In the performance “O,” choreographer Peter Mills creates an interactive and sensory experience for babies, reversing traditional perspectives on performance. Maina Arvas reviews how the work, designed for children aged 2–18 months, explores wordless coexistence and shared space, turning the babies into both spectators and active participants.
It’s the babies’ turn to dance in the performance “O”
Hoarse and gurgling sounds come from both the spectators and the dancers in “O.” The unconventional audience is involved in shaping the work, writes Maina Arvas about the Riksteatern’s dance performance for babies.
Here we have an audience that can’t keep up with the times, can’t sit still – maybe even sit at all. Who can’t keep quiet, can’t help but fiddle and bang on the set, who doesn’t respect the boundaries of the room and is absolutely not afraid to just walk out in the middle.
Yes, it’s about babies. But instead of focusing on all these “nots,” choreographer Peter Mills has reversed the perspective and created a dance experience specifically for this audience. “O” is a spatial and moving installation that includes things that children aged 2–18 months can and want to do. Like listen and let go, look and feel things.
The work not only joins a performing arts genre that was newly born in 2006 with Suzanne Ostens and Ann-Sofie Bárány’s infant theater “Babydrama” at Unga Klara, and which saw babies as ideal spectators: free from conventions, unprejudiced, honest. It is also a further development of Mill’s concept in “The Cosmic Sea Garden Passage” for the Riksteatern 2020.
The materials are tactile and the colors are cozy green with silvery details. Fringes, laces, foam rubber, velour, spinning balls and a giant inflated silver ball
The letter “O” is both a sound and a shape. Hoarse, ringing and gurgling sounds can be heard among circular islands of soft carpets and round cushion formations. The materials are tactile and the colors are cozy green with silvery details. Fringes, laces, foam rubber, velour, spinning balls and a giant inflated silver ball.
Here we all share the same floor – babies, their adults and the dancers Peter Mills and Lisa Schåman. The latter lie, roll and crawl on the slightly springy, glossy surface just like the audience. Where the actors in “Babydrama” more actively sought interaction with the infant audience, also through speech, “O” focuses on a wordless and deeply relaxed coexistence.
The reason it doesn’t get completely sleepy is because Mills and Schåman sensitively read the moods and imperceptibly control the dramaturgy: movements, sounds and intensity are adapted to the number of babies and their energies. I find myself looking out over a room of inquisitive, astonished little figures and being moved by the image of the human encounter. Here the babies are not only the ideal spectators but also participate in forming the work itself.
PETER 