AVIAJA Dance (GL/DK)
Whiteout
The thought-provoking and life-affirming “WHITEOUT” won the Reumert Award for Dance Performance of the Year in 2025. It explores loss, unbearable thoughts and the taboos surrounding suicide. The dancers beautifully embody grief and longing, but also hope and connection to one another, so that we may find the strength and faith in the power and meaning of life.
WHITEOUT is a thought-provoking and life-affirming dance performance about loss. When you find yourself in an Arctic ‘whiteout’ – a natural phenomenon where snow swirls around and everything turns white – you can experience a sensation reminiscent of grief: any sense of direction disappears.
The acclaimed dance performance was named Dance Performance of the Year at the Reumert Awards in 2025.
“WHITEOUT” explores the painful loss, the unbearable thoughts, the shame and the taboos surrounding suicide. The performance embodies grief and longing, but also hope, strength and faith in the power and meaning of life. On the other side of a whiteout, which has demanded insight and reflection, we are placed anew in the world – we find one another and forge connections across divides.
The performance sheds an important light on a topic that we must not shy away from. At the same time, it explores the life-affirming aspects that the bereaved often speak of: the ability to reflect on the value of relationships and communities, and, above all, the gratitude for having known someone.
The Reumert jury put their motivation for awarding the prize to the performance in these words:
“It was so sensually beautiful that it almost took your breath away. A boundless no-man’s-land of snow, feather-light tumbles and air-borne choreography. Four contemporary dancers moving organically through a visual blizzard with flashing eyes and clenched hands. Grief, suicide, shame and loss took on form and movement, whilst we were engulfed by a swirling storm of emotion.”
THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE?
Do you or someone you know have suicidal thoughts? If so, contact Livslinien for help by calling 70 201 201 or chatting at https://www.livslinien.dk.
Livslinien is an anonymous telephone and online counselling service for, among others, people with suicidal thoughts, relatives and bereaved families. The helpline is open every day of the year from 11.00 AM to 05.00 AM.
Reviews
“WHITEOUT marks a glacial breakthrough for the young Danish-Greenlandic choreographer Sarah Aviaja Hammeken. (…) WHITEOUT is a new form of dance. A blend of contemporary dance, dance theatre and hip-hop. An elegant dance without a plot, yet one that is both atmospheric and intense in its build-up of tension within Sirí Paulsen’s confident dramaturgy. WHITEOUT is a dance of presence, where everything feels organic and interconnected. All movements are effortlessly asymmetrical, as if the bodies are being blown into the choreography’s forms by the snowstorm. (…) Watching the dancers is almost breath-taking. For how can they move like that? (…) The performance is a powerful example of Greenlandic artists’ original perspective on the world.”
– Information, Anne Middelboe Christensen (Read the whole review here – in Danish)
★★★★★☆
“In WHITEOUT, she pulls the rug out from under us in a swirling storm of snow and emotion. The dance knows no bounds in this no-man’s-land of almost unreal, fluid and floating movements. (…) WHITEOUT reminds us of the value of relationships, despite the price of love. The dancers seamlessly showcase the entire spectrum, from the convulsively rigid to the softest, most empathetically floating. They elegantly blur all boundaries between steps and styles, touching instead upon grief itself. They float, flow and tremble their way through the disorientation of crisis in a magical whiteout that sets new standards.”
– ISCENE, Dorte Grannov Balslev (Read the whole review here – in Danish)
★★★★★☆
“Witnessing these four incomparable dancers – individually and together – is an experience that gets under the audience’s skin and refuses to let go. Rarely has a dance performance managed to convey a state of mind so precisely and authentically as this one does. WHITEOUT stands as a significant triumph for Sarah Aviaja Hammeken, Aviaja Dance’s artistic director, and her eminent dancers. It is unlikely to be the last we will see of them.”
– CPH CULTURE, Michael Søby (Read the whole review here – in Danish)
★★★★
“With WHITEOUT, Sarah Aviaja Hammeken once again demonstrates her incredible ability to understand the world we live in and convey it through a choreographic language that leaves you breathless. (…) Hammeken’s choreographic exploration of humanity’s encounter with the Greenland ice cap must be regarded as an infinitely beautiful work.”
– SCENEBLOG, Casper Koeller (Read the whole review here – in Danish)
“I’ve never had suicide on my mind. But the performance swept me into a state of loss that was so overwhelming it sank deep into my core.”
– Peripeti, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt (Read the whole review here – in Danish)
About Aviaja Dance (GL/DK)
Sarah Aviaja Hammeken was born in Copenhagen, with a mix of Danish and Greenlandic roots. After graduating from The Ballet Academy in Stockholm in 2015, she became a part of Compagnia Zappalà Danza’s youth company, CZD2. Taking her art across borders, Sarah Aviaja established herself as a professional dancer on the global stage, working with various international choreographers and companies.
In 2019 she founded AVIAJA Dance, a platform where she explores and develops her choreographic practice. Her artistic journey is driven by a profound interest in how the physical body and dance intersect with society, often drawing inspiration from her Greenlandic heritage.
In 2023, after spending several years abroad, she brought her latest creation, SILA, to life at The National Theatre of Greenland, followed by its Danish premiere at Dansekapellet, marking her return to the Danish art scene.
Her journey earned her a spot in the ‘The Young Artistic Elite’ career program for 2024-2025, by the Danish Arts Foundation. Additionally, she was selected for Emerging Artists & Producers Programme at CPH Stage 2023/2024.
Website: aviajadance.com
Credits
Choreographer:
Sarah Aviaja Hammeken
Dancers:
Amanda Rubio Sánchez
Elias Khanamidi
Eydís Rose Vilmundardóttir
Márton Debreczenyi
Assistant Choreographer:
Amanda Rubio Sánchez
Composer:
Gerth Lyberth
Lighting Designer:
Brian Cord’homme
Costume Designer:
Parnuuna Kristiane Thornwood
Dramaturgical Consultant:
Siri Paulsen
Photographers:
Amalie Ivalo Hammeken
Ena Kurtagic Granulo
Video Designer:
Ena Kurtagic Granulo
Consultants:
Paarisa
DRISP, Danish Research Institute for Suicide Prevention
Producer:
Sebastian Nervil
Administration:
Jens Christian Jensen
Co-production:
Dansehallerne
Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia / Greenland National Theatre
Nordens Hus in the Faroe Islands
Supported by:
The Danish Arts Foundation – Project Support Committee for Performing Arts
The Knud Højgaard Foundation
NAPA
The Wilhelm Hansen Foundation
The Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen Foundation
The Beckett Foundation
The William Demant Foundation
Augustinus Foundation
The Agency for Culture and Palaces – The Cultural Fund for Projects between Greenland and Denmark
Nordic Cultural Fund