A rousing response for Silvia Gribaudi and MM Contemporary Dance Company in Grand Jeté. © Lars Opstad

review

CODA Festival Oslo: dance connects us

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14 min

A rousing response for Silvia Gribaudi and MM Contemporary Dance Company in Grand Jeté. © Lars Opstad

Ingeborg Zackariassen

18 November 2024

Connecting us through fire, rain, blood, haircuts – and big jumps

The CODA Oslo International Dance Festival is a good example of how dance can act as a bridge between strangers, creating unexpected connections, adding to our perspectives and strengthening the role of movement as communication.

Its 22nd edition, 11–19 October 2024, turned Oslo into a welcoming, diverse meeting place. During the three days I attended (11–13 October) I saw how stark contrasts between various choreographic approaches and venues created a rich and multifaceted experience, and I left with a sense of joy that the artform of dance managed to establish itself at the centre of it all, a bonfire from which ideas could spark that showed, in concrete ways, how connection through movement can challenge norms and communicate beyond language.

A brief CODA history

CODA Oslo International Dance Festival was initiated by choreographers Lise Nordal and Odd Johan Fritzøe in 2002, and developed into the largest contemporary dance festival in the Nordics. During the directorship of Stine Nilsen (2017–2024), the festival developed a diverse and inclusive artistic focus. Nilsen’s background with Candoco, the UK’s pioneering company of disabled and non-disabled dancers, has given the festival a unique profile. As Nilsen said in 2020. her approach has been to programme diverse artists, while leaving their artistic subject matter up to them. ‘I’m not so interested in being representative in terms of content. It’s more about an awareness of who gets to be on stage, not what they represent.’

This year, as Nilsen takes up her new role as director of Dansens Hus in Oslo, she passes the CODA torch to Birgit Berndt, whose background includes work as a dramaturge, audience developer, producer, administrative leader, curator and artistic director. Since 2010, Berndt has been living in Sweden, where she has developed the infrastructure for dance in Jönköping municipality, worked as a manager for Danscentrum Väst in Göteborg, and the last ten years as artistic director for dance at Norrlandsoperan, where she has contributed to finding new ways for dance and its political dimension, establishing strong networks internationally, nationally and regionally.

In a recent interview with Danseinformasjonen, Berndt said of CODA: ‘Working for a whole year to create a meeting place that feels relevant for artists and audience alike, in a world that is in constant transformation, is both challenging and incredibly exciting. A festival can be a melting pot and a good opportunity to collect artists and audience in one place and give everything a new context.
When asked what she would wish for the audience to get as a general impression, she replied, ‘That is difficult to say without taking words from the mouth of Stine Nilsen, as she is the one who put together this year’s programme. In the multiplicity of bodies and locations there are many things that tie the programme together. One is an expression of joy in using the body as an instrument for communication.’

Holding hands in the pouring rain

Walking towards Kulturkirken Jakob (a church devoted to performance and other cultural forms) I could see dark, looming clouds hanging low on the horizon. As I was poorly dressed for the occasion in my barely water-resistant coat and naïve lack of umbrella, I was kindly handed a CODA-cap by artistic director Birgit Berndt, with the fitting inscription ‘There’s no recipe for dancing.’

Mia Habib’s Samkome (‘coming together’ in Norwegian) is an act of participation, a collective yet intimate ritual of sharing grief. We stood in a circle around a fire as songs of lamentation in multiple languages were sung by Sara Baban, Lynn Claire Feinberg, Jassem Hindi, Beate Esthersdatter Myrvold, Mariama Ndure, Marina Popovic, Marianna Sangita A. Røe and Rola Srour. We each wrote down a sentence from our own personal grief on a piece of paper, which was later read out loud by someone else, who then burned the paper in the fire.

Samkome, a ritual of grief by Mia Habib. CODA festival 204. © Lars Opstad

The physicality of this collective ritual was so minimal that when movement did happen, it resonated even more strongly. On this grey day, this simple yet powerful format enabled something as unusual as a deep connection with strangers.

To me, Samkome was a shared exercise of empathy, a moment where my personal loss interwove with the universal. Standing there in a large circle, listening to each other, it became apparent that every person had a deep relationship to grief, and this simpleritual acted as a powerful reminder of our shared human condition. Looking around, I could see rain mixed with tears running down the cheeks of strangers. A sense of solidarity grew as we stood side by side in the rain, watching the fire being fed with our sentences.

