Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Ingrid Kristensen & Co

Discover The Movements Added Value Through Dance Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance

Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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Discover The Movements Added Value Trough Dance

Alderman Steen Møller trying to experience a dancer’s body

by Avatar Lab with Mark Scram Christensen during Sensing days at Funen Art Museum

Published at the final symposium for the artistic research project

Sense & Dance Editor

Ingrid Kristensen Design and photos

Anders Vejen Andersen Translator and personal assistant to Ingrid Kristensen:

Lisa Ashley McCulloch

Thank you All great projects are made possible by the help of many. Sense & Dance is no exception, so here’s a very big thank you to the board of directors and the board of innovation, who have discussed intensely and given qualified advice throughout the entire project. To Pia Buchardt and Christian Have who have challenged us again and again. To Have Backstage. To all of the funds which have supported the project. To all of the artists, researchers and scientists, who have shared their knowledge so generously. To all of those we might forget now, but who have been indispensable. And to everyone who felt inspired by the project and who became ambassadors for it… And especially the company, which faithfully keeps exploring dance – from a slightly different angle each time.

Avatar Lab.

Headlines of the Avatar Lab. executed in three rounds by Mark Schram Christensen, Ingrid Kristensen & selected dancers from the company in the time period of March to August 2012:

Ingrid Kristensen & Co Langelinie 58 5230 Odense M Denmark mail@ingrid-kristensen.dk www.ingrid-kristensen.dk

Be in a dancer’s body.

Explore movement through another.

What happens when the body won’t do as I want?

How do you get the brain to let go?

What does it mean to let go and to control in the way we experience the body’s movements and the world?

Mark Schram Christensen MSc, PhD, Post doc

Copenhagen Neural Control of Movement Cognitive Motor Control Research Group Coordinator Dep. of Neuroscience and Pharmacology Dep. of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance

University of Copenhagen

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

To sense yourself in the world Three years ago Ingrid Kristensen & Co. began an intense journey into the world of senses in interaction with dance.

The visions for the three-year artistic research project were to make dance more accessible, democratize the artistic experience, research and explore the elusiveness of dance by experimenting with dance in other formats than the usual and – perhaps most importantly – create the most sublime artistic expression, this time in interaction with the senses.

This was all done with inspiration and knowledge gained from across aesthetic expressions and professional boarders. We’ve visited, research and spoken with about one hundred experts, artists and institutions. On our journey we’ve been met be a generosity and will to share knowledge that we never knew existed. Sense & Dance has helped build bridge and show new ways to create artistic pieces with added value to the artistic environment, but just as much for the society as a general. Acclaimed international artists, great scientists, cultural and artistic capacities, architects, engineers, librarians, chefs and cleaning ladies have been involved in our journey.

Hundreds of questionnaires have been filled out and dozens of interviews and dialogues have been held for each work, lab, test, performance and installation that has seen the light of day.

To day, three years later, we’re left with lots of knowledge, experience and a number of new and untraditional collaboration partners. But other than the concrete knowledge that the project has given us, the possibility to speak of the works, the genesis of dance and the importance it has to us, the world and our society has possibly been one of the most important ‘gifts’ of the project.

The catalogue you’re holding now is very characteristic for the shaping of the entire Sense & Dance. There has been a set of very clear visions and questions that were to be looked into, but the methods have varied according to the context. Sense & Dance has focused on inclusion – and not limitation. The inclusion of the audience through the use of sense stimulus, the inclusion of other equal collaboration partners, the inclusion of different research methods. We haven’t strived for a specific, defining result, but we’ve tried creating new areas for the dance to grow, enrich and inspire the world.

So when you read through this catalogue you’ll meet just many highly scientific consideration side-by-side human reports on their meeting with dance and senses, practitioners’ assessment of the values of Sense & Dance. As a whole it’s a patchwork of impressions across professions and aesthetics. Including reflections that’ll hopefully inspire you. And if by reading the final page you’re left with a feeling that dance is an important artistic expression that can benefit society as a whole… then the project has succeeded.

Ingrid Kristensen December 2012

Content: 4 Valentijn Visch, Alessia Cadamuro If the audience want to dance, why don’t they?

8 Have Backstage Technology opens up the elusiveness of dance 10 Siri Frederiksen To express a feeling of dancing exclusively through technology 14 Elisabeth Heimdal Optical fibres used in costumes 16 Karsten Schackinger-Solaas Staged - smells in dance and space.

18 Michael Bom Frøst, Ingrid Kristensen The inclusive art 20 Jonas Cassøe Bernhardt When food and dancing comes together.

22 Lis Engel, Ingrid Kristensen Dance in all cracks.

24 Sarah Kettley How do costumes engage dancers and audience?

28 Inger Kjeldsen What is it Sense & Dance is capable of in relation to the children’s’ development.

30 Fuzzy About the meaning of senses.

31 Christel Stjernebjerg When using all of Your senses makes sense as a performer.

32 Jette Flinch Nyrop The experiences I’ve gained through dance in the urban space have given my town an extra dimension.

34 Niels Tradsfeldt Interview - Johannes Rauff Greisen about Concrete Dancing Feelings 36 Anna Marie Fisker A letter about W A T E R and Sensing & Dancing.

40 Christian Have Growth strategies through culture and art 42 Sense & Dance in facts

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If the audience want to dance, why don’t they?

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Figure 2.

Audience participation during Tango dancing at the beginning of “Sensing”.

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rt offers experiences. Often such as a museum, a theatre or a cin- consumer with the determination of this artistic experience in- ema. An art context makes you like to a product as being art, and thus povolves emotions. For instance, experience emotions you don’t like to tentially interesting for thoughts, and watching the Guernica may upset you, experience in reality - such as disgust the context provides the art consumer Rothko’s chapel may calm with a safe fictive environyou, or the Mona Lisa can ment for a wide range of emoDr. Valentijn Visch make you feel socially attional experiences.

Design Aesthetics, fac. of Industrial Design Engineering, tached. However, these paintTechnical University Delft, the Netherlands.

Dance offers experiences ings do not only elicit an emojust like other artmedia do. tion but makes you think as Alessia Cadamuro When going to a ballet, the well. For instance about love, Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands. audience might experience being or war. Artistic experiemotion and thoughts. In ences thus contain emotions contrast to other artmedia, as well as thoughts. The following paper will investigate the po- at the human race in Lars von Trier’s the medium dance is not only ‘contential of bodily experiences to the art film Dogville. Moreover, the art con- sumed’ as art but practised as well by experience by motivating a dance per- text makes you think about the works. the majority of people. Almost everyformance audience to participate in a People think might think more about body dances once in a while and likes the meaning of Mona Lisa’s smile than this. performance. about the meaning of their neighbours’ I don’t think the overlap between A necessary feature enhancing smile. art practice and art consumption is the art experience is the art context The context of art provides the art that high in any other art medium. PerFinal Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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haps the medium singing comes close.

But painting, sculpturing, or acting are art media that most of the people have practised once in their lives, but not throughout their lives like dance.

Dance is even performed throughout the ages and cultures as well – for instance, cave drawings of dance dating from around 7000 BC are found in the Indian Bhimbetka rock shelter paintings (see Fig. 1).

The historical causes for dance behaviour are difficult to obtain and they might change like religions or dance styles. From a psychological perspective, the motivation to dance can be understood when applying the psychological need theory of Deci and Ryan (1991) to it. They presented, based on behavioural research experiments, three basic psychological needs.

Fulfilment of these needs motivates people and non-fulfilment of the needs demotivates people.

The first need is the need for autonomy: people want to make their own choices and don’t want to be controlled. In relation to dance practice, autonomy can be found in choosing your own individual movements during a dance. The second need is the need for competence. People like it when they are challenged, when they can learn something, and when they can apply their skills. During dance, people enhance and train their dance

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skills. The last need is the need for social relatedness. People like to form social relationships and social interaction. Naturally, dance is practised as a social activity as well.

So, the experience of watching dance as an art consists of emotions and thought and the experience of dancing is intrinsically motivating since it consists of psychological need fulfilment. These two modes of dance experience, watching and performing, are however not as sharply separated as they might seem at first sight. When watching a dance show, the audience might feel the urge to dance as well.

