Kitt Johnson X-act

STIGMA

Stigma is, at heart, a meditation on connotation - not just the meanings of the title but the signs and significances of the body. When she moves, Johnson creates an incredibly flexible body-language that can be grotesquely deformed, incredibly vulnerable, richly personal yet highly expressive of inner states. Her body sets up no filters, no defences. It lays itself bare to influences of light and dark, sound, and some invisible spiritual force. When she stands unhooded, bare-breasted and almost nude, with a shower of sand pouring down on her upturned face, she completes a stunning composition of hypnotic intensity, shifting geometric shapes and planes, extraordinary animality and ineffable spirituality. She turns the gothic into something mysteriously magical.
Keith Garebian, 18th November ’04, Stage and Page, Canada.

This intriguing work is very European … Johnson’s cerebral choreography contains the wisdom of the ages, and is fey, even precious in its presentation. There is a delicacy and whimsy to her work that is just not part of a North American aesthetic.
Paula Citron, 30th October '04, The Globe and Mail, Canada.

Johnson is an absolutely riveting performer. She could almost be seen as an amalgan of two styles' greatest exponents - Kazuo Ohno crossed with Mary Wigman. Stigma is the pinnacle of seasoned artistry.
Michael Crabb, 29th October '04, National Post, Canada.

Not since Ingmar Bergman filled the screen with haunting images of gloom and doom has such a character visited us …
William Littler, 28th October '04, Toronto Star, Canada.

Disturbing transformations powered by inner states ... elegantly, phantasmagorically minimal.
Deborah Jowitt, 13th August ’03, The Village Voice, USA.

The body is a microscope or telescope through which we observe the minute and the vast pulse of life simultaneously ... Johnson’s exposed back and flanged shoulder blades, her ribs and breasts become gaping mouths, planes and hollows, shifting optical illusions under the influence of which we loose our grip on reality ... a wonderful manipulation of audience perception that also carries a profound social message. What is a stigma? ... Johnson’s tight, controlled work remains etched in our minds, covering less ground and more constricted meaning, but full and complete. It suggests that the power of the solo is the ability to stand both inside and outside a work of imagination, as both shaman and artist, medium and message, if you will, controlled and controlling.
Allison Tracey, 19th July ’03, The Berkshire Eagle, USA.

... as a tribute to the downtrodden ... a female counterpart of the lackless fellow who became a cockroach in Kafka’s story ... unusual, vividly expressive solo ... The continuing vitality of the soloform was affirmed.
Jack Anderson, 18th July ’03, New York Times, USA.

... dance in a class of its own ... She needed no stage hardware to transform the space into one breathing presence, gathered up into one tremendous concentration on the marginal, yet immortal, being which was created before our very eyes. It in turn became creatures, beyond control of the possible, ... fetched from the cells’ blacked out memory.
Janus Kodal, 21st February ’03, Politiken, Denmark.

A Sorceress in the greatcoat of a desert insect…undergoing various curious and alarming deformations she exposes the body from the angle of a peculiar and cold animality. An extraordinary composition…scalding and rigorous. Don’t miss it.
L.V.D.W. August ’01, L’Express, Belgium.

A rich inner world of images ... the body looks hollow and spiritual … the touch of her extremities on the floor is hypnotizing … Her movement quality creates a halo of magic.
Ruth Eshel, June ’01, Ha’aretz, Israel.

A masterpiece on stage. Huge bravura, a lot of atmosphere, deep emotion. The plasticity of the body, the perfection of the gestures and the absolute harmony between sound and movement fused into the most excellent artistic expression.
14th March´01, La Paginaquattro, Italy.

Alarming, inciting, etching the retina, your mind is stigmatized when you leave…with complete commitment and distinct charisma Kitt Johnson reaches the universal. The stigmatized human being. Absurd…grotesque…shocking…A modern lithography by Palle Nielsen and at the same time a classical mix of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Breugel.
PRESS RELEASE from the Danish Arts Foundation on the occasion of the award given to Stigma, 6th December 1999.

The hit of the evening…a gothic magic picture transforming a deathly pale pietist and suffering Madonna to an insect in the desert, a fallen black angel and a screeching witch riding across the stage. Brilliant!
Majbritt Hjelmsboe, 19th November ’99, Weekendavisen, Denmark.

A victory for Kitt Johnson who enters the endless column of pouring dust grains in no-man’s-land… the most bizarre endurance…a clarity of form and a dramaturgic balance of tension which marks the result of years of work - nonchalant and unostentatiously served like rare delicacies on a sushi plate…impelled by the fiery music of Sture Ericson and Jacob Kirkegaard.
Anne Middelboe Christensen, 16th November ’99, Information, Denmark.

