A meeting place for dance, fiction and site-specific performance

Kassandra Productions tests the boundaries of the performing arts – and moves beyond them.  Visually strong concepts and absurd humour characterize the theatre’s performances. 

Annika B. Lewis
(Born 1965), trained at Larssons Teater Akademi (SE), Instituto di Arte Scenica (IT) and Scut/Gitis (RU). Works as a freelance choreographer and performer with, among others, Joao Fiadeiro/Atelier RE.AL  (PT) and LabLoki (IS). Founder and director of Kassandra Productions since 1998.

Artistic profile
Kassandra Productions is a platform for interdisciplinary encounters and experimental dramatic art in the intersection between dance theatre and performance art.

The pieces test the boundaries of the dramatic arts – and moves beyond them with a complex dramatic idiom.  The theatre creates open-minded, unexpected concepts with stringent, visual expression that embraces the trivial and the philosophical.

Wry fictions meet in unexpected universes, when the theatre explores the themes of fiction v. reality and private v. public. With a liberating, absurd humour, Kassandra Productions tackles major social issues such as perception, identity and gender.

Central to the theatre’s work is the use of untraditional dramatic space and site-specific productions. Kassandra Productions has mounted performances in such unusual places as camping trailers, private apartments, abandoned factories and on the Internet via live streaming – in addition to traditional theatre space.

Current productions 

Full Body Treatment
(2008)
The confessions of a dance crooner.  The mysticism of the Orient, a hermaphrodite dancer, live video and newly-composed electro-pop music are some of the ingredients in the theatre’s upcoming dance performance. To be performed in 2007 as a work-in-progress under the title BodyRUB.

XpositionREVERSE
(2006)
An interdisciplinary chamber work exploiting the Internet about position and identity. Performed live simultaneously in an abandoned cellar store in central Århus and in an archive office for the dramatic arts in Gothenburg, Sweden, and broadcast via live streaming on the Internet.  The performance is the third part of the network project Lejligheder INC. [Apartments INC.], which is based on open-source streaming tools and adapted to new locales as site-specific performances.
Web: http://www.xpositionreverse.org

Dancin’ Madly Backwards
(2006)
An exotic performance about gender, identity and dependence in the intersection between dance, theatre and performance art. An expressive, pulsating duet between a man and a woman – to the tones of newly-composed mambo and jungle horn music.

Displacement
(2005)
An absurd and humorous deca-dance about identity, gender and slackermentality – inspired by the old Norse wrestling technique called “glima”, 1980s’ kitsch and clubbing.

Blændværk [Delusion]
(2003)
A humorous and absurd paso doble about selling one’s soul told in a montage of classical and modern texts – including The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and improvisation – and spiced by popular songs, film sequences and dance.

Review extracts

"Supreme sofa delight. Displacement is a skilful, daring, splendidly-constructed, and wildly-entertaining performance."
Århus Stiftstidende (DK) - Displacement

”They show with expression, sophistication and great detail how we, in a culture hostile to and alienated from the body, display and attribute value to the body above what’s inside (...) in this elegantly-composed theatre cocktail, filled with contrasts and jungle ambience.”
Århus Stiftstidende (DK) - Dancin’ Madly Backwards

”Behind this lanky, party-mad goose of a person lurks not only a corny 1950s marimba band on a large screen but the horror of losing the most precious thing a woman can possess today – firm flesh.  With some sly dance steps, a top hat, and a heavy dose of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, an attempt is made to exorcise the spectre of old age.  It is hilarious to watch this bony female stand there and sing about the price of beauty.”
Politiken (DK - Blændværk

International tours

2007
Nov.:DraftWork Series/Danspace (NY/ US) – BodyRUB (work-in-progress) 
Aug.:Festival International des Brigittines (Bruxelles/BE) - Displacement
July: Open Look International Summer Dance Festival (St. Petersburg/RU) – Displacement and BodyRUB (work-in-progress)
 
2006
Centrifug/Dansstationen (Malmö/SE)
Stamsund Internationale Teaterfestival (Stamsund/NO)