Six Litres of Air
#choreography #performance #collaboration
Cupboarddances collaboration
Choreography and performance: Katja Nyqvist
Composition and performance: Jacob Shirley
’Six Litres of Air’ explores the idea of breath as a rhythmic stimulus for movement and sound. It is a collaboration between a dancer and a musician playing the electric cello. Both performers challenge each other through the use of expansions and contractions in order to create a sound and movement landscape which enfolds the audience.
Performed at Dreamnight, The Place, The Harrison, Blue Elephant Theatre, Roehampton University (2007-2008)
“Six Litres of Air is a mesmerising and strangely soothing lullaby in which Cupboarddances deftly overlay slivers of sound and flowing motion. Nyqvist sinks into foetal submission as Shirley’s score builds to a panting urgency, a crescendo bold in its stillness and simplicity. This is a self-possessed and articulate celebration of the most essential of life’s rhythms.”
“Together with cellist Jacob Shirley, Nyqvist builds a hypnotic work that’s quietly compelling without ever becoming dramatic: her minimal, repeated phrases accumulate like layers, Shirley’s music blooms slowly, filling the air with sonorous sighs. It’s a work to breathe into. Small-scale, but a breath of fresh air.”
