The Caleido Festival 2023 has given me the opportunity to present Norwegian artists at this event. Together with WEE/Scavetta, Jonas Øren formed a strong presence at the festival displaying new expressions in the field of dance/performance.

Choreographer and performer Øren presented his performance Hybris at the Caleido 2023 festival in Timisoara, this years European Capital of Culture.

His performance is an artistic exploration of personal and scenic performativity. The common linguistic and physical expressions of the Black female hip-hop artist and the (white) queer man, dissected through mediums of dance and rap.

It is a three-part multi-disciplinary art project composed of a dance performance, a publication, and a rap EP. The three individual parts inform each other and play off a form of dynamic co-creation.

Jonas Øren describes the dance performance in the following words: The dance performance explores how I (Jonas Øren) have created and continue to create “Jonas”, both on stage and in everyday life. “Jonas” aspires to be fierce and effortless in language and movement through a blend of performative expressions. His whiteness is shaped and choreographed based on an understanding of sexuality, gender, identity, and origin that are both fortifying and damaging. «Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared».

To me, this expression is a blend of a physical presentation and a language I refer to as effortless and fierce which at the same time shows impressions of resistance and an essential rebuilding of the self. It is a reaction to the fact that the queer man’s and the Black female’s bodies traditionally are devalued. In what ways does resistance nourish a physical sense of community and a form of self- staging production? How does this shape identity and whiteness, and how does this contribute to exposing inequalities between the black female authors and the dancing, self-staging man? Is the casual conflation of a white gay male’s experience with that of black women appropriation, not solidarity? What can cultural appreciation look like without appropriation.

Production Credits:

Head of project, choreographer and performer: 
Jonas Øren

Dramaturg: 
Jessica Lauren Elisabeth Taylor

Light design and -engineering: 
Yasin Gyltepe

Producer: 
Ingeborg Husbyn Aarsand

Artistic guidance: 
Thomas Talawa Prestø, Cherish Menzo, Lars Vaular 

Contributors:
Camara Lundestad Joof, Fatumata Kamara, Regina Tucker,

Outer eye: 
Deise Nunez.
Composer and music producer (RAP-EP HYBRIS):
Øyvind Basmo, Oslo Records

Other music producers:
Erlend Lyngstad, Marius Palme, Maya Vik

Design of publication and visual profile: 
Snøhetta

Writers for publication: 
Rania Broud, Amy Black Ndiaye, Madeleine Holth

Co-production:
Dansens Hus (Oslo, 2.–5. september 2021)
https://www.dansenshus.com/forestillinger/hybris

Rosendal Teater (Trondheim, 24–25. september 2021)
https://rosendalteater.no/program/hybris

RAS Regional Arena for Samtidsdans (Sandnes 30. september 2021) 
https://www.sandnes-kulturhus.no/ras-dans/