BROKE DANCE
Broke Dance is a collaboration between Manuel Pelmuș and Anton Skaaning Thomsen.
It was performed at the Øya Festival in Oslo as part of the performance program, “Permanent Collection Tøyen”, curated by the MUNCH Museum.
The program included performances by Frédéric Gies, Amie Mbye, and Jens Trinidad as well.
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.
“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.”
from munchmuseet.no
Broke Dance
Concept and research: Manuel Pelmus and Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Dance and choreography: Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Permanent Collection Tøyen
Concept: Manuel Pelmuș
Dance and choreography: Frédéric Gies, Amie Mbye, Jens Trinidad, and Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Curators: Ingrid Moe and Trine Otte Bak Nielsen (MUNCH Museum Oslo)
Project Manager: Kyrre Heldal Karlsen (Øya Festival Oslo)
Photography: Julie Hrnčířová
Broke Dance was also made as a sound work.
The sound work Broke Dance summons up the memory of the performance of Broke Dance in the context of Permanent Collection - Tøyen, performed at Øyafestivalen 2023 in Oslo. Where does the dance go when it is over?
During the performance, a sound artist recorded the auditive aspect of the performance, which includes the vibrancy of the festival, crowds, live concerts, and small hints of an ongoing physical performance.
The sound work functions as a self-portrait of the dancer. Like the painter painting a self-portrait, the dancer depicts a self-portrait through the auditive element of the performance, personal memories from the performance, and the composition of those elements as a sound piece.
And although we cannot simply conserve a person or a performance through documentation, we can perhaps begin to summon up, through the auspices of memory, the acts andgestures that meant so much to us.
— José Esteban Muñoz
Idea: Manuel Pelmuș in collaboration with Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Performed by: Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Field recording: Alexander Rishaug
Text and editing: Anton Skaaning Thomsen
Produced by Rokolectiv in the frame of the project După Imagine / After Image, co-financed by AFCN