Later, as my icy cold hands grabbed onto my neighbour’s soaking wet woollen mittens, I could sense a feeling of unity and a strong sensation of hope that stays with me – a beacon in these dark times of polarisation and despair.

Habib is a lot more than just a choreographer. In the Norwegian public sphere, she has been involved in discussions on artistic freedom and racism related to the independent performing arts field, in addition to being one of the driving forces behind Jewish Voices for a Just Peace, a network of Jews and people of Jewish background in Norway who support a free Palestine. In her interview for CODA she says: ‘In a time characterised by global conflicts, wars and atrocities, Samkome is an invitation to stand together with emotions of loss, despair, anger and grief. It’s so important to engage in goal-oriented, political work, but also to stand in solidarity with other human beings.’

Diverse movements and Dancer scores

The name Dissimilis comes from Latin and means ‘different’. It’s an organisation which works to improve quality of life for people with developmental disabilities and functional impairments by offering cultural activities that provide positive experiences, mastery and recognition. X-ray is a self-governed, inclusive, supportive youth culture house in central Oslo. Performers from both Dissimilis and X-ray worked with ‘scores’ (movement instructions” alongside dancers from Janina Rajakangas Project for the performance Dancer. Despite only having worked together for a few days, the temporary collective displayed an evocative sharing of movement beyond language during an intimate work-in-progress showing at Voldsløkka Skole.

Janina Rajakangas Project, Dancer. © Lars Opstadt

The audience were seated in a circle as the dancers entered,dressed in everyday outfits and each with their own unique movement quality, each with a focused commitment and an infectious joy for movement. The result was a beautiful negotiation between individual and collective, where seemingly simple exercises of leading and following drew profound parallels to society and democracy as each new wave of movements unravelled.

Rajakangas’ Dancer score is based on her personal experience with neurodiversity. In a recent interview she said: ‘Dancer deals with hierarchies, group formation, exclusion, polyphony and being a dancer. It started from a need to be able to do more diverse and inclusive work as a choreographer. I live now and have lived in my childhood in a neurodiverse family. These experiences have raised the need to process the concept of being a dancer in a neurodiverse working group. I think that dancing as a profession is also a way of life and an alternative, it is not defined by diagnoses, academies or institutions.’

Quirky demons delivering a new sense of self

If I went in to CODA thinking that a haircut is nothing more than a superficial update of one’s look, I came out with a different feeling. In Cosmetic Demons – A Choreographic Salon, choreographer Sindri Runudde started out guiding the audience through an exercise of head movements, designed to activate the small hairs inside the ear, to stimulate spatial awareness, balance and focus.

For the occasion, the small stage of the Opera house had been turned into a performative hair salon, where three pre-selected and initiated audience members were invited to the stage. After each had shared a personal hair anecdote, they were introduced to a duo consisting of a professional hairdresser and their very own cosmetic demon. Yes, you read it right: demon.

At first glance, the three brilliant dancers, hair slicked back and dressed in snug black jeans and t-shirts, could pass for interns at a fancy hair salon. But as soon as we realised their eyes were pitch black, and from the moment they (with consent) ripped out a single hair from their designated audience member, we knew these demons meant business. Their collective body language started out with gargoyle poses on the floor and black liquid dripping from their open mouths, but soon transformed into fleshly unisons. At one point, one of the hairdressers joined in, adding to the composition with a groovy, lanky solo. A highlight was ‘lap dance on distance’ an intimate song crooned by a demon on all fours, his black lens-covered eyes staring into your very soul (if you have one), followed by uncanny lip-syncing.

Cosmetic Demons, by Sindri Runudde at CODA festival 2024. © Lars Opstad

In this strange and wonderful universe, the shedding of audience members’ locks became a complex ritual that involved several time warps, sequinned unitards and nightclub aesthetics, and seemed to take on symbols of a temporal moving on, a letting-go of one’s old self.

The strip lights over the salon stools made me flick between associations of hospital visits and night life. When the black apron capes were swapped for pink ones, to the song ‘Everybody’s free (To feel Good)’, there was a sigh of relief through the room as the three audience members, with their fresh haircuts were guided back to their seats by their demons. Not a hair was harmed in this charming collage of memories and dreams.

