Mette Ingvartsen
7 Pleasures

In “7 Pleasures” by the Danish choreographer and dancer Mette Ingvartsen the audience can experience at first hand how notions of nudity and sexuality have changed over time.

The idea of exploring the body – one’s own, but also someone else’s – runs like a thread through the internationally acclaimed works of Mette Ingvartsen. The political aspect of the body is always a focal point, how it is perceived and its function as a statement in itself. The focus of her latest work “7 Pleasures”, which is set to premiere at steirischer herbst, relates to different aspects of pleasure, hedonism and sensuality. As a stage collective, twelve performers execute a long, expansive movement in seven stages. They feel their way towards other bodies, their skin, testing their boundaries, engaging in unexpected constellations, and also exploring the question: how can we use the joyful potential of pleasure to disrupt images attached to nudity and sexuality?

When Ingvartsen, who staged “evaporated landscapes” and “Giant City” at steirischer herbst in 2009, ventures into the sometimes uncanny realm of pleasure, it is not just about giving free rein to sensations in their search for expression. The subject also raises a number of pressing and ultimately political issues: how to celebrate other forms of pleasure than those offered by everyday life, social conventions and the norms of politically correct gender relations?

Konzept / Idee: Mette Ingvartsen
Choreografie: Mette Ingvartsen
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Sirah Foighel Brutmann
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Johanna Chemnitz
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Katja Dreyer
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Bruno Freire
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Elias Girod
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Dolores Hulan
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Ligia Manuela Lewis
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Danny Neyman
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Norbert Pape
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Pontus Pettersson
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Hagar Tenenbaum
Tänzerin / Tänzer: Marie Ursin
Lichtregie: Minna Tiikkainen