Club Fisk
Club Fisk
Conceptual contemporary dance
Focusing strictly on movement itself, Club Fisk’s performances are open and abstract, eschewing the need for a story. Powerful concepts unfold with liberating humour and absorbing simplicity.
Kasper Daugaard Poulsen (Born 1977)
Educated at the Modern Dance Department of the Amsterdam School of the Arts. Works as dancer and choreographer in Denmark and internationally. Founded Club Fisk in 2003.
Artistic profile
With a strict focus on movement, the dance company Club Fisk moves away from story and narrative. The idea is to make the story emerge as openly as possible for the audience. The choreographic interest remains fixed on how much content, story and meaning can be derived from the body and abstract choreographies within a strong conceptual framework. These contemporary dance pieces are characterised by liberating humour and Scandinavian minimalism.
Club Fisk produces a wide range of pieces, varying from full-evening programs, collaborations with other choreographers, site-specific works, and shorter works on commission from different theatres.
Club Fisk also has a pedagogical purpose, which aims at broadening general knowledge of modern dance as an art form. To this end, Club Fisk collaborates with the Danish association, Dance in Education, which assists in organising special performances of Club Fisk’s pieces and workshops for schools, universities, and other learning institutions.
Current productions:
Archeopteryx X
(2010)
Archeopteryx: A cross between crustacean and bird.
A composite of the two Greek words archarios (ancient) and pteryx (feather). It’s quite absurd to think that humans can fly. We’re just not built for it, just as birds are – even as people have done their utmost (with sufficient skill and courage) to get the species Homo Sapiens airborne.
To put it simply, humans, in relation to their muscle mass, are just too heavy. A man would have to have a sternum measuring 2m long to support the muscles required to get it off the ground.
Flyteknik – flyhistorie (Flight technique – Flight history)
Published by Jernindustriens forlag, 1986
Motion, Movement, and Moment
(2006)
This site-specific work, which premiered at The Danish Academy in Rome, unites dance, architecture and electro-acoustic music. The piece is a mounting crescendo in which two dancers climb a set of stairs in slow motion and, through variations in their style of walking, shift our perception of time, space and story.
Forestillinger
(2006)
Forestillinger is a performance with two dancers, two costume changes, two black markers, an easel, and an illustrated explanation of the piece and its structure. What happens to us and our reception of a work of art, when everything is obvious, having been explained to us beforehand?
Forestillinger is a Danish word meaning “performances”, “perceptions” and “representations”.
Mælk / Milk
(2005)
Mælk is a fresh, new collage about a gay man and a housewife, who share a space and domestic chores and who have much more in common than a lot of milk and a passion for cows. The characters originate in the choreographers themselves.
Gæst/Gejst / Guest/Gumption
(2005)
Gæst and Gejst are the titles of two solos that together form the dance performance Gæst/Gejst. The two pieces, similar in form and content, are presented in the same programme, one after the other, separated by a short intermission. Both solos are for a female soloist and a movement choir of four dancers. Each tells the story of a hostess and her guests, which forms their connection as the double bill programme Gæst/Gejst.
Cantus
(2003)
The title of the piece is the Latin word for “song” and refers to the close connection between movement and music within the piece. The performance is an adagio with a pail and shovel, danced by three female dancers between the ages 40 and 60.
Review extracts
“Liberating, hilarious choreography.”
Danstidningen (SE), Forestillinger
”Without ever touching each other, these two homebodies achieve their coveted climax by slowly whipping cream into butter. They share a passion for milk. The symbolism is so stiff that the ending becomes absurd. Yet the birds are still chirping cheerily above the stage. Nature, the cheap junk, has taken over, and you just accept the charm of the choreography.”
Politiken (DK), Mælk
”Beseelt von der traumhaft schönen Musik für Klaver und Violine lebten die Tänzerinnen mit reduzierten Bewegungen nahe am Phlegma eindringliche Synchronizität. Eine Zeitgeschichte mit eindringlichen Bildern, ein Fluss der bewegungen, nicht nur körper, auch Gesichter. Ein sinnliches Vergnügen, bewegende Poesie.”
Südwest Presse (DE), Cantus
International tours
2010
February:Vara Konserthus (S), Linköping, Sagateatern (S), Jönköpings Teater (S), Halmstad, Kulturhuset (S)
April: Svendborg, Baggårdsteatret (DK), International Dance Festival Birmingham (UK).
November: Liverpool Dance Festival (UK)
2009
September: Body/Mind Festival, Warzaw (PL)
August: August Dance Festival, Tallinn (EST)
August: B Motion at Operaestate Festival Veneto, Bassano del Grappa (I)
July: Festival Personal Profile, Moscow (RUS)
June: TANEC PRAHA and Dance For Children Festival, Prague (CZ)
June: Schauspielhaus Bochum (DE)
May: New Baltic Dance, Vilnius (LT)
February: Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt (DE)
February: Dansescenen, Copenhagen (DK)
Februar: Equilibrio dance festival (Rome/IT)
Januar: Resolution (London/UK)
2008
December: Dance House Lemesos (Cyprus)
Feb.-Mar.: Residency at the Movement Research Centre in New York. A DaNY-Arts project.
2007
May: Centrifug Festival at Dansstationen (Malmö/SE)
August: Dance Base Festival Fringe (Edinburgh/UK)
August: Off Limits Festival (Dortmund/DE)
August: Noorderzon Festival (Groningen/NL)
Okt.-Nov.:FID 2007 - Forum Internacional de Danca (Belo Horizonte/Brazil)
November: Nordwind Festival (Berlin/DE)
2006
Det Danske Institut for Videnskab og Kunst (Rome/ IT)
Quote
“I am primarily interested in movement as a projection of the audience’s own signification and not as a bearer of significance in itself. Therefore, I am trying to create material onto which the audience can project themselves. I am not interested in what movement means but rather in what it can mean. A precise statement needs no work of art. If you know exactly what you want to say, there is no reason to make art.”
Kasper Daugaard
Contact
Artistic Director
Kasper Daugaard Poulsen
Tel: (+45) 2583 5452
kasper@clubfisk.dk
www.clubfisk.dk