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“On a planet from another time and space there lived a fictional people that tried and failed to respond to their environmental crisis. Four land-formed mages intervene to save this world from its death by ending the perception of time as linear.”

About the Residency

During their time at iC4C, Stefan Jovanović and collaborators Katye Coe, Maëva Berthelot, Ophelia Young and Shannon Stewart undertook a research & development residency for two weeks, developing the first phase of Stefan’s new production entitled Drumming in the Hall of the Mountain.

The project sees its future as an out-door and site-specific performance intervention merging choreography, live-music, installation art and virtual reality (VR) to address one of the most pressing issues of our time.

The scenography designed by play architect Jack Hardy, consists of a large 30m3 steel mountainous machine, 3 meters in height, which had been slumbering over winter, awaiting to be awakened by a team of live collaborators. Together, the artists in residence explored how live dance met the assemblage, de-construction, re-construction and mechanisation of this robust sculpture and fifth protagonist of a modern-day folkloric fable.

In addition, the ensemble explored the embodiment, inhabitation and tactile evolution of four costume-spirit-sculptures designed by garment artist Curtis Oland. Drawing from his Lil’Wat indigenous heritage, Curtis’ creations draw upon Canada’s (Turtle Island’s) mountains and materials, animal waste and spirits. The ambition of this first research phase was to explore where materiality meets movement, where the somatic meets the scenographic, and where the ancestral meets the artistic and the systemic.

Drumming in the Hall of the Mountain invites you to consider what togetherness can be when we occupy space and time virtually as well as physically. Using new technologies together with archetypes and rituals, it collides realities on different levels: old and new technologies, real and virtual worlds, art audiences with passers-by, present with future time.

As part of Stefan’s residency, a work-in-progress of Drumming in the Hall of the Mountain was shown as a public sharing on 12 May 2021.

Future Plans

The production’s longer-term ambition is to layer live performance and dance with a digital world outdoors. As a viewer you will be transported to experience the fantasy world of Drumming in the Hall of the Mountain on an embodied level, stimulating your felt sense, empathy and resonance with each other and ultimately with our beloved land.

The piece premiered in the summer of 2022.

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