Via deformations of the body, including the creation of absurd body dimensions and perspectives through an imaginative utilization of costume and light, one experiences an incredible intensity in Kitt Johnson’s slow and minimalistic body language…nicely accompanied by fine sound images.
Vibeke Wern, 14th November’ 99, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.

A sinister creature in whom the stigmatization has worked marking all joints of a crumpled, gnarled, hunchbacked body…a composition of extreme control…more efficient than most solowork.
Alexander Meinertz, 14th November ’99, Politiken, Denmark.

THE MIRROR

Misshapen figures hover, slither, approach and retreat….an extraordinary journey. Every detail of action, sound, costuming and lighting is meticulously crafted … magnifying intensity.
Hillary Crampton, 5th October ‘06, The Age, Melbourne, Australia

A unique bodycontrol and sense of original movements. One of the most spectacular performances of the festival.
Line Adriane Anderssen, 23rd June ’06, Porsgrunns Dagblad, Norway.

The primal, decadent power of the figure never lets you go. It is the dark side of ourselves that we know too well.
Tobi Tobias, 8th November '04, The Village Voice, New York, USA.

The Mirror is an exquisite sculpture of metamorphoses … challengning perceptions and expectations and even empoying anthropomorphim ... surreal and yet familiar, reminiscent of Ernst, Arp, Miro.
Brian McCormic, 28th October '04, Gay City News, New York, USA.

Rare is the choreographer who can say a great deal with very little … Johnson knows how to fashion something original out of Expressionisms distortions of the body … Evoking an enlightened ideal before compressing her body into shriveled mortality: an intense dance, intensely performed.
Anna Kisselgoff, 19th October '04, New York Times, USA.

Magic, disturbing and passionate. Exceeding the state of absolute body control she pierces the question of the identification between the self and the other.
Agnes Benoist, 25th September '04, Lyon Figaro, France.

The Northern dance has cast a spell on Uzés. Kitt Johnson has her own unique style ... grace blended with strength. Her solo is impressive, both as fashion and performance art.
Marie-Christine Vernay, 26th June ’03, Liberation, France.

... World class dance theatre.
The Reumert Committee, on conferment of the year’s Reumert Award 2003 for best dance performance, 27th April ’03, Denmark.

... A quietly explosive solo ... wonderful stage attack plus superb presence makes The Mirror both a dazzling and self-forgetting experience.
Örjan Abrahamsson, 31st March ’03, Dagens Nyheter, Sweden.

The Mirror is a performance about human beings. Or ways of being. Or perhaps ways of seeing one’s own being… A true performer, Kitt is above all an entertainer. She knows how to surprise her audience…By the most delicate trembling of the chin or lifting the head or pressing the fingers together, she ascends to higher forms of existence, right in front of our eyes…When she disappears…it was like waking up from a dream you dearly wished would never end.
Anne Middelboe Christensen, Aug-Sep '02, Ballet-tanz.

It is dance absolutely in a class of its own. Kitt Johnson’s ease of expression and body control are nothing less than sublime. She can undulate her fingers as though they were sea anemones, raise a leg into the air like an ancient deep-sea organism or twirl herself in cloth like a dying mermaid. She can hover resembling a ghost-like old fossil with white matchstick legs folded out like a nearly invisible undercarriage. Or she can look like a little girl playing, an alluring rococo maiden, a depraved diva, or death itself. In The Mirror the micro-cosmos is, so to say, mirrored in the macro-cosmos…a very beautiful visual poem.
Majbritt Hjelmsbo, 25th April '02, Weekendavisen, Denmark.

Kitt Johnson is, in every way, unique in Danish dance theatre….due to her solo performances. These demand a lot from her audience but they also give an extraordinary beauty in return.
Henrik Lyding, 24th April '02, Jyllandsposten, Denmark.

The Mirror is a rousing performance with an intense co-operation between the visual and the audio in the most sublime surroundings one has ever seen her move.
Charlotte Christensen, 20th - 21st April '02, Information, Denmark.

Kitt Johnson bewitches eye and mind with her physical picture transformations.
Vibeke Wern, 20th April '02, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.

Kitt Johnson is a loner, a black hole of concentration absorbing attention.
Janus Kodal, 19th April '02, Politiken, Denmark.

RANKEFOD

In her solo, Johnson transgressed beyond the notion of ugly or beautiful, male or female. She achieved a state of pure living existence. Sture Ericson ... developed the soundscape from computer-manipulated nature and animal sounds, and Mogens Kjempff created the ideal light design, so essential for this outstanding performance.
Anne-Marie Elmby, Fall 2005, Dance International, Canada.

A magical dance animal who continuously spellbinds the eye.
Vibeke Wern, 19th April '05, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.