As is shown from a previous dance

by Ingrid Kristensen “A study of the Visual Sense”, the audience told that the “the sensuality [of the show] appeal to [their] body”, that they “wanted to move” and “wanted to play”.

This activation of dance desire when watching dance can be explained by the process of embodied cognition (see Barsalou (2008)). This theory holds that all cognition is grounded in, and linked to our experiences. Bodily experiences not only generate thoughts, but thoughts can also generate bodily experiences. When you think of a car crash you just survived, all the experiences linked to the thoughts become active to (little) extent: you (re-)experience the car crash as well as the accompanied fear and bodily movements

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

that you made.

When we see a car crash in the cinema this ef-

fect might even be stronger by making you duck in your cinema chair.

Perception not only remains in the mind but also effects your body. Upon seeing a smile, we might feel the urge to smile ourselves in order to understand what we see (see Niedenthal (2007) for an overview). When seeing a dance performance as an audience, the audience members might, in order to understand the dance, make some small movements themselves.

Making these small movements, which might only consist of some muscle tensions mimicking the dancers’ movements and emotions, can on their turn remind the audience of the joy of their own dance experience and enhance their motivation to dance. The motivation of the audience to dance inspired Ingrid Kristensen to insert two small audience participation parts in her “Sensing” performance. In the beginning of the performance, the audience entered the performance hall and were asked by tango dancers to dance (see Figure 2). At the end of the

Photo from a lecture to The Association of Danish Podiatrists on Sense & Dance where the audience are dancing trolls with Ingrid Kristensen.

The event and the image is not mentioned in the article below.

the audience just before the performance started. During this warm up the audience was asked to a) walk the stairs in a playful way, b) imitate some simple and funny physical movements of a dancer – such as lifting a leg; c) imagining and express an emotion.

We hoped that this warm up would A central question on audience 1) motivate the audience to participate participation is if the audience likes because of its playful and safe nature, to participate. As shown above 2) decrease the fear for social each member of the audience evaluation among the audience, may like to dance, but she/ he 3) prepare the audience for parmight not like to dance at each ticipation cognitively, and 4) opportunity. When I asked the prepare the audience for particaudience after the performance ipation physically. It turned out, if they danced and if they liked that the warm up enhance the this, they scored higher on participation quantity (more dancing than on liking. It thus audience members danced) as seems that the audience felt a bit well as its the quality (the likforced to participate. ing of the participation was inThere seems to be some limcreased). iting factors at work inhibiting We concluded that a playful the audience to realize their warm up can motivate the audidance motivation. I think that ence to participate in dance and there are three factors inhibitincrease the dance experience ing the audience to dance. The Figure 1. Indian Bhimbetka cave drawing showing positively. Moreover, we showed first factor is the social context. people dancing in a row. that the traditional art experiAlthough the audience may ence consisting of emotions and like to be socially connected to each tering a dance performance in their thoughts can be successfully enriched other as an audience, they might not formal evening clothes, it might take by a bodily participation component. like to be evaluated by each other on some effort to perform and enjoy their Future research has to show the exact their dance skills. That the social im- own physical bodily movement. additive value of audience participapact of the context can be very strong tion on the art experience as well as in inhibiting intrinsic motivation is In order limit the dance the specific motivational effects of the inhibiting factors, we organised a short warm up components on audience shown by stage fear.

Secondly, the audience might not collective and playful warm up with participation. performance the audience could participate by rising from their chairs and swing slowly to the music.

During the performance the majority, but not the full audience participated in both moments.

be mentally prepared to dance. When they came to the show they expected to passively sit and watch. Changing this expectation might result in a negative motivation - the audience might experience a feeling of losing control over their situation which might conflict with their need for autonomy. Thirdly, the audience might not be physically prepared to participate. When en-

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By HAVE Backstage

Technology opens up the elusiveness of dance Excerpts of interview with Ingrid Kristensen

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echnology opens up to great new ways of expressing art. That’s the opinion of choreographer and stage artist Ingrid Kristensen, who has choreographed and staged solos, ensembles, operas, performances, theatre and much more. Here Ingrid Kristensen gives concrete examples of how she herself implements the digital element in her performances.

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What does the digital aspect mean for the audience as well as the artists experience of dance?

completely different dimension, and they enforce a new way of exploring dance. The dancer is dancing on the premise of light.

Our latest installation El Eco del Carlito is a highly digital piece, which is rooted in innovation. It’s a dance installation, which is created around a technological interpretation of light and shadow. Another example could be our Aura-dresses, which have been created solely by light. From a centrally positioned lamp you can control colour, light pulse and rhythm. The dresses give a

In your projects you’ve got a particular focus on the senses. The sense of sight is a dominating sense, which is used in a number of projections. How does technology affect and stimulate the senses of the audience?

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Technology gives more options. We work a lot with music, physical stimulus and very

The village Sølund is a home for people with severe physical and mental disabilities.

In 2011 they bought El Eco del Carlito because the installations dance scenes about the playful, sensuality, longing, fear and cosmos did the work with the residents feelings more accessible.

advanced technical stimulus. It gives the audience and opportunity to feel him- or herself in this highly technological time. Our use of technology causes a reaction with both the piece, but also with the audiences’ perception and their subsequent reaction.

To what extent should art and culture be thought into a digital perspective in relation to reaching your audience?

I think it’s very important to relate to the digital element as a part of today. As an artist you have to reflect at be inspired by the time

you’re living in. In a very subtle way we have to use newer technology so the tendencies of the time help strengthen the artistic experience.

Which opportunities does the internet hold as a virtual space?

It has many opportunities, as you can reach a lot of people quite fast. But some senses will naturally be deprioritized. That’s why the digital element isn’t either/or for me, but both-and. it’s about keeping a good balance

in relation to the physical and the digital. Because the completely intimate, physical performance, where you can smell the dance and see the sweat on the dancers is equally important to the technological opportunities. But it’s necessary to keep exploring the physical element, so you don’t sterilize art and loose resonance.

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Siri Frederiksen

El Eco del Carlito

To express a feeling of dancing exclusively through technology

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oday’s society is characterized by a market where interdisciplinarity is paramount.

Crossing boundaries and creating new expressions through the combination of materials, directions and professions have emerged to a whole new trend that challenges the creative mans potential.

The installation El Eco del Carlito, combines stationary concrete, with slides, vivid music and dancing, it has largely been created across borders. The stationary mannequin come to life through 3-dimensional light projections, which both create life, feeling, and not least the illusion of dancing.

The background of the installation

Is it possible to create sense of dance through the light, using only technology and without the dancers physical bodies? The audiovisual media have long been able to do this through dance movies and artistic performances among others, but are there other ways to present dance through a different use of sight and in unfamiliar spaces? This exploration of sight has been the starting point for the dance installation El Eco del Carlito.

The installation is created by Ingrid Kristensen & Co. and is part of the three-year project Sense & Dance. This is an artistic research project

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that has existed since the beginning of 2010, which examines the interaction between dance and sensory stimuli. Choreographer and Master.

Mag. Culture and Communication Ingrid Kristensen is leading the project and sees it as her main goal to put the sensual dance on the global cultural agenda. The project develops a series of prototypes and dance experiences in alternative formats such as interactive performances and installations. Ingrid Kristensen also seek to come in contact with unfamiliar audiences, people which does not normally engage in dance experiences. Sense & Dance is supported by the State Arts Council, Odense Municipality and Region of Southern Denmark among other, which has supported the development of new knowledge, artistic experience and the creation of a new platform for the sensual arts.

The form, content and intentions of the dance installation

The project wants to send the audience onto an inner journey of adventure and let the human’s five senses create new styles of dance. Through dance, installations and other artistic activities the project seeks to make the sense of touch smell - and taste obtain the same attention as the visual and auditory senses have already achieved in artistic and mediated contexts. The dance installation El Eco del Carlito is a study of

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

sight which focuses on exploring the visual possibilities through 3-dimensional and interactive dance projections.

Through a projector’s lights a moving and dancing layer is painted on a lifeless mannequin which gives the standing figure life, breath and pulse. The installation’s narrative is based on the five basic states of mind, playfulness, fear, sensuality, longing and the comic.

