Before, after Nevermind
Performance and installation (ca. 1 hour and 40 min.)
Commissioned by Corpus (DK), premiere September 2021
In September 1991, Nirvana released their most legendary album, Nevermind, that had a seismic effect on music. 40 million copies later the album is still relevant with its unpretentious simplicity and sincere necessity.
Nevermind popularized a new sound, created a DIY aesthetic, and obliterated the distinction between underground and mainstream.
Before, after Nevermind is inspired by the rawness and intensity that made the album Nevermind groundbreaking and captured a generation formed by mistrust and indifference.
Nevermind offered an alternative to the well-established rock music scene, with its edgy straightforwardness and sincerity, that was neither fake nor staged. The captivating soundscape of the album emerges from the dynamic contradictions, from whispering to deafening, melodic to chaotic, and offers a space to simultaneously care too much and not care at all.
In Before, after Nevermind the album is sensorially interpreted and its transformative potential used as an offset for the choreography. Nevermind is ever present in the piece with excerpts of music, text and visual references. It is not an interpretation or biographic narrative, but a piece that investigates the methods and spirit that the album was created with, through an interdisciplinary investigation of what it means to create, confront, surrender to, and resist in order to discover new expressions and experiences through dance and choreography. Always in association with the delirium inherent to Nevermind.
The choreographer Rachel Tess is a big fan of the album, which accompanied her own contradiction as a teenager between a strict ballet training and a willfulness that would eventually take her beyond the confines of ballet companies to experimental choreographic endeavors that embody the conflict between perfection and the imperfect.
Through a collaboration between the dancers, the choreographer, and scenographer Christian Friedländer, a new performance was created. An immersive and energetic piece, which offers a tactile and sensorial experience in a new exploration of Nevermind.
"Before, after Nevermind - the performance, sensorial trip, and quasi installation for five dancers, one car wash, and six oversized cheerleader pom poms.
The work is not a narrative of the album or a biography of the band but rather an attempt to physicalize the highs, lows, and raw energy it possesses, thirty years after its release. Ever-present are the dancers’ individual relationships to the album as they weave in and out of the pom poms, play with proximity, tactility, vibration and intensity while revisiting their own dance histories as a lurking sense of teenage angst spills out over the edges."
- Rachel Tess
Christian Friedländer is a Danish scenographer that has created over 80 scenographies for theater, opera, and dance. He has collaborated with international directors such as Katrine Wiedemann, Anders Paulin, Tue Biering, Bille August, Kasper Holten, Jeremy Weller, Alexander Mørk-Eidem, Frank Castorf and David Marton and was house scenographer at Malmö Dramatiska Teater 1998-99.
"In a room bathed in the sepia toned nostalgia of the music video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, mapped out on a basketball court, with the mechanical sounds of a car wash modeled after a sweater belonging to Kurt Cobain, references to the band appear, disappear, and transform in a room that is equal parts sound, kinetic sculpture, and dance. Before, after Nevermind, invites seasoned Nirvana groupies and first time listeners to stand up, slouch, bop along, lounge, and sit down to ‘Nevermind’ on its 30th anniversary."
- Christian Friedländer
Choreographer: Rachel Tess
Set designer: Christian Friedländer
Costume design: Rachel Tess & Christian Friedländer
Written with and danced by: Alexander Stæger, Hazuki Kojima, Marco Høst, Alma Toaspern, Anna Pehrsson
Music: Nirvana
Additional music and live synth: Alma Toaspern
Light design: Rachel Tess, Christian Friedländer, Kasper Riisberg
Stage and light tech: Kasper Riisberg
Sound engineer: Jonas Jensen
Costumier: Annette Nørgaard
Production manager: Per Uffelmann
Production assistant: Maria Schultz-Christiansen
Technical intern: Philip Korshøj Lulzac
Coordinator: Peter William Larsen
Student worker, communication: Maria Schultz-Christiansen
Artistic process Consultant: Marie Haugsted Mors
Artistic Director: Tim Matiakis
Producer: Karen Grønborg
Pictures by: Christian Friedländer
Special thanks to Isaac Spencer and Louella May Hogan for their contribution to the performance.
Please note! This production is standing room only.
Breed
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Drain You
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Something In The Way
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Polly
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Lithium
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Come As You Are
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain/David Grohl/Krist Novoselic
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Endless Nameless
Music & Lyrics by Kurt Cobain/David Grohl/Krist Novoselic
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Lounge Act
Musik & text by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
Territorial Pissings
Music & text by Kurt Cobain
Published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd (Primary Wave); The End Of Music
”Endless, Nameless”
Written by Krist Anthony Novoselic, David Eric Grohl
© Published by Murky Slough Music (BMI) / MJ Twelve Music [BMI]
Administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd
“Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Written by: Krist Anthony Novoselic, David Eric Grohl
© Published by Murky Slough Music (BMI) / MJ Twelve Music [BMI]
Administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd
