A DJ duo at the side of the stage provides a pulsating soundscape as Lisa Colette Bysheim and Edith Strand Askeland (filling in for Bysheim’s co-choreographer Katrine Patry) repetitively jolt their elbows up and down, caress each other’s heads, and ruffle armpit hair. Blue Carousel explores the ritual of seduction through a playful lens, as the performers slap their thighs together and flash neon underwear, lifting each other’s shorts with an almost childlike inelegance.
Their movement, drawn from the mating rituals of exotic birds, oscillates between absurdity and unexpected tenderness. Within the altered reality of a rave – where linear time dissolves, emotions swell, and bodies lean instinctively into each other – these gestures feel almost inevitable. Sensuality emerges not as a rehearsed spectacle, but as an organic intimacy between two bodies confident in themselves and each other.
The performance plays with the audience’s gaze, meeting it with a mischievous, conspiratorial wit, drawing us into the game of flirtation and unveiling its essence – awkward, exuberant, and undeniably fun.
Zala Julija Kavčič
Blue Carousel by Bysheim & Patry immediately draws the audience into its pulse. Opening with sharp, rhythmic, repetitive movements set to driving techno beats by onstage DJs asiangirlsonly, the duet aims to comment on how the female body is viewed, objectified, and classified.
Overtime, two performers bite, lick, and touch each other in invasive yet consensual ways, reacting with a slight delay, so it seems they exist in their own reality. Queerness, women’s empowerment, and liberation shine through their interactions, which range from the cheeky to the deliberately grotesque. At the same time, their games recall the mischievous, boundary-testing explorations of childhood – intimate but not explicitly sexual.
Blue Carousel’s movement language is refreshingly direct. The performers are not afraid to look ugly; they give each image time to settle, making the most of repetition and pauses rather than rushing forward.
As lights flicker and colours shift, Blue Carousel starts to feel like a rave – ecstatic, chaotic, alive. Yet the physical distance between performers and audience blunts the intensity. Moments blur, and the full richness of the performance feels just out of reach.
Maria Chiara de Nobili
The two performers (Lisa Colette Bysheim and Katrine Patry) and two DJs (Thea and Miriam Michelsen) carry the mixing table onstage. Think Y2K meets early 2000s, infused with 1990s techno – already making a comeback. This study on bird mating dances is oddly satisfying. We witness a constant exchange of power, the strong performance of which elevates the piece. As they cruise and try to conquer each other in turn, we are cast not as passive viewers but as complicit onlookers. One segment flirts with the male gaze, staging woman-on-woman intimacy crafted for us, not experienced between them. It borders on steamy aerobics – a The Substance moment, if you’ve seen the film.
The dance is aptly detached from the music. The two coexist but never collapse into club dancing, which the choreographers consciously avoid. Are the mating rituals mimicking human behaviours, or is it the other way around? What emerges is a thoughtful, research-based creation, far deeper than its surface suggests. Visually striking, this piece stands out from the rest of the programme.