Dance Pod Live: Danae & Dionysios

Danae & Dionysios are choreographers and dancers from Greece, as well as artistic directors of Small Axe dance company. Their choreographic journey counts collaborations with theatres and organisations such as Theater Rotterdam, Staatstheater Braunschweig, Skånes Dansteater, Onassis Foundation, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival and more. Individually, they have danced for companies and choreographers such as ZfinMalta National Dance Company, Akram Khan Company, the Hellenic Dance Company, Unterwegstheater and others. 

Musicians and composers Aaron Martin (USA) and Dag Rosenqvist (Sweden) delve into the lyrical atmosphere of poet Kawa Niangji expressed by choreographers Danae & Dionysios with ’In Wind or Dust’ following their previous collaboration on the dance piece ’Valley of the Hummingbirds.’

’In Wind or Dust’ finds Dag and Aaron utilizing elements from the natural world: wind and water. Alongside these field recordings, an acoustic instrumentation of cello, piano, concertina, banjo, ukulele, singing bowls, and other percussive elements provide an intimate and emotional sonic landscape that coexists with tape textures, drumbeats, pulsating static, and synths. The blending of these elements is intended to pull the audience into both the world of Niangji’s life and language and the movements carefully constructed by Danae & Dionysios, which are sometimes playful and at other times reflective, seeking out the essence of our struggle to come to terms with our existence with a sense of grace and purpose.

The poet who slept entangled in the net of his own testimony. A space defined by enclosure, an inner environment that transforms into a poetic horizon. It is a box, a case that confines the poet's body. It is the aperture from which emanates a poetic spatial function, images-memory of a departed life. A space of poetic experience accompanied by the roots of a tree that drips the water of immortality within the enclosed environment of a box. The soul is immortal.

The costumes are inspired by the characters found in Kawa’s poetry. Common people, politicians, farmers, deities of Chinese mythology and creatures with strong symbolisms. The layers of fabric covering the performers of the work are there not only to present each individual character, but also to enhance the feelings, ideas and connection our poet had with each one of them.

Exploring the dynamic of the group, we searched for the glue that brings everything together, a layer of mud and dust which gives the essence of something unburied from the ground, something hidden in a dusty notebook.

The lighting of In Wind or Dust takes its departure from a dark and enclosed space – the coffin, the underground, the night. From that space small light sources grow and develop. Light is breaking through the gaps of the space creating a poetical atmosphere for the piece to live in.

I’ve drawn inspiration from nature – how light passes through the branches and leaves in our forests, reflects on our lakes and creates shadows that follow us everywhere we go. But also from the nervous image of the lit city at night where the light can be both blinding and aggressive. The light is developed closely with the choreography and is being conducted by the music of Aaron and Dag and will hopefully help to guide the viewer into Kawa Niangjis poetry - ’Looking into the future from the depths of the black night’.