The installation has been developed in collaboration with CAVI, Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction at Aarhus University, with Morten Lervig and Jonas Petersen in the lead. The installation is accompanied with the sound of new music composed by the musician Fuzzy, whom has worked with Ingrid Kristensen since 2001. El Eco del Carlito represents their eighth collaboration.

The challenge of this study has been to produce feelings and explore the excitation of the urge to dance, without the use of live dancers. This is why the experienced dancer Anna Kinoshita only appears in movie format as a dancing shadow, which helps to express the five states of mind. “It is essential to find a relationship between the senses and the movements. Thereby we can come closer to an understanding of the being of movements “.

El Eco del Carlito in the danish showcase at IETM international network for contemporary performing arts.

Photo from the fear part.

The projectors lighting creates an optical illusion that challenges the audience’s sense of vision and their understanding and interpretation of the work. “At first glance, few people probably associate the installation with dance, because it is increasingly marked by art technology. But when you experience it, the dance dimension will suddenly appear. “One of the reasons why Ingrid Kristensen and the team behind the installation has chosen to use a mannequin instead of a real dancer, is to explore the dance volatility. “In this format, we can introduce the dance without the volatility constraint. Usually live dance is stopped by the body’s physical limit, but this is a continuous form that can continue forever. It provides opportunities for several new explorations. “

Dance to the unaccustomed eye

Ingrid Kristensen emphasizes the importance of capturing the attention of audiences who are not normally interested in the dance, and through the sensuous elements and different formats to awaken the desire to dance with this new audience. The mannequin is designed to frame the broad audience by preparing the ground for identification and reflection of its audience, by the virtue of the human form and the universal minds

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that is presented. “No matter whether you are fully trained or disabled, you will see yourself reflected in others, and thereby focus more on body than the head.” Subsequent interviews and surveys with the audience, have shown that the installation produced both volatile memories as strong emotional reactions. It was also proven that the experience awoke dance desires in more than half of the respondents.

Ingrid Kristensen wants to find a way into all the cracks of dancing, and hopes that it can reach out and awaken a future interest in dance and movement. Therefore, the experiment is to move away from the artistic institutions and instead build art in unconventional locations. The Sense & Dance project also examines whether the installation generates different reactions and perceptions in specific target groups, therefore there have been made about. 400 qualitative and quantitative audience interviews and a series of dialogic sessions.

Inspiration from the childhood

The inspiration for the aesthetic installation comes from distant childhood memories. Ingrid Kristensen was born and raised in Argentina, in the big city of Buenos Aires. “... Now and then we went on weekend promenade by the city’s main pedestrian street, where all sorts of vendors presented the most subtle things. Carlito Baila Baila,

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was one of them - a little man cut from rubber, which all by itself magically jumped and danced in the air. And that enchanted me - the big leap and the pirouets that the little man tirelessly made... “.

Carlito was controlled by a talented street vendor, through a transparent fishing line, which made the little rubber man dance. From the eyes of a child, this seemed as a fleeting magical moment and it is the echo of that experience Ingrid Kristensen is trying to create through the dance installation el eco del Carlito. Magical moments manifested through dance.

The challenges of the Interdisciplinary work

The development of the installation El Eco del Carlito reflect the interdisciplinarity that is incorporated in the entire project. Sense & Dance constantly try to be innovative in relation to the materials, stories, emotions and space, that they can use to attract the unfamiliar audience. In the installation El Eco del Carlito it is not just a raw material such as concrete or plastic that gets defeated, but also the notion of the materials possibilities and the sight ability and deception.

The multidisciplinary dimension imparts however significant challenges in relation to cooperation between the various professions. The dance installation created major technical chal-

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

lenges of the partnership which offered a number of trials. Morten Constantin Lervig from CAVI says: “The artistic ambition has been to ‘vitalise’ the installation - adding layers of experiences that brings the viewer on a journey through the five states of mind. This course offers a number of challenges. In the language field, there has been a task to understand each other. When Ingrid says that an experience should be light and sensitive, what does this mean for millisecond, the RGB values and the dynamic changes of the graphic material? “ Ingrid Kristensen sees these challenges as incredibly rewarding and believe that they are helping to strengthen the interdisciplinary platform where art, science, technology, and more weave together and lift each other. She considers her business partners and their own passion for the project as a crucial momentum component in the development of collaborations across the usual borders. “Many times when you have such a high level of ambition as we, and I have, to put the sensual dance on the global agenda, so it arouses some of our partners ..

I guess we all have bigger dreams, but it’s not always that we can put words on them, express them or have the courage to implement them.

El Eco del Carlito in the danish showcase at IETM international network for contemporary performing arts.

Photo from the longing part.

But among many of the artists, researchers and stakeholders, we have relationships with, I have seen that when our grand visions match, so it comes alive ... the passion. “

Future projects

The installation El Eco del Carlito is selected for inclusion in the international IETM meeting in Copenhagen in March, producing an impression of Danish contemporary performing arts.

The installation has also fostered inspiration for another future project, Sensing, which will be launched in August. Sensing includes both a dance performance, and a dance installation as well as a laboratory for audience surveys.

The audience will be confronted with an artistic experience based on all the knowledge and awareness that has been achieved in the two years of intensive work. The goal with Sensing is to create a innovative and engaging experience that is experienced with all senses. The project will focus on the sentient body and create a new space for the cultivation of a higher sensibility of dance movements and body.

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Optical fibres used in costumes

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he principle of optical fibres was discovered Because they are light transporting and bres used in costumes enhance the movement of

by John Tyndall in 1854 as he was watch- light emitting, optical fibres appeal to our sight. the dancer, both by expanding this movement in ing water flowing out of a barrel, and un- Light is a combination of radiation and our re- space, and by leaving traces of this through the derstood that the transparent water was able sponse to it. Light is what makes it possible for light it produces. to carry light. Optical fibres’ main application is us to see! But sight is not the only sense optical The fibres are bendable, and as the dancer telecommunication, where they are used for fast fibres appeal to. As we see them, we also want moves an undulating movement is created. They data transmission, but they also have exciting to touch them. We may think they are warm, be- change our perception of the dance. The dancers applications in design, architecture and now also cause they emit light, but they are not. This may also seem to be dancing together with the fibre in costume design and performance! costumes, as though the costume inOptical fibres transport light – spire new ways of moving.

Elisabeth Heimdal from a light source (for example an In the Shadow, the costumes are PhD student at DTU Management, LED – a light emitting diode) placed at the only light source, and replace trasection for Innovation & Sustainability. one of their extremities to their other ditional stage lighting – light is not Project title: Integrated Innovation with Textile Materials. extremity. just something that is projected onto Optical fibres can also be dethe dancer, but something that comes signed so that the fibre itself becomes from the dancer. Instead of the dancer light emitting. This can be done by scratching surprise us. As spectator on the Sensing perfor- moving to follow the projected light, the dancer their surface or by using light-scattering materi- mance, I wanted to touch the optical fibres cos- becomes the light source. als in the core of the fibre. They have a special tumes, (and I did!) and I think this was the case We see how the different parts of his body sleek handle, are thin and flexible, and are usu- for other spectators as well! But how is to wear move and we want to engage in dance ourselves. ally used in bundles of many fibres. Their thick- this fibres, as a dancer? ness can be varied.

In Magic Move and Sensing, the optical fi

More information about optical fibres can be found here: http://bada.hb.se/bitstream/2320/4382/1/PetersonAmbience08.pdf

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

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Danni Sell and Lars Christian Feit Andersen are playing with the audience during Sensing at The Funen Art Museum.

Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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Sissel Tolaas, the world’s leading expert in smell, in her Berlin lab.

Also her work involves commerce, art and science.

We are working to raise money for a joint project on dance and fragrance.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Staged

Smells in dance and space The sense of smell is our first sense – our immediate impressions and in Sense & Dance it’s used for momentary staging.

As the only one of our senses, which without further interpretation affects the limbic system of the brain – our center for feelings and recollection – the sense of smell has the ability to prepare the audience to step into an experience.

However smells can’t stand alone. Theatre and dance can stand alone. But when smells matches our visual and auditory impressions we experience an authenticity in the expression – the result of compliance with all of our senses.

When people are in anechoic rooms we experience reactions of fear: goose bumps, palpitations. A sense is ‘missing’.

