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What is perceived as male, masculine, manliness? Playing many-facetted into the wonderment of what a MAN can be, the project is a balancing act between acts and perceptions. Created originally in 2011 as a solo for male dancer Daniel Racek, this work expands in 2019 into a double solo danced by a male and a female dancer.

What are we looking at, how do we perceive the qualities of a man, a woman, the mixt and inbetween?

“What is private is private. What if I don’t identify myself only of being gender?   I go for HUMANS: No matter what shape a human takes, first and foremost this is the final name of the game, to be HUMAN. Me, if I could choose, I would not be gender at all. I would like to be perceived as SPIRITED. I refuse to be categorised male or female, I think I am both. AND more. Moving all the time. Hard to define. Never to be quite clear. Restlessly shifting. Don’t hold me down. I am nobody`s business – right?”

Karen Foss, a Norwegian based dance-artist is wanting for people being left in peace and given respect for their personal preferences and inclinations. (Exempt use of violence.) The equalized equilibrium could be free of gender and full of humanity..?

The dance work she is interested in – is the flow of human bodies moving – unsexed, ungendered – just the wonders of the human. Being human.

A lucid fluidity found in dance and its choreographic shapes play a large part in the artistic focus. Like Mind, like Body and with Fire of the Heart.

CREATIVE TEAM: 

DANCERS: Martina Hajdyla Lacová, Daniel Raček
CONCEPT AND MOVES: Karen Foss, Daniel Raček
MUSIC: Jørgen Knudsen
MUSIC AND TEXT man shape/2019: Lærke Grøndved
MUSICAL ARRANGEMENT AND PRODUCTION: Leon Muraglia
TEXT: Leon Muraglia, Lærke Grøntved and Karen Foss
LIGHT/SPACE: Sigve Sælensminde, Katarina Ďuricová
FILM: Vibeke Heide
PRODUCTION: kf Quiet Works, MESA/ Karolína Hejnová
PUBLIC FUNDING: Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Foundation for Performing Artists, Ministry of Culture Czech Republic

Photo: Vojta Brtnický