About
Erik Eriksson (Copenhagen / Karlstad / Falun / Riga - based, 1989) studied contemporary dance at P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts and Research Training Studios) in Brussels, Belgium 2010-2014.
Erik's work is a dance with the inherently abstract in the seemingly concrete.
Grounded in a love for how moving, changing and playing with spatial relations, changes the way internal and external space(s) are experienced, each performance is created as an immersive universe that moves as the audience and performers move through it together. By relating to each given space as a dance partner and fellow performer, Erik creates abstractographies, abstracturgys and scenographies that dance and sing together with the moods, movements and harmonies that each space already emit.
Erik's work is a dance with the inherently abstract in the seemingly concrete.
Grounded in a love for how moving, changing and playing with spatial relations, changes the way internal and external space(s) are experienced, each performance is created as an immersive universe that moves as the audience and performers move through it together. By relating to each given space as a dance partner and fellow performer, Erik creates abstractographies, abstracturgys and scenographies that dance and sing together with the moods, movements and harmonies that each space already emit.
Why abstractography and abstracturgy?
"Dramaturgy" refers to the greek "drama" - the description of a story converted into the action of a play.
"Choreography" from Greek khoros "round dance; dancing-place; band of dancers; company of persons in a play, under a leader, who take part in dialogue with the actors and sing their sentiments at intervals.", but also in drama, "person who speaks the prologue and explains or comments on events on stage,"
Working with abstractography and abstracturgy is an aspiration withdrawl from narratives and sentiments
- the drama - that can be defined, to open up a space that can allow for other ways of relating to a world we do not understand.
I do not want to convey stories, and I certainly do not want to explain anything.
I am interested in materials and phenomena that themselves seem to generate strong sensorial inprints.
I see my work as a dance in relation to these materials and imprints.
What happens as a result is a personal experience to the person perceiving the happening.
I do not know what really happens, but I am very interested in the experience thereof.
So, I rather talk about what we feel that we experience, than about
what we think we think something is, or is about.
- Erik Eriksson
I am interested in materials and phenomena that themselves seem to generate strong sensorial inprints.
I see my work as a dance in relation to these materials and imprints.
What happens as a result is a personal experience to the person perceiving the happening.
I do not know what really happens, but I am very interested in the experience thereof.
So, I rather talk about what we feel that we experience, than about
what we think we think something is, or is about.
- Erik Eriksson
Verbal definitions - for those so inclined.
abstractography (n.)
c.2021, "the process of notating or "writing" ..... that loses .....'s meaning when described or explained."
abstracturgy (n.)
c.2020, "Working with and organising spaces, matters, movements and ideas, so that narratives that may be perceived in each element - the dramas of the elements - is constantly challenged by the way the abstracturgy unfolds.
An abstracturgy is many things, but not about any of its constituent parts.
The term abstracturgy was coined by Erik's long time collaborators, the Latvian-Lithuanian artist duo Ieva Gaurilčikaitė and Krišjānis Sants.
dramaturgy(n.)
"science of the composition and production of plays," 1795, from French dramaturgie, from Greek dramatourgia, from "drama" - "a composition presenting in dialogue a course of human action, the description of a story converted into the action of a play," + -ourgia "a working," from ergon "work, activity" (from PIE root *werg- "to do").
abstraction (n.)
c. 1400, "a withdrawal from worldly affairs, asceticism," from Late Latin abstractionem (nominative abstractio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin abstrahere "to drag away, detach, pull away, divert;" also figuratively, from assimilated form of ab "off, away from" (see ab-) + trahere "to draw," from PIE root *tragh- "to draw, drag, move" (see tract (n.1)). Meaning "idea of something that has no actual existence" is from 1640s.
choreography (n.)
1789, from French choréographie, coined from Latinized form of Greek khoreia "dance" (see chorus) + graphein "to write" (see -graphy).
chorus (n.)
1560s, in drama, "person who speaks the prologue and explains or comments on events on stage," from Latin chorus "a dance in a circle, the persons singing and dancing, the chorus of a tragedy," from Greek khoros "round dance; dancing-place; band of dancers; company of persons in a play, under a leader, who take part in dialogue with the actors and sing their sentiments at intervals."
-graphy
word-forming element meaning "process of writing or recording" or "a writing, recording, or description" (in modern use especially in forming names of descriptive sciences), from French or German -graphie, from Greek -graphia "description of," used in abstract nouns from graphein "write, express by written characters," earlier "to draw, represent by lines drawn," originally "to scrape, scratch" (on clay tablets with a stylus), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch, carve" (see carve).
c.2021, "the process of notating or "writing" ..... that loses .....'s meaning when described or explained."
abstracturgy (n.)
c.2020, "Working with and organising spaces, matters, movements and ideas, so that narratives that may be perceived in each element - the dramas of the elements - is constantly challenged by the way the abstracturgy unfolds.
An abstracturgy is many things, but not about any of its constituent parts.
The term abstracturgy was coined by Erik's long time collaborators, the Latvian-Lithuanian artist duo Ieva Gaurilčikaitė and Krišjānis Sants.
dramaturgy(n.)
"science of the composition and production of plays," 1795, from French dramaturgie, from Greek dramatourgia, from "drama" - "a composition presenting in dialogue a course of human action, the description of a story converted into the action of a play," + -ourgia "a working," from ergon "work, activity" (from PIE root *werg- "to do").
abstraction (n.)
c. 1400, "a withdrawal from worldly affairs, asceticism," from Late Latin abstractionem (nominative abstractio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin abstrahere "to drag away, detach, pull away, divert;" also figuratively, from assimilated form of ab "off, away from" (see ab-) + trahere "to draw," from PIE root *tragh- "to draw, drag, move" (see tract (n.1)). Meaning "idea of something that has no actual existence" is from 1640s.
choreography (n.)
1789, from French choréographie, coined from Latinized form of Greek khoreia "dance" (see chorus) + graphein "to write" (see -graphy).
chorus (n.)
1560s, in drama, "person who speaks the prologue and explains or comments on events on stage," from Latin chorus "a dance in a circle, the persons singing and dancing, the chorus of a tragedy," from Greek khoros "round dance; dancing-place; band of dancers; company of persons in a play, under a leader, who take part in dialogue with the actors and sing their sentiments at intervals."
-graphy
word-forming element meaning "process of writing or recording" or "a writing, recording, or description" (in modern use especially in forming names of descriptive sciences), from French or German -graphie, from Greek -graphia "description of," used in abstract nouns from graphein "write, express by written characters," earlier "to draw, represent by lines drawn," originally "to scrape, scratch" (on clay tablets with a stylus), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch, carve" (see carve).
People I work with
Daniella Eriksson
Krišjānis Sants
Ieva Gaurilčikaitė
Anika Edström Kawaji
Robin Haghi
Nabil Ranné
Veli Lehtovaara
Linn Eriksson
Cassiel Gaube
Daniel Linehan
Rihards Lībietis
Laima Jansone
Mārtiņš Miļevskis
Andy Field
Krista Burāne
Ieva Kauliņa
Kate Krolle
Taha Ghauri
Mārtiņš Eihe
Krišjānis Sants
Ieva Gaurilčikaitė
Anika Edström Kawaji
Robin Haghi
Nabil Ranné
Veli Lehtovaara
Linn Eriksson
Cassiel Gaube
Daniel Linehan
Rihards Lībietis
Laima Jansone
Mārtiņš Miļevskis
Andy Field
Krista Burāne
Ieva Kauliņa
Kate Krolle
Taha Ghauri
Mārtiņš Eihe
Photo: Per-Olof Eriksson
Erik Eriksson
Erik Eriksson