Please hold (2023-2025)

Photo credit: Cecilie Penney

Please Hold is an exploration of the aesthetics of the formal and its intimate relation to the private through choreography. The work challenges the false dichotomy between the public and the private, as formal interactions often are tied to intense emotions and taboos. Inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Trial, the performance demonstrates how the formal aesthetics of authority—through clothing, room design, or the graphic layout of a letter—can be so intimidating that its mere signal value is enough to induce compliance. The bodies on stage shift between being perceived as human, “citizen,” figure, object, subject, as well as between being seen as authority or subordinate.

Artistic director, concept, choreographer and performer: Karoline Clasen Holland / Performers and co-creators: Denise Lim, Laura Spottag / Composer: Jakob Einar la Cour ("zack christ") / Developing: Armin Hokmi, Denise Lim, Laura Spottag / Scenography and dramaturgical consultant: Anne Elmholt / Scenographic consultant: Felipe Osorio-Guzmán / Initial artistic research co-produced by: HAUT Scene, Teaterøen, and MEGALAND / Supported by: Wilhelm Hansen Foundation

Link to text by Elia-Rosa Guirous-Amasse for Bad to the bone magazine

Link to text by Stina Strange Thue for Bastard Blog

Photo credit: Cecilie Penney