[2016]

AGAINST THE CURRENT, GLOW
Cullberg Ballet commission

Brazilian choreographer Cristian Duarte creates his first work for Cullbergbaletten to new music created on theremin and synthesizers by Brazilian composer and musician Tom Monteiro. The solo Against the Current, Glow is created as four unique solo projects for Cullbergbaletten’s dancers Anna Pehrsson, Samuel Draper, Agnieszka Dlugoszewska and Daniel Sjökvist. The piece should be combined with another production on the repertoire for an evening performance.

The starting point for the solo is the idea of an expedition into the depths of a dancer’s sensory archives. In his work, Cristian Duarte has previously focused on the dancers’ training history and movements they have created in previous works. He has worked specifically with the idea of mashup between the former and new works, between what is passed and what is to come, and how this coexistence affects movement choices of the dancers and choreography.

“For this solo creation, I will be vibrating someone’s memory by blending his/her past and present movement patterns to flow into new sensation and perception currents. I wish to unlock those “archives” through a mashup current of chemical and electrical synapses, where gaps turn to be a concrete place to inhabit. An ocean full of minimal details, to be grasped and forgotten. When mind is muscle, there should be opportunity to make thinking processes more elastic to defy linearity, like an organism that could suddenly swim against the current to glow other life forms in the surrounding familiar skin.“, says Cristian Duarte on his new piece for Cullbergbaletten.

Choreography: Cristian Duarte
Music: Tom Monteiro
Created with and by: Anna Pehrsson, Agnieszka Sjökvist Dlugoszewska, Daniel Sjökvist and Samuel Draper.
Choreography Assistance: Thomas Zamolo
Lighting design: Niklas Jurander
Costume: Marita Tjärnström
Photography: Urban Jörén
Duration: 30 minutes each solo
Video on request with Cullberg production