<< Texts
About “Movements
By Hedda Grevle Ottesen
K4 (2024)
Charlotte Thiis-Evensen’s new video work Movements is a dance film in which a group of young people, let’s call them “body owners”, are gathered in a lighted photo studio. The movie are introduced with close-ups of each individual in the group.
Alternately with eyes closed or with the gaze directed at the camera. The staging of the individual creates associations to sculptural formations. Self-activating scenes played out in front of the film crew and for a hypothetical audience. “The Young-Girl is old insofar as she is known to be young”. So reads the introduction to Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, an anthology of the post-Marxist collective Tiqqun from 1999. Here “the Young-Girl” is not the gender, but a concept for The immediacy of “the young” in a capitalist culture, a culture that capitalizes on the idea of love and the idealism of youth.
Being young in 2024 is still linked to the body, idealism and love. Maybe Charlotte Thiis-Evensen wants to remove these bodies from the cliché about the young idealist and instead direct attention to the vulnerable body? A form which in itself is vital and adds value. In Movements, she conveys the power that lies within every single young person. By activating movements in front of the camera, she creates thought-provoking reflections on how the intimate life of a young person is seen and remains seen.
The film has no sound. Those who dance own the music. The silence emphasizes the joy of meeting the music you have put on yourself. Dancing alone, or in a group, is non-binding. It gives an outlet to explore limits and to act without seriousness consequences. Perhaps the joy of dancing is just letting your mind wander individual value? In its most transcendent function, the dance becomes a purification ritual.
By dancing, one can, if only for a moment, be separated from the unattainable dreams and expectations. Moments where the fleetingness of the music fills the body with its own value and meaning.