Axial Figures

“Axial Figures” takes dance to new heights. Experience choreography on the vertical axis as five strong female rope artists in a motorized scenography create movements in all directions and altitudes. Like meditative, floating shapes the artists move acrobatically on five moving ropes, kaleidoscopically creating new shapes and contours inspired by the playful lines of architecture.

Choreographer Simone Wierød constructs and deconstructs systems and patterns inspired by her cross-artistic collaboration with architectural firm Standard Practice.

What happens when we build something together? And what happens if someone suddenly lets go? Times of crisis often have the effect of opening our eyes to the necessity and potential of community. We seek security and stability. But do we only hold on to community temporarily when we are in crisis and return to our own needs? Community is constructed and deconstructed in pursuit of the new and risque – until we need the opposite.

“Axial Figures” manipulates the stage space in all directions. With both clean lines and chaotic patterns. The result is an ever-changing universe that is woven with ropes and has bodies as counterweights. This system can only function through everyone’s active participation and it alls apart every time someone breaks it.

Simone Wierød says about the performance:
“My goal with the performance has been to create a strong visual experience with a minimalist aesthetic and great precision in the physical work. We have strived for a unique visual expression that is at once simple and expressive, leaving its audience with a feeling of having experienced something very special.”

LANGUAGE:
The performance is non-verbal.

Choreographer Simone Wierød introduces the performance at the 2023 premiere (in Danish)

Choreographer and performers (in English):
Working together
The differences between being choreographed and working solo
Doing new things

Simone Wierød is the choreographer and artistic director of Wired Studio, which produces innovative dance performances, choreographic installations and dance films. She has toured with her work to more than 50 festivals in 24 countries and has received several awards for her choreographic work.

Simone Wierød and Wired Studio have been awarded the Danish Arts Foundation’s career program, The Young Artistic Elite, for the next two years, which is both a huge recognition of the groundbreaking choreographic work Wired Studio creates, as well as an important support in both national and international work.

Artistic collaboration is an essential part of Simone Wierød’s work, who always seeks to explore new forms of choreographic work and expression through interdisciplinary partnerships – often with a focus on the visual, spatial and compositional.

Most recently, Simone Wierød has collaborated with the renowned South Korean media arts duo, Kimchi and Chips, on the performance “Collective Behavior”, which premiered in Denmark and later was presented at Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea.

The collaboration with Standard Practice and the five rope artists is a natural extension of this, and can be seen as a further development of the interdisciplinary and spatially visual direction of her artistry.