In the performance TRAGEDY, artist and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen casts a critical – yet humorous – gaze on the West and the cultural codes we've inherited that shape how we move through the world.
On stage, six unhappy figures are trapped in a slow, nightmarish loop, mechanically repeating a series of tragicomic tableaux: fake crying, Hollywood sex, impossible romances, lap dancing, dying swans, still life poses, and melancholic cowboy fantasies. All of it unfolds to a soundtrack of sampled and deconstructed pop and classical music.
These characters become living stereotypes – exaggerated and familiar versions of ourselves. We recognize them, we laugh, and we may even realize how we reproduce these same patterns without thinking. A tragedy plays out – and we’re all part of it.
With TRAGEDY, Louis Schou-Hansen invites you to reflect on your own learned and conditioned movements. Maybe they can be read, understood – and transformed into new ways of being in the world.
TRAGEDY will be performed by Lydia Östberg Diakité, Birgitte Skands, Elise Nohr Nystad, Thjerza Balaj, Ronni Morgenstjerne, and Louis Schou-Hansen.
Louis Schou-Hansen is an artist with a background in dance and choreography who works across media. Its work has been shown at ICA – Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, New Art Dealers Alliance, New York, Munch Museum, Oslo, Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen, and Dansehallerne in Copenhagen. In 2020, Louis Schou-Hansen was nominated for the Norwegian Critics’ Award for Performance of the Year. It lives and works in Oslo.
TRAGEDY is funded by Arts Council Norway, PERFORMING ARTS Hub Norway, and Dansehallerne.