RAS - Geir Hytten: RED FLAG

About the Performance

Geir Hytten aims to affect his audience by exploring environmental issues through dance. This evening, we present his two performances: "RED FLAG" and "grief will be our companion."

In "RED FLAG," the audience is invited to a shared experience of bodily solidarity beyond human nature. Can we engage our audience in the climate cause through dance, so that we, as a collective body, can be influenced similarly to a demonstration? Through a scaled choreography, the performance shifts from the intimate physical to the social organizations of the theater space, in an attempt to create a global community.

"RED FLAG" is the first of three performances where Geir Hytten examines different aspects of "affect," focusing here on the affect between bodies. They are all extensions of his master's thesis in human geography (2022) and provide a backdrop for exploring environmental issues through dance.

Like nature's complex rational and irrational ecologies, the audience is subjected to a similar friction in the performance. The dancers practice a rigid dance form that follows the body's natural movement patterns, and in their ongoing negotiations, individual and unplanned realities emerge in their activity. The dancers seemingly sink beyond the stage floor, stand alone in the vast space, trying with anticipation to initiate various engagements, and again and again, they enter the stage from the outside to warn and infuse enthusiasm. Through relational creation of intimate, distant, and open spaces, "RED FLAG" highlights the importance of being together in a community with all our differences, where our bodily perception serves as an alternative to the cognitive and conceptual way of understanding the world. A world that is not predetermined, but in process and can be influenced.

The dancers' bodily mass extends beyond the stage floor, formed and reformed again and again in a kinesthetic expansion. The audience is integrated into the performance's social body, influenced by the dancers' physical effort. The shared and simultaneous bodily experiences create a contagious sense of belonging and hope, where a momentum emerges that can generate collective engagement—almost a social movement.

Participants: Choreographer: Geir Hytten Dancers: Emilie Karlsen, Magdalene Solli, Jake Ingram-Dodd, Katja Henriksen Schia, Terje Tjøme Mossige, and Geir Hytten Musician and Composer: Kristoffer Lislegaard Lighting Designers: Benjamin Fjellman Ytreøye Producer: Inés Belli Co-production: Dansens Hus and DansiT Supported by the Norwegian Arts Council (Free Performing Arts – Dance Project and Composition and Production of Music), the Audio and Visual Fund, Oslo Municipality, and the Fund for Performing Artists.