Ingri Fiksdal Collaboration: Night Tripper

US PREMIERE

Night Tripper is a collaboration between dancers, musicians, a forest, and the sun. Choreographer Ingri Midgard Fiksdal, composer Ingvild Langgård and set designer Signe Becker explore the idea of nature as animistic, a place of both healing and destructive forces. The belief that nature is animated forms the basis for man’s first religions, and animism as a religion is still widespread on a worldwide basis. Our part of the world has seen an increase in animistic ideas in popular culture in everything from the revitalization of “The Lord of the Rings” to neo-religious ideas and alternative medicine, partly due to the environmental crisis and the fact that our lives are more isolated from nature than ever. When walking in the woods, however, this thought might seem very natural, especially at dusk. 

Night Tripper begins at the edge of a forest, where we will continue into the woods to a well-chosen location. During the twilight hour a combined concert and dance performance blends in with the birdsong. The performance is both a ritual and a social event that will take the audience into the night. Eight contributors, a number of instruments, installations and artworks and a local choir create the experience.

Ingri Fiksdal is a Norwegian choreographer and performer. Fiksdal’s work deals with perception and affectivity, and several of her pieces take shape as part performance and part live concert. The audience is always integral to the work, which aims to produce temporary collectives between performers and spectators. This notion of collectivity here refers to modes of attention and sensorial transference, rather than to interactivity. An ongoing theme within Fiksdal’s work is the ritual, and the rituals’ inherent capacity of transforming and ultimately transcending its partakers. The relationship between cognition and affectivity, and how they operate in perception and in production of meaning, is central. Fiksda often work in collaboration with other artist, such as vital artist and composer Ingvild Langgård/Phaedra and scenographer Signe Becker.

“...an extraordinary piece, simple yet powerfully affecting” – The Guardian

“Singular in its ambition and joyously hypnotic, there’s something mischievously cosmic and deeply moving about it. It’s also, in simple terms, very beautiful” – Gregg Whelan, Artistic Director of ANTI festival, Kuopio