Palimpsest

Press quotes
Photos
Video excerpt

Absurd slapstick served with poker-faced and fascinating body art, sculptured with a twist … Kitt Johnson creates something really unique when she turns the body inside out… extracted from the anatomy’s smallest details … absolutely a must-see experience.
Majbrit Hjelmsbo, Weekendavisen, February 2006

Palimpsest is a mapping of the skin’s two sides – for 5 male dancers.
Our bodies remind us that we are Nature and, like Nature in its essence, fluid and perishable inside. The skin separates us and the world, holds our flowing insides together and provides us with that mask with which we meet the world.

Palimpsest is a re-opening of that on-stage dissection of the human anatomy which commenced with Aortas Partitur. Palimpsest registers as number three in a series of X-act produced performances which focus on Body, Anatomy and Choreography.
Whereas number one, Aortas Partitur (2003), with its first major incursion into the body, concerned itself widely with all emerging energies, qualities and images, and number two, Rankefod (2005), concentrates on the body’s evolutionary memory, Palimpsest focuses on the relationship between the skin’s two sides, between Man as an organic entity and the surrounding world.

Palimpsest premiered at Kaleidoskop K2 in Copenhagen, 2006.

Idea, staging and choreography: Kitt Johnson
Devising ensemble: Alexandre Bourdat, João Lobo, Milos Sofrenovic, Otto Ramstad, Samuel Gustavsson
Composer: Sture Ericson
Light design: Mogens Kjempff
Costume design: Charlotte Østergaard

Duration: 65 min.

Touring history

Produced by Kitt Johnson X-act with support from the Danish Arts Council, Augustinus Fonden, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden, Københavns Kulturfond, Danmarks Nationalbanks Jubilæumsfond af 1968, Dronning Margrethes og Prins Henriks Fond and Ovrs. L. Zeuthens Mindelegat.

Photo: Per Morten Abrahamsen
Performers: Otto Ramstad, Milos Sofrenovic, Alexandre Bourdat, Samuel Gustavsson, João Lobo