Lys Skår II — STUDIOTASSY

Lys Skår II. Photo Credit: Chloe Bellemère

Lys Skår II - an improvisation dance and landscape installation work devised and directed by Tassy Thompson. Lys Skår II was created as a place and occasion specific work with dancer and multi-disciplinary artist Mitya Stæv, theatre artist Robson Catalunha, curator and lawyer, Kelly Haddo-Namo Jimoseyang-Tunuppasog and arts educator, Denise Silva-Dennis. Created for TIMEBOMB, the 2018 Annual Summer Benefit at The Watermill Center, USA 2018.

Lys Skår II. Photo Credit: Maria Baranova

The work was a simple installation of many 1000’s of metres of string tied between trees in angled spanning rays. The movement of the trees, wind, light and dancer’s bodies causing reflexive tensions and relaxations, breaking the illusion of our ability to impose straight lines in nature and accepting our reliance on more than human - natural matter, landscape, weather, time and light. A dynamic eco-system demonstrating the interplay of the human and more than human. The staging of the work attempted to be as low impact on the natural environment as possible but as ever even the simplest of concepts raises a multitude of interconnected challenges regarding our every impact. But it is in the awareness of risk and benefit that hope lies. Lys Skår, meaning light scar, refers to the lead artist’s interest in the the dynamic learning affect risk and pain have. A small but not dangerous hurt or wound, on both the human and more than human ‘body’, can bring us consciously to the source of injury and teach us how to understand the cause and perhaps avoid it again. It also reminds us of our fragility in, belonging to and reliance on the natural eco-system. The work was created collaboratively as a participatory process, the dancer’s worked with the installation using highly dynamic, risk taking contact improvisation with both each other, the trees and the rope string installation. Using a range of dance and performance training methodologies, including ballet and pole dance they stretched and moved themselves, the audience, the installation and the landscape, along with the performative elements of insects, light and wind. The audience moved through the work freely, being part of the work by their embodied presence. The stopping, talking, watching and photographing becoming an integral part of the intention of the work.

Lys Skår II. Photo Credit: Laura Brichta