When Anna Vnuk saw the Japanese Sankai Juku's performance "Kagemi – beyond the metaphors of mirrors" at Dansens Hus in 2002, she was about to get up and leave. She found it so boring.
The piece started with the dancers standing at the back of the stage. Then it felt like they stood still for hours. I had time to get irritated, bored, get a pain in the butt, and even feel a little sick.
Time out of order
After what Anna Vnuk felt like an eternity, the dancers finally appeared at the front - as if from nowhere.
They had moved so slowly that I didn't see it happen!
She describes it as if the ensemble had turned back the clock and forced her into their own timeline. After the long process, she found herself in a new state of heightened reality.
It was like being forcibly forced into a meditation.
Vnuk says that just as she was getting used to the pace, one of the dancers stepped into a black circle. Here he moved at what felt like the speed of light.
It was a shocking and physical experience!
Space experience
Afterwards she was completely upset.
I had a crying fit and felt that "that's just how it is". The entire universe fits in one of our cells. Everything is inside us - and we are made up of trillions of cells. Sometimes, for a brief second, you can almost understand how everything is connected. Then it disappears.
Even though the work made such a strong impression on Anna Vnuk, she has not been inspired by it in her own work.
The almost religious way of submitting to the idiom is far from me. But I think about the performance quite often. And it always appears as an artistic memory I carry dearly in my heart.
I truly believe that art can serve as a building block in one's understanding of the world. Every little insight adds to who one already is.
This summer we ask artists, craftsmen and other cultural creators about which cultural experience has changed or shaken them in a decisive way. Previous participants include artist Helen Sjöholm and author Mikael Yvesand.
