DANCELAND

Category is, Fairy tale Realness.

Imagine a land where fantasy and reality become one,
a fairy tale where the ball is not a ball, but a BALL.
A story which is not just a story
and the characters are as real as you and I.
Yet nothing is what it seems, or is it?
An unsolved riddle, a mystery, a puzzle.
One night, one Disco Queen
and a whole lot of (missing) pieces.

And they lived _______________________________ ever after.

Danceland is a performance piece that is a continuation of ‘GrAY ZONE’ in a way. It further explores how to bring autobiographical, traumatic, triggering, unsafe, violent content about problematics in today’s society to the public in a way that is digestible. Often when we talk about heavy subjects and problematics in today’s society people shut down or just ignore the subject. So with these works I put that content in a safe and sober environment which makes a neutral ground to share the content. In GrAY ZONE the content was pretty much un-edited, in Danceland it is.

In Danceland a sex crime is turned into a fairy tale. Fairy tales have been used hundreds of years to warn children for the dangers of the world. Then Disney came and made everything so wonderful and magical and all the fairy tales lost their warnings and does quite the opposite. In this work I go back to the roots of fairy tales, but also blends with the wonderfulness and magic of Disney. Fantasy and reality become one.

Three audience members at a time can participate. One by one each is given headphones and guided into the space with closed eyes, where 3 matrasses are lined up next to each other with some distance in between. Once they lay down the recording starts to play and the next person is brought in. When all 3 audience members are inside the performer puts on the 3 candles in candle holders carefully placed in front of the bed at a safe distance and other candles in the room are lit as well. After the artist leaves the room and waits outside for them to come out. After a recording of around 30min. the audience members are invited to take the candle holder and explore the space. In the space they will find objects and imagery (‘EviDanceland‘) displayed in the space. When they’re done they can leave the candle and exit.