BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE AND SUBMISSION

Baroque Architecture and Submission is a performance that investigates spaces: imaginary and real, in the body and in architecture. In it two dancers move slowly. They move from tableau to tableau and we do not know if they are afflicted by inhumane apathy, dumbstruck by a pleasure avalanche or blissfully following a heavenly light in their souls.

The performance is born from Choreographer Carima Neusser’s meeting with baroque Mexican churches. Through the spaces and images she investigates how the architecture of the church seeks out infinity, ecstasy and dissolution of the self. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s work has played a particularly important role in the development of the performance. She takes inspiration from his sculptures where spirituality and submission meet romantic ideals. The women that his white marble depict are at the same time visions of asceticism and intense sexual pleasure. They cannot be distinguished from one another – in it ecstasy, body and spirituality meet. In the performance members of the audience are invited to be an active part of the processual images that make up the performance. The audience creates, shape and experience the rooms and the tableaux. They become part of the work by acting as extras, sculptures, props and viewers – so that the boundaries between performers, audience and architecture become blurred.

Choreography: Carima Neusser.
Created with and performed by: Laura Oriol, Adriano Wilfert Jensen.
Host/Hostess: Rasmus Raphaëlle Östebro.
Music: Siri Jennefelt, Dungeon Acid.
Architect: Isabella Pasqualini.
Space attribute: Sofia Romberg.
Costume: Carima Neusser.
Assistant stylist: Lisa Pyk.
Hair and make-up: Amina Neusser.
Light design: Carima Neusser. Light technician: Anton Andersson..

Produced by: Vision Forum, Curatorial Mutiny, Danstationen, Malmö, C.off, Stockholm, Dansens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden.

Performances:
Dansens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden, March 2019
C.off, Stockholm, Sweden, October, 2018
Danstationen, Malmö, Sweden, 2018

Funded by: The Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grant Committee and Stockholm City Council.