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OR/ELLER

Madeleine Lindh and Anja Arnquist have been active in the field of dance and choreography since the early 2000s. In 2018 they started the artist duo OR/ELLER which quickly gained the opportunity to create works for national and international institutions and venues. OR/ELLER’s dance art is characterized by highly visually dramatic pieces, using dance as an expressive driving force. They play with the idea of their pieces as surfaces of contact, where they invite dancers and audiences alike, as well as children and adults, to dwell in fiction, playing with both a complex and straightforward tonality, where both seriousness and humor are allowed to take place.

As a result of their interest in working with choreography through a parallax of scenography and dance, their recurring concepts revolve around the notion of “within” and “inside”, reflected in OR/ELLER’s works taking place as large formats on larger stages, as well as more intimate, meeting their audience between two books in a library.

 

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 13, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 10:45
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 13, 2025
  • 10:45

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 13, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 12:30
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 13, 2025
  • 12:30

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 14, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 10:45
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 14, 2025
  • 10:45

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 14, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 12:30
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 14, 2025
  • 12:30

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 15, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 10:45
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 15, 2025
  • 10:45

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 15, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 12:30
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 15, 2025
  • 12:30

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 16, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 10:45
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 16, 2025
  • 10:45

NET

OR/ELLER [SE] - NET - February 16, 2025 - Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark - 12:30
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  • Dansehallerne, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • February 16, 2025
  • 12:30

Photo credits: Chrisander Brun, Art Direction: Sepidar Hosseini

Dolly

In Dolly, OR/ELLER reimagines what it means to come to life. Through unceasing dance, different moments of becoming are explored via three iconic figures: Dolly the sheep, Dolly Parton, and the doll. Each of these Dollys reflects a different aspect of creation and existence—the clone, the artist, and the imaginary.

Inspired by the mysterious space between the first heartbeat and the first breath, OR/ELLER brings Dolly to life through these dual origins of life. The performance examines notions of originality, subjectivity, and transformation, set in a room that unwittingly winds toward an inevitable end. 

Dolly is neither a performance specifically for children nor exclusively for adults; instead, it is a dance piece for audiences aged 10 to 99, inviting all to contemplate the art of coming to life—and how art itself comes to life.

Premiere: 16 November 2024, MDT Stockholm

Credits
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Concept, choreography: OR/ELLER – Anja Arnquist, Madeleine Lindh
Dance: Anja Arnquist, Madeleine Lindh, Sam Huczkowski
Dramaturgy: Kristina Hagström Ståhl
Scenography: Johannes Fäst
Costume design: Naemi Gustavsson
Music design: William Rickman
Light design: Sutoda
Technical support: Björn Kuajara
Text: Anja Arnquist, Kristina Hagström Ståhl, Madeleine Lindh, Masha Taavoniku
Art direction & graphics: Sepidar Hosseini
Photography: Chrisander Brun, Jim De Block
Production: OR/ELLER & Nordberg Movement
Co-production: MDT and Dansinitiativet
With support from: The Swedish Arts Council, The City of Stockholm and Stockholm Region, Kalix kommun, Luleå kommun, Danskonsulent Norrbotten and Region Norrbotten

Duration: 60 min

Photo credits: Søren Meisner, Agnes Florin (kollage)

NET

NET is a dance performance where YOU call the shots.

A net moves in and spreads in your school’s sports hall or at your closest theater. Together with three dancers, we let the performance unfold and a choreographic kaleidoscope emerges. Here we create an undulating landscape that, with dance as an engine, opens doors to new rooms where we give shape to our fantasies.

In contrast to contemporary ideas about identity, autonomy and independence, NET invites you to dance by making room for you to become a link in the chain, a thread in the web or an atom in the molecule. With speculative curiosity we find ourselves as parts of new figures in constant transformation. Out of a tangle of threads we dance a slicing track, stop by a campfire or fly like a flock of birds. New verges and other yet unknown spaces emerge.

To catchy beats and melodic loops, we dance our way through this experience, mimicking, building, helping, waiting, fusing and actively resting in the imagination. NET is both a playful and serious performance, which in meeting its audience creates a human atmosphere where the visitors, through a guided dance and together, manage to get lost in a shared aesthetic experience. Suitable for for children ages 5-9.