When we experience compliance between our senses we feel safe.

Safe people are ready to experience new things. Our audience is ready for the story.

Scanscent works with smell in many environments. In retail and hotel environments the same things apply: we want to set a frame for the story.

The collaboration with Ingrid Kristensen gives us constant challenges and an opportunity for innovative thinking in a great, inspireing and warm presence.

When we use smell we can choose smells that create peace, zeal, happiness and much more. But that’s another, interesting story...

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Karsten Schackinger-Solaas COO, Partner - LMD Media ApS / FaceAd, And owner - Scanscent / urbanXperience ApS

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The inclusive art The use of senses in dance, new and untraditional collaboration partners and a systematic collection of experiences turn into a relevant, moving artistic expression of Michael Bom Frøst great character and availability.

Ingrid Kristensen

Excerpts from the chronicle by

Associate professor and Director, respectively at University of Copenhagen and Nordic Food Lab Sensory Science - Scientific approach to Gastronomy Dancer, choreographer and MA.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

A mixed audience of blind and seeing attends Magic Move in Experimentarium, Copenhagen.

After the show the blind part participated in a focus group.

Several expressed that it was one of their life’s greatest experiences.

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he combination of smell- and taste experiences and scenic dance could be one of the recipes to revitalize and renew the stage art generally and dance specifically. In Sense & Dance we’ve allied ourselves with experts within food, design, architecture, textiles and science.

The concrete results of this interdisciplinary are already visible.

To meet across professions; with artists from other areas, researchers from different parts of the world, experts from the health sections with a love for art and also communicating with the audience is a thing that could help bring artists and dance a new place – and also help bring dance outside of the typical stage.

An artistic exploration – Sense & Dance

In Sense & Dance we’ve started an artistic journey of exploring the senses of taste, touch and smell combined with the artistic expression.

We’ve handed out milder and more extreme taste samples during performances, sent out smells of chocolate, touched the audience,

whispered in their ears and played with different impressions of sight than the regular.

The audience became actively engaged in the dance through tasting a lollipop with ants.

The ants make the audience feel uneasy or fearful. The dancer expresses the same fear at that moment.

To work consequently and intensely with sensuous stimulus can be compared to breaking down boundaries; the audiences’ physical boundaries, the mental boundaries and the usual conventions of what a typical dance performance consists of and the way it’s experienced.

But why insist so stubbornly on concuring the private space of the audience to create a space for the sensuous art?

It’s our conviction that dance, body and movement combined with the other senses such as the sense of taste or smell can communicate and inspire – across the intellectual, cultural and lingual boundaries.

For instance during Magic Move we experienced a lot of people stopping their otherwise busy process and stayed in the pouring rain se-

duced by the smells and taste. After the show the audience described the show as being unexpected, inspiring and intense to experience.

Mesmerize the audience

We’ve experienced that by using taste, smell and touch the audience has become more immersed in the works than they normally would in stage art. It creates a greater experience, that is more memorable, gives more to reflect on – and a longer reverberation. The use of more senses creates a more whole message from the work to the viewer. When done the right places dance can reach totally new types of audience – those who normally aren’t interested in high culture.

Both dance and sense experiences gives the audience a chance to develop as sensing subjects through experiences and reflection. By actively sensing the audiences’ frame of reference will continue to expand as they’re met be new experiences. It paves the way for new reflections of beauty, movement, taste and the self in the world.

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Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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Jonas Cassøe Bernhardt Chef UCF Kitchen and canteen Education Centre Fredericia

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

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we ma de for t The p lay

he 5 s tates o f min d:

Spagh ing state of min with s etti Bolog d: white paghetti nese strawb chocolate made of se erry-a nd-ca rved with sauce. ke-crumb le The h o rrible Fresh sta e y e s of co te of mind: barbe served d wire (notdfish put on with q t uail ego be eaten) like ey gs paint ed es The se Puffs nsual state of with m mi ango cnd: ream Crispy The longing st ate of chicke (puree n skin mind: of oni w on an ith umam d tom i a choc Cosmos – a pie a t o ) ce of h olate c eaven o top of ated merin: candy g floss ue on

When food and dancing comes together.

I

t has been a great experience working with food and dancing, and how the two things can complement each other.

The process has been very instructive, for my team as well as me. It has not always been easy, but due to the positive energy Ingrid has put into the project, we always seemed to push forward and create new things, and in the end it was a very good opportunity for us to step into unknown land, and just be creative.

It was very important for us that the food not only tasted good, but also had a challenging edge to it, so that the audience was more provoked, and curious about what went on in the show. We tried to implement the different feelings/state of minds in the food, so that the audience could see the point of the whole show.

We started the process with a classic “brain storm” where all the creative ideas came out. At this point the dancers were not a part of the process, because we thought that it was very important that it were our own ideas without any other interruptions. Then later on we presented our concept to the dancers so that they could implement it into their show.

The reaction from the dancers was great, and they could relate to the concept almost right away, and not too many changes had to be made. After one rehearsal dinner, we were ready.

This were only our own thoughts about the five senses, and it is important to say that it wouldn’t have made as much sense without the dancers, who did an amazing job, implementing it all into the show.

The process has been very instructive, and we have all enjoyed the creative space, which was necessary for us for accepting the concept, and to allow new ideas.

To be in a process where there are many different actors and where there are no rules, is risky, but it has also led us to see that food can be a part of many different things, and that it can make sense in many different ways.

From my own point of view I can say that it has made me see my profession from another perspective, and if Ingrid ever should have an idea like this again, you can count on me.

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Interactive dance performances, more formats than the usual.

Dance in all cracks.

D espite the dance versatility and development, the focus of this is still quite small the world, for many people the dance seems to be reserved for dance elite. But perhaps it is time that we seriously begin to develop and exploit the great potential of dance by providing dance diverse expression in all crevices to the delight of both the perpetrator, children, men and women?

dance installations, where it quickly becomes a hybrid between a metaphorical expression in the interaction with the dance volatility.

Last but not least, the dance can also be used in a therapeutic purpose. An area which is almost non-existent in the world, despite its infinite potential and and last but not least as social interaction, as we experience it in many contexts.

The dance - a diverse expression

The soul of the dance

The dance includes a diverse expression and takes in the same way as music place in many different places and with an infinite variety and diversity of expression. Dance can be of social character and social medias like Youtube exhibit the manifold expressions that are continuously being explored.

Dancing takes place at many different scenes - both theatrical scenes and in public spaces, but the dance can also be virtual and be expressed and experienced through animations, movies or video dance.

It can unfold through

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Although dance can function in so many different

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

aspects, it doesn´t take up so much room in the world.

Of

Anna Kinoshita as The match Girl in Memorial Hall, Guangzhou, China.

course it is a shame - not just to dance in the world as an institution, but also because the dance has meanings that go into all dimensions of human life. Life is movement - and the dance is the place where movement is explored, challenged, experimented

a n d can help to change our perception of our own a p - body and of the world. We can literally connect pears as us bodily with a dance experience because our a kind of own bodies, through our empathy “swings” in laborator y similar patterns as the dance performance. Exof human ex- periencing dance can therefore open up new diperience and mensions of experience - even if you do not even exploration of life master the physical construction.

The body knows and recognizes intuitive and reality.

The many di- dancers’ movement, which all comes from our mensions of the joint movement well. Through familiarization, dance and possibilities we can feel it - and open to the dimension of art are, first and foremost, that is about to open up new possibilities and connected with the dy- thus for consciousness transformation.

The dance is also the body as a living picture namic interaction between our living body and experi- in our understanding of life. The dance has all ences and experiences of the kinds of bodily experience from the mundane world. We communicate not to the ecstatic - and dancing can also open the only through language and for in- experience of completely altered states of conformational purposes, but through sciousness. Dance experiences with and for chilbodily conditions that every moment dren can help to develop and expand their bodily becomes co-creative and connects us and verbal language, imagination and sensitivto the present. It’s about the body and ity to themselves and their surroundings. The list movement as co-creator of voting rights, of spaces of dance can go on and there are many good arguments to let more dance into your life. feelings, rhythms and musical beauty.