The most exceptional prodigy in Danish dance; from inside the shell, existence roars in timeless ripples embroidered into Sture Ericson’s stirring electro-acoustic score. And with Mogens Kjempff’s precise grained light of ages and the pause on Charlotte Østergaard’s dreamy textile backdrop creating a timeless universe; …. People become animals, creatures become thoughts … It takes place right in front of your eyes but still you are in doubt as to what you are actually watching. Rankefod is universal at the highest level. And so extremely exclusive, because the sense perception of Kitt Johnson’s naked skin and peculiar muscle tone is crucial to the experience of the dance. It is strange the way she makes you think twice, this insistently original creature.
Anne Middelboe Christensen, 18th April '05, Information, Denmark.

A fascinating loner in Danish dance; her body, a perfectly tuned instrument. Simultaneously she performs both meditatively and intensely and it is this tactile, corporeal experience her dance brings to the audience. It strikes a chord in all of us.
Janus Kodal, 15th April '05, Politikken, Denmark.

A deeply fascinating dance performance about the birth of life. It is wildly fascinating to watch, like being a witness to the birth of a new existence; insistent repetitions force us to focus on the movement and body alone, not on the person involved; an intense and wonderful experience.
Henrik Lyding, 15th April '05, Jyllandsposten, Denmark.

THE LEMONKEEPERS

THE LEMONKEEPERS - PRESS QUOTES

Poetic imagery, both dark and light, that comes from a deep philosophical wellspring.
Paula Citron, 30th October '04, Globe and Mail, Canada

Superbly skilled performers … Beckett with a dash of Dada … Danish choreographer Kitt Johnson is an ace at wringing more from less.
Michael Crabb, 29th October '04, National Post, Canada

An inexplicable delight … superbly disciplined movers … performing with such slow deliberation and intense concentration that the viewer remained glued to what was happening.
William Littler, 28th October '04, Toronto Star

The latest production by Denmark’s leading performer Kitt Johnson turned out to be a quietly wonderful experience… Itzik Gabay delighted the audience with his physical charm, Samuel Gustavsson created the necessary fuss and fretted over the lemons, while Karl Stets was a real circus magician who conjured up a dangerous snake out of a piece of rope… a weird and silent world… playful in a Zen sort of way.
Charlotte Christensen, Mai, 04, ballet-tanz, Germany.

The Lemonkeepers accentuated a unique artistic understanding of the theatrical space and an exceptional ability of renewing the language of choreography…. elements of circus and catchpenny shows brought into the world of choreography turned out to be a wonderful and very personal interpretation of Cirque Nouveau. The audience was driven into a restless universe which balanced on the border between madness and genius, with humour as the eternal redeemer… a conspicuous performance which manifests Kitt Johnson as one of the most remarkable choreographers at present.
Kitt Westh, April 2004, Teater 1, Denmark.

Poetry, humour and a formidable bite are delicately harmonised in Kitt Johnson’s entertaining existential chamber piece... an almost surrealistic version of the old (Danish) joke: there are two men sitting on a raft etc... a Beckett-like space for exploration of life’s eternal ground rules - with boredom and death as stowaways. A universe which composer Sture Ericson nails with a resounding mix of distant, jarring deep-sea echoes, distorted noise and electrical guitar riffs with a sound of the prairies like in a Morricone western… the three performers’ skilled play with mime, kinesics and supreme artistery is a delight. Johnson’s lemondance is no bitter pill. It is chock-full with vitamins … This is great art!
Majbrit Hjelmsbo, 27th February ’04, Weekendavisen, Denmark.

Poetic theatre fun. The energy of the movements flowed through the bodies, and from performer to performer, whilst the blue rope became a snake in the lemon paradise and a pair of plaits on a shaved head… original and surprising stage magic… of hushed presence and trifles.
Erik Aschengreen, 21st February ’04, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.

A little piece of absurd theatre in the best Beckettian style.
Henrik Lyding, 20th February ’04, Jyllandsposten, Denmark.

There can be no doubt that Johnson is one of the most industrious and original stagers of dance in these dry times ... one of her specialities is the way in which her cutting of the scenes makes us think and sense in new ways.
Janus Kodal, 20th February ’04, Politiken, Denmark.

The Lemonkeepers is beautiful and harmonious... working with subtle insights and their quietly exquisite presentation. It is a performance for warmth, and hearty fun. Artistically brilliant in concept and presentation.
Knud Cornelius, 19th February ’04, Frederiksborg Amts Avis, Denmark.

The Lemonkeepers is a metaphysical play with movement, light as a feather, deep as a parable. Humour is the main thread, philanthropy itself the password. The Dadaistic tone of Cirque Nouveau unites with a uniquely physical timing… Sture Ericson’s suggestive sound is inherent in this well turned performance… superbly complemented by Mogens Kjempff’s fantastic light setting… The Lemonkeepers is something of a miracle… one you want to see again.
Charlotte Christensen, 19th February ’04, Danstidningen, Sweden.

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