They Were Thinking

With and by: Sidney Barnes, Jang Su-Mi, Choi Jinhan, Mårten Spångberg
Music by: Raphael Vanoli, HASC

Commissioned by Ob/Scene Festival
Supported by The Swedish Art Council, The Norwegian Art Council

What if dance was like a song that you could hear from far away? What if dance was a gentle earthquake that could be felt as a vibration over distance? What if dance was like a wind that carries fragrances of tiny seeds, lifeforms, and care?

This dance is an attempt to dance together far apart, sharing movements as a way of connecting two places. It’s a dance that senses long-distance somatics and vibe with the endlessly slow undulations of the tectonic plates. It is a dance that like whales communicates through temperature layers in the ocean and that allows the dance to be a garden, inviting to spend time with plants and the setting sun.

Here dancers become caretakers for processes too slow for the eyes to comprehend, caring for no particular reason. Dancing and caring without the desire to be confirmed. Choreography thus as a vessel to carry something forth, something to hold on to when approaching a landscape.

Two dancers in Seoul will through the dance meet two dancers in Berlin, to complete a choreography taking place in two cities simultaneously. This synchronization departs dance from an ocular regime allowing the audience to experience dance at the same time as sensuous and haptic. At a moment in history where social relations are under threat, it emphasizes dance as something public, something we can experience but never own. Something that is nobody’s and through which we can be equal. This dance is an invitation to a gentle form of mourning; space and time anyone can share.