We 18.9.2019, 20:00-21:00, MDT
Th 19.9.2019, 20:00-21:00, MDT
In the pre-christian north vikings believed in many gods and practiced magic. Their practice of magic was called sejd. Depending on who you ask, a galdr was a magical song or a chant and part of the sejd. Some believe these galdrs were used in battle in order to weaken the enemies swords and lower their shields or to help a woman through childbirth. Some believe that these songs were sung in a high pitched voice because the word gala, meaning falsetto, derives from galdr. Some believe it was chanted on a low almost inaudible tone.
There are many theories about the viking’s culture, customs and general way of life, but we can know very little for sure. Christianity did, has always done, a very thorough, bloody and effective job at erasing cultures. However a general consensus among experts and researchers seem to be that practising sejd was a female profession and any non-female who practiced it was deemed ergi. Ergi can be translated to “unmanly” and “sexually shameful”.
At the same time, Odin, the all-father, the god of war and the dead but also poetry, is considered the greatest sejdare (practitioner of magic). They knows 18 powerful galdrs and they can shape shift.
Odin is the one who experiences and the experience. They is the subject and the object, the one who gives and the one who receives. They has many names: Svidur, the one who burns. Svidrir, the one who is burned. Göt, the one who ejaculates. Jalk, the castrated. Ofnir, the initiator. Sváfnir, the finisher. Tveggi, the one who is two. Triggi, the one who is three. Fjolnir, the one who is many.
“I’d rather be beautiful than male” (Marc Aguhar)
“I am the eternal seeker of wisdom
Because I’d rather be wise than male
I remain tender and soft
Because I’d rather be soft than male”
(Text from the performance, written by Marcus Baldemar, inspired by artist Marc Aguhar)
Marcus Baldemar is a dancer and choreographer originally from Kiruna in the north of Sweden. After many years in Brussels, Belgium he is now based in Stockholm where he makes work, dances in other people’s work as well as teaches dance and choreography.
Marcus’ work wants to communicate a non-hierarchy between the emotional, the physical and the intellectual. One recurring interest is to find and/or create connections between a poetic/political language and a poetic/political body. This as an open, ever changing, question that accompanies him in the work. Author Leslie Feinberg once said “gender is the poetry we make of the language we are taught". In Marcus’ work he also sees movement and body as the poetry we make of the language we learn. He often works with text but in the end the dancing body is the main communicator.
His starting point is often queer history and storytelling as well as the ambition to queer history and storytelling.
In his solo GALDR (2019) he looked at nordic mythology through a queer lens and danced/told an alternative story based on the Norse god Odin. With Polari Speaking Sex (2021) Marcus was inspired by a secretive language spoken amongst homosexual men in England from the beginning of the 20th century until the mid 1960s. Together with his collaborators they worked on the idea of a secret mode for communication that made possible to safely live and share queer joy, pleasure and intimacy in public. In the same year, together with Finnish dancer/choreographer Eliisa Erävalo, he created his first ever piece for children (ages 4-7). The work is bilingual (Finnish and Swedish) and is called Markus Lär Sig Finska (Markus Learns Finnish). Finally Fantastic (2022) shows a togetherness that leads all the way to death. How dying coexists with the imaginative, the joyful and the intimate. The piece can be seen as a meeting place and communal burial ground where a collection of people of different generations do and die together.
Concept, idea, choreography, performance
Costume, set design, lights and mask
Co-production
Dans i Nord, MDT.
Residencies
Kulturskolan i Kiruna, MDT, Acusticum/Dans i Nord, Northern Sustainable Futures.
Supported by
Dans i Nord and Swedish Arts Council.
Thanks to
Viktoria Andersson and Maryam Nikandish for helping explore and create movement material.
Show More