It is this close interweaving between body, mind and world, that is the dance me- Learn to understand the dance dium - and pointing to the movement as a dy- Seeing and experiencing dance is something we namic co-creative core element of human life in many ways have to learn, as we must learn to and ways of being in the world. It is clear that listen to music or understand mathematical or this point into the dance, in ways that go into visual language. Our feeling for the dance has an experience where life and art are no longer to be cultivated in the same way as we cultivate love for the taste exseparated, but are perience, by creating always mutually coChronicle of spaces to experience creators of the posLis Engel it with sensitivsible. artist, dance scholar and phenomenologist, ity and openly presThe ordinary MA. Scient, PhD ence. and mundane can We know ourbe transformed and Ingrid Kristensen selves and the world connected with the Dancer, choreographer and MA. through movement unique and amazwhere we see, hear, ing. The dance - as sensitive laboratory for the movement’s poetics taste, touch and feel the world. Life is such a - a dynamic co-creator of every minute rhythms, constant movement and dance can be the port, thus realizing the relationship between body- which by its attention on exploration of movement can be open to a more nuanced and sensimind-world. tive experience of lifes opportunities.

A dance experience may be So get your shoes and give yourself permismeeting with the sublime beauty. sion to dance every moment!

The experience of a virtuoso dance performance,

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How do costumes engage dancers and audience?

Introduction

Wearable Computing, Computational

inherited the instrumental ideals of

experience as a contemporary jeweler, and just broad enough to include more experimental forms, but none of these terms is ever free from disciplinary assumptions, and they have tended to evolve alongside the changing practices that make up the field.

“Wearable systems’, at the moment, takes into account the fact that what I do is about interaction, whether it makes use of comutation or not; it also references personal and social systems of expression and identity.

This section gives a short overview of the evolution of wearables, and explains the underlying philosophies at play.

Wearable Computing originally

on the body. These were still tools, with their values firmly embedded in the instrumental. Scenarios of use had a distinctly ‘80s flavour, dependant on a modernist dichotomy of work (the university campus or office) and leisure (the gym or the nightclub).

Only when developers from other creative disciplines became involved, renaming what they did ‘Computational Wearables’, were these values questioned. In fact these (often female) proponents have arguably done the work crucial to wearable computing approaching the mainstream, or at least the red carpet and the music industry stage, in developing soft computing and textile components (cf Berzowska 2 01 2 ,

In 2012, I became involved in wearables, and wearable systems the systems engineering community, providing costumes for Sensing I make wearable systems. This is a seeking in Weiser’s words, to become Dance, and led a small team of deliberately open statement; it has seamless (1991). They were understood textile and pattern cutting spe- evolved as the filed has progressed, to be a component part of the phecialists in the development of and as my own position has crystal- nomenologically transparent windows conceptual ideas concernparadigm, concealed beneath ing the body and emotion business suits or hidden in Dr. Sarah Kettley for the final stages of the plain view like a pair of glassSenior Lecturer project. This short cones. They were tools to be acted College of Art & Design and Built Environment, tribution to Discover the through, all the better for their School of Architecture Design and the Built Environment Movements presents the wearers to maintain status Nottingham Trent University theoretical concerns that through the accomplishment underpin my work as a of tasks. Although the early researcher in wearable developers of wearable technology, and describes how lised. Once I would have said ‘wear- computing, and indeed, ubiquitous our collaboration with the Ingrid able computing’, sometimes I revert to computing, knew their technology Kristensen Dance Group offers ‘smart textiles’, and often I use ‘wear- to be radical, they continued to new opportunities for design and able technology’. The word ‘wearables’ take a conservative approach to the reflection. is the most useful, encompassing my expressive potential of technology

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Orth 2001, CuteCircuit 2012, Buechley 2010), in providing theoretical critiques grounded in craft and cultural theory (Cranny-Francis 2008, Wallace 2004, Harris 2012), and in exploring through fashion and textile design potential expressive alternatives to the cyborg (Seymour 2010).

Wearables and human interaction Wearables are an important arena for playing out questions regarding human communication. They can’t help but highlight the noisy, expressive and very bodily nature of how we interact each other, no matter how ‘smart’ or computational they are. In their entanglements with the clothed body, they at once challenge the ‘body one’ (physical, sensual, intimate) and ‘body two’ (cultural systems of expression and communication) (Ihde 2002, Entwistle 2000). They become implicated in our dynamic kinaesthetic experience of the world (Candy 2007, Barrass 2008) at the same time as they become a part of our communicative palette in giving and g iv-

ing off information (Goffmann 1959).

In looking to understand what a group of female friends made of a series of wirelessly networked pendants in my doctoral research, I found myself removing computational functions rather than adding them. Each piece of jewellery was embedded with a small prototype computer ‘node’; a network of these could self-organise, allocating resources such as sensing and memory, and maintaining a dynamic representation of the whole network, a form of computational proprioception. These nodes were being designed to be extremely flexible and powerful – it was counterintuitive not to make use of their full potential, not least for their developers.

So why do it? Because my question was concerned with that small phrase – ‘make of’ – a creative act on the part of the wearer. If I designed the functions of the work, the women would be less free to make their own minds up about these new things in their midst.

ment, then we have to be aware of our tendency to revert to this model, and challenge it when we can. As Wolfgang Iser said (after RD Laing): “it is the very lack of ascertainability and defined intention that brings about the…interaction…it is this very interderminacy that increases the variety of communication possible” (1980 pp180-181).

When the normative model of communication in any system is one of noiseless reception of intended meaning, and perfectly matched understanding, there is no longer any need for further communication. This is as true for designed artefacts as for spoken language, and if our aim is to encourage engage-

Design more generally is also interested in the creativity of the user (Sanders 2006), but has at its heart an issue with non-directivity, being defined as the process of finding solutions, common ground and closure, rather than investing energy in opening new ques-

Memes in wearable computing: gaps, seams and engagement I have always been interested in the gaps that create a need for communication – Searle’s speech acts in HCI (Crampton-Smith & Tabor 2001), White’s undecideability (2004), Gaver’s ambiguity (2003), and Chalmers’ seamfulness (2003), all of which have drawn more or less on hermeneutics and reader (or reception) theory. These, wearables’ materiality, and common patterns of animal and human interaction have resulted in such recognizable memes in wearables as flocking, hugging, and camouflage and display.

Lars Christian Feit Andersen, Tore Asbjerg and Merete Smedegaard using the costumes designed at Nottingham Trent University in Sensing at Funen Art Museum.

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tions (Critical Design excepted). The ontology of gaps and seams is at odds with the hegemony embedded in the designer-as-expert model, which is difficult to shake off. The ways in which design has configured the people who benefit from its practices, that is, how it has represented users, tells the story of this changing relationship: consumers became users with the advent of personal computing, giving us UserCentred Design (UCD).

More recently, there has been a noticeable trend to describe design as ‘human-centred’, driven by new technology, sustainability, and the expansion of design’s ‘matters of concern’ (Latour 2008). The question I want to pose is: What if that human is reconfigured as a person? What if the quest to understand and know the human in Human-Centred Design fully recognized RD Laing’s assertion that we are invisible to one another and fully embraced the inderterminacy that is actu-

ally at the heart of human interaction?

What would Person-Centred Design look like? My guess is that the artefacts we produce would be more open, more like things than objects.

Wearables, and in this case, costumes, offer us a fascinating opportunity to explore such non-directivity through their materiality and the acceptance of seamfulness as a valuable way of working with human engagement.

Much of my work has been concerned with this question, but it is only now with the chance to collaborate with Ingrid and her dance company that I have been able to start exploring movement and the performance of bodily interaction with wearable concepts.

The costumes The wearable concepts were developed in collaborative studio work with tex-

tile designers (Martha Glazzard – knit; and Tessa Acti – embroidery), another jeweler working in mixed media and textiles (Fiona Hamblin), and a pattern cutter (Karen Harrigan). Following discussions with Ingrid and Anders, we worked on two emotions, anger and longing, in relation to areas of the body.

We were most interested in costumes that were neither ethnic expressions nor representative of a character in a given narrative, but as forms that might morph between garment, shelter and shared space. We worked on the idea that emotions are changeable and developed ideas around openings and stretch. Finally, six knitted garments and a selection of long knitted loops were delivered to the dancers.

