Where
The Place, 17 Duke’s Road, London
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Dance artists Rachel Blomberg and Maria Lothe have been improvising and creating works for five years, both in Norway and the UK. In (DI)VISION the duo works with cardboard boxes as an object describing the many influences of society, from structure and rules, an external factor suggesting how to behave and interact with people and surroundings.
All photos: Peter D. Hypher
Both Rachel Blomberg and Maria Lothe have studied contemporary dance at the School for New Dance in Oslo and Trinity Laban in London. They are also members of Backspace Collective, a collective of dance artists from Europe.
In description of the play, the two artists says, “You can, without knowing it, be influenced by others thoughts or values. By using cardboard boxes, initially as a visual metaphor of how society puts people in boxes, we like to explore the relationship with the boxes, physically and mentally and the representation of them shifting within the structure of the piece.”
According to dace artists Maria Lothe and Rachel Blomberg (DI)VISION plays out as a wonder between humor and darkness, conflict and vision. Photo: Peter D. Hypher
Among the questions the two dancers wish to explore are whether there is equality between everyone, no matter culture and background? What are our own values? What is normal and what is different? “These big questions were something we wanted to explore through movement and choreography. It is up to the audience to decide what they see, but the most important factors for us are to use vision, humor, to have fun and to show the audience that our work comes from an honest and personal place,” the artists say.
From her training and through several collaborations within different fields of performance art, Blomberg is a contemporary dance artist that both creates and performs. Blomberg’s choreographic research often follows intuition and the transfer from spontaneous ideas to how those would work in practice. improvising and creating works for several years, and are also members of Backspace Collective. They share an interest in a personal and individual approach to improvisation, and enjoy sharing dance with a Scandinavian touch across countries and public spaces
Maria Lothe is interested in the complimentary aspects of dance and her choreographic research includes use of voice, object, film and text as a way of generating movement. Apart from contemporary dance/performance art, Lothe has an interest in filmmaking, music, environmental issues, human rights and yoga.