Premiere: 7 September 2023, KORA Dansehallerne, Denmark

Credits
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Concept, choreography & set design: OR/ELLER – Anja Arnquist, Madeleine Lindh
Dancers: Elinor Tollertz Bratteby, Rebecka Berchtold and Karin Bergman
Set design consultant: Naemi Gustavsson
Lighting and technical consultant: Tobias Hallgren
Music: William Rickman
Costumes: Naemi Gustavsson
Graphics, illustration: Agnes Florin and Sepidar Hosseini
Production: OR/ELLER & Nordberg Movement
Co-production: Dansehallerne Copenhagen and Norrlandsoperan, Umeå

Duration: 60 min

In collaboration with Dansens Hus, Stockholm
With support from The city of Stockholm

NET is created in co-production with Dansehallerne Copenhagen, KORA -the network for dance for young people in Denmark and NorrlandsOperan, Umeå, and in cooperation with Dansens Hus, Stockholm.

Photo credits: Håkan Larsson

WEB

WEB is an interactive performance for children ages 4-7, initially unaware that they will be invited to join the performance’s giant and mobile web scenography.

The performance begins as two characters are perched up in a massive scene, reminiscent of a virtual nest or the climbing net in your backyard. The children are seated while watching as an intricate and fanciful dance unfolds along with suggestive lighting, captivating music, and a magically sweeping set. Encouraged to get in line and climb into one of the hundreds of holes, the children enter the stage with Madeleine and Anja. They dance their way through the rest of the performance.

The adults, who remain in the audience, observe as the children weave a choreography from the webs. In this specific landscape of grids and ropes, imagination takes shape, and a dance emerges that captures the associative power and creativity of the children. Together, they let everyday life enter the stage, vanish into thin air, and assume the shape of interlinked bodies instead, small hands that seed new ideas and quick, quick feet that vibe to a catchy song.

WEB is a sensory experience where the encounter with the set design and choreography creates a magical dance, taking the children on a journey. The children will receive a postcard to bring home as a keepsake and as a continuation of the performance.

Suggestion!
We recommend keeping it secret that the children will be dancing and climbing before they experience the WEB. The element of surprise is part of the performance.

With the performance WEB, OR/ELLER has invited set designer Johannes Fäst, composer William Rickman and lighting designer Tobias Hallgren to weave an artistic hybrid that juggles the mediums of installation, dance performance, and an aestheticized playground. WEB’s illustration is created in collaboration with Agnes Florin.

WEB can tour in conjunction with its sister performance V. Where WEB invites children to create their own worlds through dance, V is a family show where the audience is pulled into a twisted narrative from a distance. Both performances can perform on the same day, on the same stage, use the same set, and reach a larger and broader audience between ages 4 and 99.

Credits
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Concept, choreography, dance: OR/ELLER – Anja Arnquist & Madeleine Lindh
Set design, construction, manufacturing: Johannes Fäst
Light design: Tobias Hallgren
Music: William Rickman
Costumes: OR/ELLER
Illustration: Agnes Florin
Photography: Håkan Larsson
Production: OR/ELLER and Nordberg Movement
Created in co-production with Dansens Hus Stockholm and Norrlandsoperan
With support from The Swedish Arts Council, Stockholm Stad & Region Stockholm

Duration: 35 min

V

Futuristic dance epic with a surreal outcome V is a family performance (9–99 years) that thrills the imagination and tweaks the perspectives. In V, you encounter a peculiar dance experience where a massive set becomes a hollow nest that embraces two curious characters. The protagonists change shape and find avatars in singing cats, merging illusions and psychedelic creatures without eyes or mouths. The avatars carry a gigantic Hermès-like scarf, which is pulled into the web and later resurrected as a new family member. An absurd drama unfolds on a futuristic platform, consisting of two large web structures. To the sound of pretty refrains and emotional strings, a dance epic emerges within the gaps of the web. As the upper net rises and falls upon the dancing bodies, billowing into its own unique choreography, the set emerges as the third protagonist. With melancholic traits, dystopian humor, and approaching positivism, V pulls the viewer into a saga. Or is it just a distorted reflection of life? V grants itself the permission to enjoy. V is a lot. Perhaps too much. An eclectic and esoteric dance performance. A hyper-choreographed hybrid of performing arts, that blossoms into a polyphonic performativity. V is an alter ego with megalomania. V is the fifth element.

Premiere: 24 March 2022, Dansens Hus, Stockholm

Credits
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Concept, choreography, dance: OR/ELLER
Set design, construction, manufacturing: Johannes Fäst
Lighting design: Tobias Hallgren
Music: William Rickman
Costume design: Jenny Nordberg
Scarf, performance picture: OR/ELLER in collaboration with Agnes Florin
Graphic design: Sepidar Hosseini
Programming: Calle Mårtensson
Production: OR/ELLER and Nordberg Movement
Photography: Elin Berge and Joakim Nyström
Co-production: Norrlandsoperan, Dansens Hus Stockholm

Duration: 45min

With the support of The Swedish Arts Council, Region Stockholm, Stockholms stad