Each garment could be worn in many ways, incorporating drawstrings, wire hoops and multiple openings for head and limbs; wrapping, looping and tying would define fit.

Tore Asbjerg and Merete Smedegaard using the costumes designed at Nottingham Trent University in Sensing at the opening of Odense Film Festival and Funen Art Museum.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

The exception to this was a garment for two people, joined by a long skein of fibres; this could be worn with bodies at right angles, or side-by-side, with the garments fitting each body tightly.

None of these wearables included computation, but we considered them to be interactive in their indeterminacy. As part of Sensing Dance, they build on the team’s earlier work with stretch sensors on the body, which explored aesthetics (Kettley et al 2011).

In devising these costumes, we assumed that the goal was for increased audience engagement. None of us had experience in working for dance, and certainly I had preconceptions about the choreographic process.

It was only once we began to receive feedback from Ingrid and the dancers that I began to realize that the costumes were playing a significant role in the development of the performance, and that the engagement of the per-

former with their materials (direction, choreography, narrative, scenography, costume) might be as important an outcome as that of the audience. Images of the group trying on the pieces for the first time show packaging lying discarded around the studio floor as if on Christmas morning – there is a palpable air of excitement.

Feedback from the dancers after the sensing Dance performances spoke of their unusual chance to develop story and character in response to the garments, and the way this sense of agency carried into performance to be reciprocated by the audience. Instead of ‘smart’ textiles and computational wearables engaging audiences through technology, it seemed that the non-directivity of the costumes had a powerful and complex effect on the relationship between performer and audience.

In conclusion Where does engagement happen? Very often we focus on the relationship between two parties only: two individuals, an individual and their machine (or smart pendant), or between viewer and object. But the more interesting questions for us today would be concerned with the reciprocity and empathic nature of experience when the creative engagement of the performer is deeply felt and reflected back by the audience. If it’s true that ‘when you smile the whole world smiles with you’, then what we have here is a promising way of designing for wellbeing.

References at: http://ingrid-kristensen.dk/publications/kettley_references.html

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Inger Kjeldsen Senior librarian for children, Varde Library.

Coordinator at ’Vardes Cultural Backbone’ that ensures that the children of the city meet different parts of culture each year from when they are 5 to 15.

Lars Christian Feit Andersen gives scented feathers to the audience during Magic Move for children.

C

hildren have many types of learning. Many children remember a lot through smell or taste. For other children music is an important factor of the experience, depending on their backgrounds and experiences. That’s why a dance experience combined with many senses is a fantastic experience, where the children not only open up to the dance, but they’re also affected by it. Their minds open up, empathy and knowledge is developed, when the children follow the movements of the dancers and actors’ ”stories” – the emotional effect changes according to the message of the dance: Happy, surprised, sad, scared.

It’s a whole experience that, when it meets in a child, leaves very great marks – develops the child and stimulates the sense of body language

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as well as strengthens the concentration, and the approach to dance is lightened in the future.

Children’s meeting with the sensuous stage

The Sense & Dance project. Children’s meeting with the sensuous stage art has been a great experience for both the children of Varde and their adults.

The library and kindergartens in Varde has previously had a visit from Ingrid Kristensen. For instance in 2001 Ingrid combined dance with rhymes as well as the children’s interest in the alphabet. At that time Varde experienced that when a professional dancer stimulates the children’s joy of moving and creativity, it creates a particular intense and qualitative experience.

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

We experienced that the children had a larger focus and concentration in the class. Even though we’re now in 2012 the children’s’ teachers still refer to the experience, method and effect – and more institutions continue to work from Ingrid’s instructions.

That’s why the institutions of Varde wilfully and excited agreed

to participate in the project Sense & Dance in 2011. There had been added more methods: Movement/dance, theatre, light, sound/music, story and decoration was now supplemented with senseous stimulus such as smell, taste and touch. All combined with spectacular effects such as a light dress. Once again several children’s teachers had prepared the children

What is it Sense & Dance is capable of in relation to the children’s’ development.

for what they were to experience, just as the children’s teachers talked about the experience when they got back to the kindergarten.

The result was overwhelming:

The many methods had meant that the children where totally captivated through the performance. The many invitations for interaction in the performance had meant that they interacted filled with trust and dedication – and that their feelings changed as the performance changed.

During the dance workshop there was a lot of focus and joy of dancing. In spite of the children’s limitations in communicating which associations the many stimulus gave them, the subsequent interviews shows that their experiences are connected to the movements, smell- and

taste experiences as well as sound and visual experiences. I especially found the children’s comments in connection with smell interesting – the smell helped create contact to previous experiences and feelings or moods.

Thank you for the experience!

”That smell is like the cinnamon buns at granny’s”.

I hope that the experiences from the project will affect the future of dance and theatre, and I will use this knowledge when the controlling group of Vardes Cultural Backbone is to put together the programme in the future.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co. danced on the danish day in World Expo Shanghai.

Here Christel Stjernebjerg interacts with the audience.

The tour brought valuable studies on the difference in how the European and Chinese audiences perceive the use of the senses in a performance.

About the meaning of senses.

W

hen I was young and interested the French philosopher and writer Jean Paul Satre, I was very interested in the fact that he, as I remember it, saw the human being as being with no substance, and that the individual persons’ personality was formed by the impressions he or she would receive or was capable of receiving.

I won’t get into the discussion here on whether or not it’s the whole truth, but it’s certain that we, through our senses, gain impressions and experiences, that are completely real, but can’t be explained through words.

If you’re excited about a piece of music, a ballet or a painting you’ll often find that words aren’t sufficient to share the experience.

The sense of smell is also connect-

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ed to our memory. I remember when I, as a child, attended dance classes at Hotel Prindsen in Roskilde (known as the post office in Matador); there was a very particular smell in the wardrobe, which I didn’t like. As fate would have it I held my 60th birthday at Prind-

Fuzzy Composer of El eco del Carlito, The Little Mermaid and many other works of Ingrid Kristensen

sen, a lot had been changed and refurbished, but the smell in the wardrobe was exactly as I remembered it, and immediately brought a bunch of memories back from the time and place.

You experience music through the

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

ear. The sense of hearing also leads to memories, and I’ve met musicians that just have to hear something once to be able to reproduce it flawlessly. Other factors are probably also relevant here, but without the sense of hearing it wouldn’t be possible.

When we experience a piece of art it’s done more through the senses than the brain in my opinion. The senses make us capable of experiencing what the brain can’t comprehend. They’re the most important sensors to navigate through art and life. That’s why it’s still so important to keep them stimulated - through music, dance, paintings and theatre. If we don’t remember this, the senses will slowly deterioate, and we don’t want that, do we?

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When using all of Your senses makes sense as a performer.

B

eing a performer in Ingrid Kristensen’s ‘Magic Move’ creation was a very interesting and giving experience. A unique project that challenges my artistic abilities: The focus is most definitely not just on the sense of eyesight / the visual product, but it requires use of all senses, for the audience as well as the artists.

It is impossible to conduct the piece by putting on the automatic pilot since we are improvising and interacting with the audience - depending on how they response - and therefore it challenges the ability to be fully aware/present as you’re performing. By implementing different smells, sounds and tastes alongside telling different stories with our bodies, emphasis is put on every mood & intention. Therefore our artistic movements have to be supporting what we smell, taste, hear, see and touch as much as those are supporting our movements.

Being an acrobat like myself, a process like this is challenging. It requires patience, openmindedness and a high level of contemplative reflection.

Coming from a more product oriented background, I sometimes tend to be slightly impatient in an artistic process - wanting concrete and set choreographies filled with advanced tricks that I can rehearse over and over again until I reach a sense of perfection.

But Ingrid is not looking for perfection, she is looking for those twisted, small cracks and flaws in human beings from where beauty suddenly arises. I cannot just do a quick back handspring into splits to fulfill her visions, I need to open up all of my senses for new ways of thinking, to experiment with different intentions that I am not always sure where will end up.

