Dancing the poetry of nature

With nature as her primary inspiration, Ingrid Kristensen creates her dance performances through evocative narrative images. Always with newly composed music and a stage language that unites contemporary dance with other media.

Ingrid Kristensen 
Born in 1965, Ingrid Kristensen grew up in Argentina, but has been living in Denmark since 1987. She trained as dancer at The National School of Ballet in Buenos Aires and has studied Gurkel, Limon and release technique. She has also studied choreography with Renate Schottelius. She founded Danseteater Ingrid Kristensen in 1994.

Artistic profile
Lyrical poetry, innocent humour, and subtle sensuality characterize Ingrid Kristensen’s dance performances, which are shaped as evocative narrative images.

Nature’s panoply of expression and image is Ingrid Kristensen’s primary source of inspiration. 
Her performances always contain references to natural landscapes, the rush of the wind, the gaze of a hen or flapping wings, which reminds the spectator of our human connection to and origin in unspoiled nature.  The core mode of expression is contemporary dance, but there is also inspiration from other art forms in her works – such as new circus, text and voice. Her most recent works focus on an exploration and stimulation of the senses through experimental lights and special scent designs. 

A recurring and essential part of all her productions is newly-composed music. Throughout her career, Ingrid Kristensen has developed a close collaboration with various composers, such as the Danish composer Fuzzy, and such tailor-made, expressive music make her performances a musical experience in its own special class. 

Current productions                  

Skyggen / The Shadow
(2006)
In a clear and stringent way, The Shadow evokes a beauty that balances between the tangible and the intangible.  The work is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Shadow, which deals with a shadow’s curiosity about the lives of human beings.  Shadow and light are brought to life in the performance through traditional shadow images and imaginative costumes, made of fibre lights, reminiscent of pulsing blood in living arteries. 

The Little Mermaid
(2005)
The Little Mermaid is a poetic solo work, a love poem from a world of water and air, reality and dream.  The performance depicts the mermaid’s thoughts and emotions on her journey toward greater independence.   The Little Mermaid exudes poetry and sensuality in which beauty is contrasted with powerful acrobatics.

There Is No Doubt about It
(2005)
There Is No Doubt about It is a grotesque, humorous piece in which an abundance of movement and expression overflows the boundaries of the stage.  An almost schizophrenic work with six roles for one dancer – in which the hen, the cock, the owls and the pigeons tell their own “true” story with an equilibrist mimicry that cannot help but provoke a smile. 

The Ugly Duckling
(2002)
The Ugly Duckling is a lyrical and, at times, humorous solo performance about a duckling.  Like a Gordian knot, he comes into the world stunted, yet healthy.  He moves awkwardly through a voyage of discovery ultimately to get a sense of his own strength and beauty.  The Ugly Duckling is a razor-sharp performance about the metamorphosis of a duckling.

All performances are aimed at adults and children over 5.

Review extracts

”With Raphael Solholm’s refined stage lighting, the supple Kim Mühlenfeldt, who has himself made the journey from the Danish Royal Ballet to the modern dance world, seems quite literally to grow from duckling to swan in this enchanting physical metamorphosis.”
Berlingske Tidende (DK), The Ugly Duckling

"Fibre light, diodes and dancers at a world-class level … An incredible effect to let the dancers themselves be the light.   They hovered like astronauts above the stage floor in alternating cold and warm colours, linked by an umbilical cord to the earth..."
Fyns Stiftstidende (DK), The Shadow

International tours

2007
May/June: Touring in China
July: The XXII International Hispanic Theatre Festival, Studio Theater of the Carnival Performing Arts Center (Miami/US).
October: Touring in Argentina and Brazil

2006
Damascus National Theatre (Damascus, SY)
Swaidaa Theatre (Swaidaa, SY)
EU Showcase (Chengdu, CN)