Gjenstand og fortvilelse (Object and Despair) (2025)

In Ingun Bjørnsgaard´s latest performance Gjenstand og fortvilelse (Object and despair) she examines human fallibility, in close collaboration with dancers Catharina Vehre Gresslien, Edith Strand Askeland and Ludvig Daae, and composer and musician Jan Martin Smørdal.

Attempts at correct behavior in fragmented social situations become the subject of vulnerability, but also subtle humour, opening up an experience of beauty in frailty.

Against a backdrop of vague collective concern, three figures struggle with the feeling of fault to be corrected, and the self-criticism that can easily take over.

With reference to, among other things, an etiquette manual from the 1960s and cinematic precepts, the performance explores the fine line of accepted ways of moving, and the discomfort that threatens.

In the methodological development of Gjenstand og fortvilelse (Object and despair), thematic studies of the social are fragmented and abstracted through Ingun Bjørnsgaard’s choreographic signature and movement structures, where the composition of uncoordinated form and opposites is key.

The performers find themselves in fragments of situations where they try to listen to the other and do their best. While they often have enough with their own challenges, they also await solutions outside of themselves. Masculine and feminine qualities are unequally distributed between the figures, and underlying, primal forces become all the more visible in the attempts at control.

The choreography is developed in close interaction between movement, music and a private scenic space, created by set designer Thomas Björk and costume designer Solveig Holthe Bygdnes. In the performance, Bjørnsgaard collaborates with composer Jan Martin Smørdal, known for his experimental approach to music as a result of social factors. Smørdal himself performs the music live on stage. Through everyday instrument-objects created for Object and Despair, the improvisational soundscape also emphasizes how sublime moments can arise with the possibility of imperfection.