I need to see the beauty in the process, Movement is not just movement, not the product and to truly feel my it needs to be taken to another level, to movements in order for the audience be felt and reflected upon in a particu- to feel them. And I need to be fully lar context and it needs to have a story aware of my surroundings as I’m perto tell. Touching the audience is not just forming. This is part of the reason to on a metaphorical why I love worklevel: By breaking ing with Ingrid: Christel Stjernebjerg the fourth wall, we Her visions and are literally touchambitions inspire Akrobat and dancer ing them (i.e. with me, challenge brushes), facing me and develop them, looking them straight into the me, not only as a performer, but as a eyes and interacting with them. This person. She is pushing me out of my can be an intimidating move, both for comfort zone, twisting and turning the audience as well as for the perform- my usual way of thinking upside down ers. The private sphere between the two and expanding my imagination. And parts is removed and as a performer I she takes me to places where using all need to ‘risk’ something of myself in of my senses make sense. I can honestorder to receive response from the au- ly say that I have become a better and dience and for them to go along with more diverse artist through her and the experiment. projects like these.

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The experiences I’ve gained through dance in the urban space have given my town an extra dimension.

Jette Flinch Nyrop Architect MAA Odense Municipality City & Planning

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s I’m walking across Gråbrødre Plads I see the shadow of H.C. Andersen at the old post office. Green and blue light surrounds it. Music fits it perfectly, but I’m not able to define how. When I reach Farvergården at Kulturmaskinen I think of a night with wild cares, crazy dresses with light and a wonderful dancing Ferrari (at least that’s what is was in my interpretation). When I walk through the wet grass at the water in Kings Garden I feel the pouring rain and see light that’s carefully aligned with the twilight. The leaves fall down on the dancers and further onto the wet grass.

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

And when I walk pass the Art Museum of Fyn in my lunch break I smile as I remember the little, crazy chickens that were dancing among the audience and passers-by.

In the years I’ve followed Sense & Dance – and other dance performances, -companies and – projects – I’ve learnt that I don’t have to understand the plot in a modern dance performance.

In the beginning I tried to keep up, figure out the story, understand and interpret – and mostly with no luck and without quite knowing what to make of what I saw. That was until I stopped trying, and let my thoughts fly. I put my own story into the performance. It doesn’t always work, and the experience isn’t equally strong every time of course.

But it’s certain that every time the performance begins with a oddly smelling feather, lures the audience into a tango or is concluded with a piece of chocolate with a special taste, the performance sticks with me.

As an architect I’m used to working with the urban space, looking at buildings and noticing materials, surfaces and details. But the experiences I’ve gained with dance in the urban ’scene’ have given my town an extra dimension. A more sensuous dimension. A dimension that isn’t always visible, but in certain situations can create a reverberation at the place, that I can recall every time I pass by.

When the linking and integration of the city’s physical space and culture and dance is successful the experience of the town or city is much greater and relevant. The urban space is a meeting spot for more and other people than the daily users and passers-by. It’s more than a combination of beautiful concrete, smart benches and the right trees. And definitely more than a single profession can create alone. Thank you for that!.

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Niels Tradsfeldt

Interview with architect Johannes Rauff Greisen about

Concrete Dancing Feelings.

A concrete sculpture that explores the tactility and the volatility of dance.

C Photo left: Anders Vejen Andersen . Photo Rigth: Johannes Rauff Greisen

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an you explain what an architect can contribute with in the project Dancing Concrete Feelings?

The architect can bind the technical world with the artistic world.

It’s interesting, and fun to see that the artistic also gains from the collaboration.

At the Danish Technological Institute we also gain from it, since the things we learn from the creative processes we can transfer to more traditional projects. Not because we have to be artists, but because art, creativity and innovation is linked.

Can you describe the process from when you receive a dance until you have something finished?

Yes, the dancer is photographed; the photography is transferred to a CADtool, which is a three-dimensional

modelling tool. This is subsequently transferred to a milling program where you produce the milling. These millings are milled in the polystyrenes. The polyesters form the mold. This is then cast in concrete. The concrete is then pulled out from the mold, and that’s the finished product. So there’s a long way to go, but it’s a series of coherent operations.

Can you describe which thoughts are running a your head when you do such a thing? Which considerations do you have?

Among other things I consider what qualitatives we loose in the process, which we can re-establish in the process… And which we can add in the process. So the finished concrete project will be like the original vision,

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

however it’s a question of interpretation.

Can you give a specific example?

A specific example is – in this project – it is based on a dancer, who’s a three-dimensional figure. This has been reduced to a two-dimensional photography. Of course information is lost here and another thing is that the dancer moves – photography doesn’t.

We have to try and re-establish that in the picture, for instance you can pull an arm or push a head or change the angels, so we’re moving it into a threedimensional universe.

In the three-dimensional universe we have certain tools. These tools can be used to express what the dancer actually wants to express, so if the dancer wants to express fear – it’s an example form the piece – we can make a ‘fearful’ concrete surface. A surface that you of course can’t put on the dancer in the real world of dance.

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Robot milling of casting molds for Concrete Dancing Feeliongs at the Danish Technological Institute

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

Venice, Italy, December 7, 2012.

To Ingrid Kristensen’s Dance Theater.

– A letter about W A T E R and Sensing & Dancing.

These lines are written far away from Denmark.

For the time being I am working in Venice, this wonderful place - the City of Water the Queen of the Adriatic. Venice, here the feeling of being in strange, yet – at the same time familiarly surroundings, is a feeling that is also present in the performance at Ingrid Kristensen’s Dance theater.

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Previeus page - Anna Kinoshita in Metamorfose.

A

t the performances one can birth in 2013. No doubt that the Gernever be sure what to expect – man composer had a great influence except being shaken and filled on several arts. And at an iconographwith new experiences. In Sensing & Dancing it is exAnna Marie Fisker periences that go way beyond Associate Professor the classical dance, experiDepartment of Civil Engineering ences which explore not only Division of Food + Design dance but also the place and Center for Food Science, Design and Experience the viewer.

Aalborg University For some time I have had the hope and wish to cooperate with Ingrid Kristensen, to meet her strong experiences in the area of Sensing & Dancing in ic and aesthetic level the “Wagnerism” an architectural context. In my point phenomenon was an inspiration for of view, and I know Ingrid agrees, the visual arts, not just in Italy, but in all physical element for a project together Europe from the end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the could be water.

Water, being one of the four known twentieth century. It’s an overwhelmbasic elements which represent the ing experience to be in this newly substance of the world. Its physical opened exhibition which displays the form is needed to live, as one must work of two pioneers.

Let me move to the pioneer work drink or absorb in a way some form of it, as life - be it plant, animal, human or that Ingrid Kristensen is doing. Her sentient life – we all seem to depend to work with developing the involvement a large degree on this element in order of the senses into the room of dance, to survive. Water is often associated not only the physical but also at the with emotions, art, and especially time, mental level, is exemplary – and also sensing and philosophy. Water has the overwhelming. Her work is so eminent depth of a philosopher‘s soul and is the that we can be sure it will not only be of inspiration for many artists. But that great inspiration to others; it will unmakes them depended on its unpre- doubtedly have a big impact on dancdictable nature. Water gives much, but ing.

The Wagnerism was a true cul– as experienced in the Northern areas of Denmark, were a large number tural fashion, which in its diverse exof residents are occupied with fishing pressions – in literature, music and – we still repeatedly see how the water painting – enjoyed widespread and profound diffusion. Attending the excan claim back everything with ease. hibition at Fortuny and researching on ut let me start another place; let the Wagnerism, I cannot help thinking me introduce the Palazzo Fortu- that there are some parallels to Ingrid ny here in Venice, where the ex- Kristensen’s Dance Theater. hibition “Fortuny and Wagner -WagOften Wagnerism is seen as the nerism in the visual arts in Italy” mark musical theory and practice of Richard the bicentennial of Richard Wagner’s Wagner, characterized by coordina-

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

tion of all musical and dramatic components, use of the leitmotif, and departure from the conventions of earlier Italian opera. The characters and vicissitudes of Wagner’s musical dramas, Valkyries, Nibelungs, Parsival, Siegfrieds, and of course Tristan and Isolde - lately performed here in Venice at La Fenice occur repeatedly in the paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, illustrations and postcards during that period in both Italy and the rest of Europe.