Jumping for joy with Silvia Gribaudi

Silvia Gribaudi’s Grand Jeté, in which the choreographer performed together with MM Contemporary Dance Company, displayed a humorous investigation of the daily grind of ballet training, an explosion of bubbling energy and youthful power.

‘Push, push, push! Love, love, love!’ The energetic group of ten young dancers loudly proclaimed their passion for dance while eagerly demonstrating the meticulously structured exercises of a ballet class. Gribaudi acted as a bridge to the audience, an animated translator enthusiastically commenting on the dancers’ efforts, occasionally joining in the exercises but mostly explaining how all this efforts are designed to ultimately enable the grand jeté, one of ballet’s most impressive and seemingly gravity-defying jumps, where the legs extend into a split in the air, only to land again, gracefully, ideally without a sound.

Silvia Gribaudi and MM Contemporary Dance Company in Grand Jeté. © Lars Opstad

The ballet world can be a deeply problematic sphere, but the message of Grand Jeté shows a flipside. Although it comes across as mainly a joyful celebration of human capacity for impressive movement, it also offers inclusion, because as Gribaudi explained later in the audience talk, the ‘jump’ is also metaphorical: ‘Young people are those who can make all humanity take a leap.’

In this work, there was no doubt that the vigorous passion of the young dancers was lifted to new heights by Gribaudi, whose own vibrant stage presence, as an older but no less passionate performer, repeatedly made the audience laugh out loud – and jump in their seats.

71BODIES

Through six performances over three days at MUNCH Museum, guest curator Daniel Mariblanca and his transgender inclusive dance company 71BODIES presented Made in Self, a curated concept consisting of three independent solos and one duo, a collaboration between Mariblanca and four performers who work within contemporary dance and extreme performance: Oliver Sale, Jean-Baptiste Baele, Barry de Bruin and Maria Perkances.

In the blackbox at MUNCH, Mariblanca performed a sensitive yet extremely powerful duo with Jean-Baptiste Baele (artistic director of Nabinam Dance Company) in which an embodied form for transformation took place; a balancing act of holding, merging and morphing. The tender sensuality and heightened level of trust and intimacy remained a guiding element in the contact between them, while their dance simultaneously became a manifestation of extraordinary strength and endurance, as the two tirelessly lifted and carried each other, seemingly through invisible obstacles. Their stark nudity and slow, sculptural movements came across as self-evident and natural, a contrast with the audience, dressed in warm autumn clothes and sitting remarkably still in the dark room.

Daniel Mariblanca and Jean-Baptiste Baele, Made in Self programme. CODA festival 2024. © Lars Opstad

The solo that I caught, a 50-minute extreme performance by Maria Perkances caused several audience members to look away, others to leave. Those of us who stayed had an intense experience far out of the ordinary. In fact, this performance was like nothing I have ever seen.

As described in the programme, Perkances uses his body in a transgressive way, attempting not only to exorcise his own suffering – caused by his spinal cord fracture and left heel distortion – but to go beyond the limits of his resistance. In acts of self-governed infliction of pain, Perkances showed stoicism beyond belief. I managed to count 13 times of forcefully pushing needles through the skin of his face and chest, but it was probably more. The audience were seated behind him, catching the frontal details of his actions through a mirror.

The fact that we were seated in a blackbox almost managed to transform the blood running down his determined face into make-up, as silk bows in pink, blue and red were literally sewn into his body like a corset. But this performance broke the expectation of the institutional. The four walls of the MUNCH museum didn’t offer any illusions. We all knew it: this is live, this is reality.

The soundtrack played an important role, in which slow breathing and muted screams created an immersive emphatic response in me: at times the awareness of my own raised heartbeat became almost unbearable. Perkances claims that only through the catharsis of performance and ritual is it possible to escape the obstacles imposed by society and the tyranny of gender. No doubt, he exposed one powerful way of doing it.

An overall impression of CODA that sticks with me is that all these diverse expressions of movement put the power of the human being at the centre and stimulated the senses in a way that only live performance can – a contrast with our increasingly AI-saturated digital world. It’s a direction that will surely be taken forward by CODA’s new director Birgit Berndt, who says: ‘We currently find ourselves in dark times in the world, and I think it’s important to find joy and strength in the body. Not to turn away from darkness, but to access the power to take space in society with all kinds of bodies and with a clear political stance.’ ●

All translations of quotes from interviews in this article are by the author