How to read water #5 / Anna Thu Schmidt, Hanne Dahl Geving, Thea Ellingsen Grant
October 14, 2022 – November 27, 2022
Photo: Hanne Dahl Geving
How to read water #5
October 14 – November 27, 2022
Opening Friday Oct. 14 @ 19.00
Opening performance with live music by Thea Ellingsen Grant and dance by Anna Thu Schmidt October 14 at 7 pm.
On Sunday October 23, TEKS opens its doors as part of Trondheim Open. Meet the artists throughout the day to experience the work and get insight into the project and the creative process. Join us for a meditative movement practice, 1:1 breathing exercises, an ocean walk, a stone ritual, or for an informal chat over a coffee. A live performance by dance artist Anna Thu Schmidt and musician Thea Ellingsen Grant inside the gallery can be viewed from the street at 7 pm.
Concept/choreography/dance: Anna Thu Schmidt
Video/edit: Hanne Dahl Geving
Sound: Thea Ellingsen Grant
Video installation, mixed media, 2022
One day I’m going to stand in a thousand grains for a thousand days maybe a thousand years
I’ll wave to myself and fossil time
I’ll wave myself in
Thea Ellingsen Grant
How to read water is an interdisciplinary collaboration between dance artist Anna Thu Schmidt, musician Thea Ellingsen Grant and media artist Hanne Dahl Geving which explores the relationship between the human body and the sea.
While our senses are stimulated when being near or in the ocean, the sense of time is often lost. How to read water seeks different ways of creating timeless and meditative spaces inspired by the phenomenon called ‘Blue Space’. A space that can give the feeling of time standing still and that serves as an invitation for ‘Entschleunigung’.
Art and nature both offer an alternative from everyday life by giving us space for reflection. In our hasty contemporary life subjected to the climate change crisis, such spaces can be a natural therapy connecting us with our deepest feelings for nature. To encourage people to protect nature these spaces enable us to question our egocentric view regarding our place on the planet.
In How to read water the human body becomes one with nature by blending into the landscape and responding to its shapes. The artists create a synthesis of images and sounds that at times is hypnotizing and seductive like the ocean itself.
Earlier versions of the project took the shape of one-on-one as well as multidisciplinary performances, both indoors and outdoors. In addition to this there have been extended durational dance installations inside the galleries of Nils Aas Kunstverksted and Heimdal Kunstforening in collaboration with VJ and visual artist Mina Paasche. The installation at gallery TEKS is presented as a video and mixed media installation in combination with live events.
The video material was recorded at Hansbakkfjæra and at Hitra. The stones were collected along Trondheimsfjorden and will be returned as part of a collective ritual.
Photo: Hanne Dahl Geving
Anna Thu Schmidt (b. 1989 in Germany) is a dance artist with a focus on dance improvisation, interdisciplinary projects, site-specific work, and integrated dance. Since 2017 Anna has been based in Trondheim after living and working in Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Her work is inspired by the cultures and natural environments she lives in and the connection and communications between humans and nature. Her interest in the relation of dance to other arts leads to international collaborations and research on the intertwinement of dance and installation art.
Her artistic work navigates around questions of accessibility in dance. Themes such as inclusion and exclusion in interaction with the audience are explored in a variety of performance formats through a multisensory approach.
Anna holds a B.A. in Dance in Education (ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem/Netherlands) and an M.A. in Dance Studies (NTNU Trondheim/ Norway). She started up Praxis Trondheim and is working as a dance artist and producer in the dance companies Danselaboratoriet and Danseteateret. With the project ImproDans Trondheim she offers an open, free and safe space for dance and music improvisation for artists from all disciplines and the community of movement and sound enthusiasts in Trondheim.
Anna grew up near the Baltic Sea and has always been intrigued by the sea. She initiated How to read water in 2018 and invited a team of female artists from different disciplines into the project.
Hanne Dahl Geving (b. 1991) is a visual artist based in Trondheim, Norway. She has a master’s degree in photojournalism from Mid Sweden University, Sweden, and a bachelor’s degree in photography from the University of the Creative Arts, England.
Geving has worked with different mediums including photography, video, performance, text and sound, where she explores acoustic environments and human response to sound and multisensory experiences.
In her art practice, Geving is interested in exploring themes that affect the human mental and physical health, and how art can be used to deal with difficult situations and emotions.
Her work has been shown at various exhibition venues both nationally and internationally, such as, Centum för fotografi (SE), Kystmuseet i Sør-Trøndelag (NO) Truman Brewery (UK), Sundsvall Könstforening (SE), Teaterhuset Avant Garden (NO) and Porsgrunn Kunstforening (NE).
Geving has worked with different artists which has resulted in both national and international collaborations and led to the establishment of the artist group HRKCollective.
Thea Ellingsen Grant (b. 1997) is a vocalist, producer and songwriter living in Oslo, Norway.
For several years she has toured and released music with her bands and worked on collaborative projects spanning across a myriad of musical influences.
As a solo performer and composer she has worked with Panta Rei Danseteater, Erik Kaiel / Arch 8 and Anna Thu Schmidt, exploring the relationship between voice, movement and electronics.
The contemporary dance performance Rising Tide premiered at the Purchase Art Centre in New York 2019 with a self-produced soundtrack blending symphonic passages, orchestral sounds and voice with ethereal samples and synths.
She graduated from the Music Academy in Trondheim in 2019 and has since then released four albums with JUNO, j00, Caramel 11 and Eirik Hegdal with Alpaca Ensemble.
She is currently working on her first solo album Water and Dreams, a twelve-track modern choir piece inspired by ambient, experimental pop and electronic music.
Technical consultant: Robin Støckert
Supported by Arts Council Norway, Trondheim Municipality and DansIT