The friction between individual and collective is evident every time musicians come together to play together. This is particularly evident in Damkapellet – an explicitly political ensemble that not only works for more equal representation in cultural life, but also wants to question the tendency of the art music tradition to downplay the idiosyncrasies of the individual musician in order to create a unified, shared soundscape.

In the interdisciplinary work If not us, Agnes Kofoed Christianson has taken up this very dilemma. Inspired by Peter Weiss's play Marat/Sade, she asks herself how the possibility of resistance depends on the individual's relationship to the collective. Can we make a difference only as a united front, as the revolutionary Marat might have meant? Or must we also, in line with the Marquis de Sade, undergo an individual liberation in body and soul?

Participating:

Josefine Weber Hansen – soprano

Julia Morgan – violin

Tove Bagge – viola

Nicole Hogstrand – cello

Irene Bianco – percussion

Agnes Kofoed Christianson – composer/concept/direction

Maria Påhls – choreographer

Maja Svartåker – costume design