and in 2013 he represented Romania at the 55th Venice Biennale in a collaboration with Alexandra Pirici. His work has been presented at a number of international museums, including Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and the Van Abbemuseum.
The performance consists of three parts:
Ribbon Dance makes manifest the drives and forces that set off bodies or things in movement and its potential to self-generate, like a motor activated by its own energy. In this celebratory dance, Frédéric Gies surrenders sensually and joyfully to these currents and to the ways the two ribbons change the texture of their body.
Dance & choreography: Frédéric Gies
Ribbon ready made: Anton Stoianov
Research collaborator: Carla Bottiglieri
Thanks to: Ulrika Berg, Philip Berlin, Cristina Caprioli
Frédéric Gies is a dancer and choreographer based in Sweden. Drawing from their former training in ballet and specific trends of contemporary dance, their dance floor experiences in techno clubs and raves and their study of somatic practices, they approach forms as possibilities rather than constraints.
Broke Dance functions as a lexicon of movements assembled from found gestures, recycled dance history, collective memory, and protest movements organized between set phrases and improvisation. From Vaslav Nijinsky to BZ-Bevegelse, from Extinction Rebellion and Pina Bausch, through the dancer’s personal movement history.
Dance & choreography: Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Research & idea: Manuel Pelmus & Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Anton Skaaning Thomsen is a dancer based in Oslo, currently attending the Bachelor programme in Contemporary Dance at KHiO. In his praxis, he works with choreography as a tool to establish experimental spaces interacting with the audience through physicality.
Sessions explores and interprets the various movements and vocabulary within street dance, a diverse range of dance styles that originate from the African and Latin diaspora. Street dance represents a rich tapestry of movement such as the "running-man," "Bart Simpson," "the mono" and is influenced by social acts, clubbing, characters, and specific movements.
Choreography & dance: Amie Mbye & Jens Trinidad
Research & idea: Manuel Pelmus, Amie Mbye & Jens Trinidad
Amie Mbye is a Norwegian-Gambian dancer, choreographer and teacher working in Oslo, Paris, Barcelona and Dakar. She has participated in, and created, projects ranging from battles and dance jams to artistic stage productions. In her works she addresses and questions issues related to minorities, gender, culture and identity politics.
Jens Jeffry Trinidad is a Norwegian-Fillipino dancer with a background from X-RayUKH in Oslo. He started with hip hop in the 90s. He teaches street dance at the Art Academy of Oslo and has choreographed several productions in Norway.