Audacious Cross-over Artist

Erik Pold, choreographer, director, performer (b. 1971). Trained as a choreographer and dancer at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam (1998). Has worked in Denmark and abroad with innovative productions that intersect with dance, Live Art, performance art and video.

Artistic Profile
Pold creates subtle, original and ironic performance concepts in which the performers meet the audience in manner consistent with the performance’s concept. For example, when the audience expects to walk into the auditorium to see a performance and, instead, steps onto a red carpet in which they are received as if they were on their way to the Oscar awards. The performers applaud and encourage everyone to clap for others coming in.  Right from the beginning, the audience gets a very concrete sense of how frightening success (the theme of the show) can be.

And it is characteristic of Pold’s concepts that the audience is manipulated into situations in which they feel the consequences of the performance’s issues.  He typically deals with art – its role in society and its premises.  His radical approach to the themes he deals with takes sustenance from the fact that it is not intractable but, rather, marked by a disarming and well-placed humour.

Pold participates in a variety of collaborative efforts, and his collaborative work often has an international character – including collaboration with the German-British Arts Collective Gob Squad in Berlin. Pold is a major driving force in the Danish groups LiminalDK (run together with Adelaide Bentzon) and NORPOL (collaborations with Daniel Norback).

Current Productions

Ensemble Works

Hang the DJ
(Premiere: May 2007)
A piece in a club about clubbing. Hang the DJ” is a performance created as a DJ-set in a nightclub. The Plot takes place on the dance floor, behind the DJ desk and in the bar, where the audience is gathered to listen and participate in a “Live Art” Experiment, that looks just like a Saturday night in a club.
Produced by: LiminalDK
Language: mixed Danish and English, adjustable.

The End
(2006)
It starts in the foyer when the audience is staged in a disaster situation: the theatre is blown up, and Swedish TV is on its way up the stairs. The performance continuous to explore the nature of “endings” in Theatre and in life, using different medias, in an effective manner and includes the ending scene of Hamlet, and inspiration from disaster movies.
Produced by: LiminalDK
Language: Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

NV® (New Value)
(2006)
New Value is the follow up to the Succesful “Børsen Roadshow” and is a staged opening ceremony for the new franchise of NV® shops around Denmark. NV® is a new set of values, a new religious movement.
The piece is an ironic comment on the Danish Governments declared “war on values”, and at the same time comments on the rebirth of religion in contemporary society.
Produced by: Åben Dans Productions
Language: Danish and English

Ondskabens Landskab / The Landscape of Evil
(2005)
A rock opera in which the audience is forced to choose sides and take up the struggle, as NORPOL leads them into an imaginative and, at times, malicious journey in music, words, dance and images.  There is a drum set in the middle of the stage with smoke effects and strong lighting, the image of a heavy rock concert.
Produced by NORPOL
Languages: Swedish and Danish

Success
(2004)
Performed in a showroom in which Success is treated as a product and slick sales pitches reach a crescendo of orgiastic chaos.  The audience endures self-promoting thank-you speeches and are taken on journeys through tropical landscapes, magnificent architecture and postmodern Christian hip-hop culture.
Produced by LiminalDK
Language: English

Review Extracts

“The wag Erik Pold has become the most exciting performer here at home… Pold is, without doubt, the mastermind behind the performance, and his magnum opus Success may be seen as the forerunner of the road show. We encounter him here in the road show’s most intelligent role in which he multiplies himself and, with delightful detail, exploits the possibilities of the stage and digital media.  This shit sells itself.”
Politiken (DK), Børsen Roadshow

“Even in the foyer, a well-groomed ‘suit’ (Erik Pold) from ‘Art & Business’ sells three types of membership: VIP, VIP plus and VIP plus Gold. Three different curves are graphically illustrated, showing the type of experience the three memberships provide.   VIP is at the bottom with a flat curve. VIP plus gets a high, broad line.  And VIP plus Gold is at the very top and has a 3-D quality.  With voice and body language and with parody and splendidly understated charm, Erik Pold indicates that this is a top-notch salesman.”
Aarhus Stiftstidende (DK), Børsen Road Show

”Erik Pold’s own entertaining performance – including a grotesque, self-reflective speech on the concept of performance and all its affiliated terms, such as postmodernism, post-postmodernism, distancing irony and, of course, self-reflection – was a central and magnificent contribution with a keen sense for the criteria of success in our day.”
Berlingske Tidende (DK), Success

International Tours

2007
-May 29 + 30, Nottingham Playhouse, (Nottingham/UK), guest performance in Gob Squad's "Kitchen"
-June 1 + 2, Fierce Festival, (Birmingham/UK), guest performance in Gob Squad's "Kitchen"
-June 8 + 9, Théâtre Le Quai Angers, (Angers/France),  with Gob Squad's "King Kong Club" 
-October, Production at The Flea Theatre, New York City, (DaNYarts), "Seating Arrangements"
-Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, (Budapest/ Hungary)


2006
-Liverpool Hope University (Liverpool/GB)
-Museu Serralves (Contemporary Art Museum) (Porto/PT)


2005
-Nationalmuseet for konst (Oslo/NO)
-Hebbel Am Ufer 1 (Berlin/DE)
-Donau Festival (Krems/AT)
-Kampnagel (Hamburg/DE)