In this field of growing something unknown, exciting and adventurous, Mariano Fortuny played a key role, as he, besides making scenography for Wagner settings, was the author of a “Wagnerian Cycle” with 46 paintings and also numerous engravings; I have to mention this, because the entire cycle is on display here in Venice for the very first time. The Fortuny Museum is the perfect place for an exhibition like this: Spanish by birth but Venetian by adoption, Mariano Fortuny was greatly influenced by Richard Wagner in his theatrical settings, who, in turn, had a very intense relationship with the city, and spent long periods of his life there.

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have been wandering about in this exhibition today. An exhibition that includes over 150 works: paintings, engravings, drawings and sculptures, as well as a documentary section with books, magazines, illustrations and postcards, all set up in the most marvellous settings – the home and studio of Fortuny. Among these fantastic and exclusive art pieces, we find Isolde’s Ascension”. The piece of art which is part of American artist Bill Viola’s major “Tristan Project” inspired by Rich-

ard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde.

In it, Viola does not offer a narrative interpretation of the opera’s plot but creates an autonomous visual world that is parallel to what takes place on stage. Viola’s film literally submerges the viewer into a body of water through which a light ray penetrates, gradually becoming ever more intense.

At one moment, its movement raises Isolde’s body draped in shining clothes from the depths, lifting it up high. The ray of light then dims just as slowly as it appeared, leaving the screen in total darkness.

As Bill Viola says himself, “Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is the story of a love so intense and profound that it cannot be contained in the material bodies of the lovers. In order to fully realize their love, Tristan and Isolde must ultimately transcend life itself.”

Viola nearly drowned in his childhood, and this extreme experience led to water becoming a recurrent theme in his work. For Viola, water, like the other forces of nature, are equivalents of powerful human feelings. This aspect may have attracted Viola to Wagner, for whom, according to Viola, “..musical instruments were the embodiments of the forces of nature - the non- human world in which passion is raw, surging, seething and uncontrolled - whether it’s the sea, a storm or a feeling you have inside you.” Viola makes these primary world forces visible. His slow video, accompanied by three-dimensional sound or thundering silence, brings the viewer into the space of all-encompassing contemplation.

Should Ingrid Kristensen and I move further on working with water as the element in a project, I want to draw

attention to how important it is to understand that water also is a source of impetus for many choreographers as well as scenographers.

I think, being here in Venice, in a city built on water, one cannot help to realize that water manifests itself in many ways on this planet. Lakes, streams, rivers, geysers and oceans can all be catalysts for a piece of choreography. The dancers can glean emotions from water. Water can be tranquil like a still cirque lake or wild like a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic and pounding the west coast of Jutland.

Visually the sundown or sunrise over water can be arresting and can give one a whole color scheme for costumes or lighting.

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ngrid Kristensen is already now an internationally renowned artist that has contributed to the emergence of Sensing in Dance. She and her team have been studying the horizons of sensory perception, considering it to be, I think, a means of self-cognition.

Ingrid Kristensen’s work with Sensing and Dancing focuses on universal human experience – birth, death, but much central the life of consciousness – and refers to a large body of responsibility, concern.

As an architect I have studied the history of the innovation of scenography, and in my opinion it teaches us that as new markets open, artists will draw on developing technology to feed the consumer’s need for spectacle and continual variety and novelty. Fatal is our understanding of how we can consider the impact of the scenographic practice on theatrical compositions.

Ingrid Kristensen’s Dance Theater is both an experimental Theater, but also a Theater that tries to understand theo-

ries from outside its discipline. In this manner new models for embracing multi-sensory experiences in the theater practice can be developed. What do these practices mean to society and how can they show us how theatre as a medium may function in the future?

To respond on these questions, I have been inspired by studying artists as Wagner and Fortuny. Firstly because their artistic expressions depend upon the pioneers work, they worked dedicated developing new ideas to a perfect form of art. Secondly they made art that set new standards for experiencing.

Many artist develops a maniera of his or her own and creates works that appear, first, as art objects; second, as products of a particular artist, and last (if at all) as representations of something. The unique art can by time become a part of the environment and have great influence, like Wagner and Fortuny.

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ow can we understand the ways in which these environments can be harnessed for use within live theatrical entertainments?

By supporting works as those Ingrid Kristensen do!

So, here I am in Venice, remembering the effect full performance of Ingrid Kristensen’s Dance Theater, close by, if not - on the Water, thinking about future projects with W A T E R as a subject for cooperation. Let us challenge Water and find out whether Water can be a friend or foe to dance with.

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Anna Marie Fisker

Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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Christian Have Creative Director of Have Kommunikation Board member in The Royal Theatre of Copenhagen, Wonderful Copenhagen, The Music Corps’ Concert Fund of the aof Festivals and Events in Denmark, media publication EKKO and Ballerup Superarena.

Growth strategies through culture and art W

e need a creative and cultural growth strategy as an engine for the development in society – a development that’s driven by innovation and creativity.

In this connection Sense & Dance is a great example of how to establish creative business partners outside of your own comfort zone, and how you can establish new results and recognitions – in your artistic expression and manifestation of it, but also in the partnerships.

Sense & Dance shows how you can leave your mark on other industries and other platforms. In Sense & Dance there’s also an understanding of

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how to open for creativity and innovation, which is so sought after today. When art begins to collaborate more with research, science and knowledge, and when it begins moving away from the comfort zone, then all of a sudden interesting synergies and possibilities which are described as real innovation– and which can also produce a significant change in the way people think.

Thereby you not only gain physical changes, but it also changes the way you think. And the latter is an absolute necessity if you want to get anywhere and the good intentions are to be settled.

Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co was performing “A journey through The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and The Match Girl� at the gala evening in Guangdong International Week on Cooperation and Exchanges.

Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance by Ingrid kristensen & Co

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Sense & Dance briefly.

T

he project has run from February 2010 until January 2013.

The project is funded by the Arts Council of Denmark, The Region of Southern Denmark and The Municipality of Odense as well a number of smaller sponsorships.

The project has consisted of a number of ‘research-performances’, audience studies, installations, videos, films and a sculpture.

We’ve visited and collected information and knowledge from a number of national and international art- and cultural institutions.

From the beginning of the project it has been supported by an innovation board consisting of 24 people with some of the highest expertise within the areas.

We’ve held meetings with a great range of capacities within sense research and dance. We’ve read, studied and discussed literature on the subject – primarily recommended by the innovation board.

Christel Stjernebjerg, Tore Asbjerg and Anna Kinoshita in The Danish Pavillon at World Expo Shanghai.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co . Discover The Movements - Added Value Through Dance

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Selected highlights, events and works.

Performances: Shanghai & Beijing Tour Magic Move and subsequent tour in Denmark.

Magic Move for Children and subsequent tour in Denmark.

Sensing at Funen Museum of Art A Journey through The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and The Match Girl in Guangzhou, China Test Projects: Presentation of Sense & Dance as well as the audience talks in Beijing and Shanghai in cooperation with the Danish Cultural Institute in Beijing.

Test Performances - The effect of sensory exposure in dance scenes tested on groups of men, women, children and blind people.

Performances with sensory stimuli and audience interviews.

Ballet Brunch, Fredericia.

The Children’s Meeting with the Sensuous Art, Varde, Kolding and Middelfart.

A total of approximately 400 audience interviews.

The study of audience interaction in Sensing by Valentijn Visch The costume study in sensing by Sarah Kettley

Installations and sculpture: El eco del Carlito – premiere on Research Day and the international Day of Dance, subsequent tour to Skanderborg, Copenhagen, Art Museum of Fyn and Augustiana.

Aura Dresses, Premiere at Art Museum of Fyn. A Taste of Dance, Premiere at Ikea.

Sensing at Art Museum of Fyn. Installations from Sensing, Augustiana, Sønderborg.

Concrete Dansing Feelings.

Meetings, collaborations and talks to: 8 Universities and numerous museums, galleries, companies and inspiring people and experts.

Events 4 Innovation Councils Final symposium for Sense & Dance.

Publication of: 92 newsletters and newscasts.

28 short films about the project.

920 images.

2 booklets.

1 report on the children’s meeting with the sensuous dance. a series of feature articles. a variety of input to Danish and international sector websites. Television stations and newspapers.

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Ingrid Kristensen & Co

Discover The Movements Added Value Through Dance Final Symposium for the artistic research project Sense & Dance 44

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