Stavanger, Norway
In “Dancing with Headphones,” a performance ongoing since 2015, Ann Kristin Bergesen puts on headphones, a nice dress, and dances with her eyes closed and her back to the audience, to two songs that no one but her can hear. When she is done she takes a sip of water. Bergesen is not a flashy or even a particularly fantastic dancer, and neither am I. I love to dance but am a bit too old to go to discos any more. When good music comes onto the kitchen radio, I make my moves, mostly just for me, and then I get back to the dishes or the cooking. That is not quite what Bergesen is doing here, in her almost but actually not at all private performance. She is causing me to think about how movement relates to sound, both imagined and heard, and what connections exist between clothing and gesture and interpretation. But in the decidedly accessible quality of her dancing, in her refusal to be virtuosic, in her acknowledgment of the personal need to act creatively with our bodies, I feel as if I’ve been given permission to dance a whole lot more.
—Lori Waxman, March 17, 2:08 PM