So we’ve played our dog show, Hundgöra some times now and will do more of it soon (we did it at Skogen i Gothenburg 25-27 Aug and will do it at Weld 27, 29, 30 Sep + 1 okt in Stockholm).
It’s been such a pleasure and such a challenge. By far the most clowny thing I ever did on a stage, and this in combination with the usual overlap between roles (performer, maker, producer) of free performing arts. We are proud of what we made, but also a bit like: Ok, what a ride this was, and what a great capacity for landing on our feet we have for being dogs.
Me and Britta Kiessling started to lab with this project in June 2021 under the title Illusionism and Dogs/Våra hundar at Köttinspektionen in Uppsala where we had a small residency. We had some vague thoughts about physicalities, power dynamics and the symbol of the dog in works like those of performance collective Signa, authors Amy Hampel, Kerstin Ekman and more. We counted on the result from our exploration becoming somewhat depressive, because that’s our nature. But as we tried things out on the floor, cute, clumsy and comical qualities came out. We started reading Halberstams Queer Art of Failure and looking at cartoons. We called in a real clown, wonderful Virginia Librado Gallego, to teach us to actually look at the audience and show our emotions.
We come from contemporary dance, and our earlier performance history mostly involves doing super specific physical practices, focussing on ourselves or the other performers rather than the audience. Now, we were rhyming, making boyband dances, licking bowl and constructing a two person dog with a mask that has a lot of magic too it – if you’re super aware of the audience’s gaze. Ziggi Willpower built all the amazing masks and costumes. He also became crucial to how we approach the audience, constantly reminding us of both visual and relational aspects of looking at someone.
The show is in Swedish, and is called Hundgöra (“doing dog”, means hard physical labor) nowadays. We’ve played it for an audience from 5 years old and up. The mix of ages really works. Grown-ups tend to focus on the more existential aspects of the material. Because it is, in it’s way, about being vulnerable in love and knowing that we will all die. Kids are very curious about the material aspect of the dances and our relationship to dogs. They usually linger after the show to ask us if we know any real dogs, how the costumes were built, if it is chocolate dough or poo we’re eating in the show, how the microphones work, and so on. The only age group we’ve excluded is toddlers, because there’s something about the big two-person dog-mask that seems to be frightening for some small kids. Our guess is that if you’re not old enough to grasp fiction, a dog that is big as a horse can become quite troubling even if it’s cute in the eyes of an adult.
Creds and description in Swedish:
HUNDGÖRA
För människor och fantasihundar från 5 år och uppåt
Föreställningens längd: ca 45 minuter
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Vi har gjort många hundar i den här föreställningen. Allihop är till er:
Roliga hundar och ledsna hundar. Små och stora hundar. Hundar som stannar, och hundar som sliter sig loss. Hundar som kommer och försvinner, hundar som är hungriga, som är med i popband, fornegyptiska hundgudar och hundar som ger dåliga råd. Rufsiga och tufsiga hundar. Hundar som älskar för mycket eller för lite. Hundar som inte gillar människor så mycket. Hundar som måste hålla sitt eget koppel. Hundar som måste vakta hela natten på dem de bryr sig om. Och hundar som äntligen kan somna när man kliar dem bakom örat. Era hundar, våra hundar, allas inre hundar.
Föreställningen innehåller dans och sång och lite prat, men har ingen historia, bara många olika hundar.
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Av och med: Tova Gerge och Britta Kiessling
Kläder, mask och tredje öga: Ziggi Willpower
Ljus, rum och bild: Ekaterina Lukoshkokva
Ljud: Elize Arvefjord
Clownkonsulent: Virginia Librado Gallego
Grafisk form: HK
Stenben av Smurrgos
Med stöd av: Kulturrådet, Konstnärsnämnden, Stockholms stad
Samproduktion: Nyxxx, Skogen och Weld
Tack till: Zebradans
fingervals 