”I think everybody should be free and just do exactly what they want.
Nobody should decide anything over anyone else. Anyway, that´s what I think.”
Commission work for The Göteborg Ballet.
Premiere at the Göteborg Opera, Göteborg, april 17th 2009.
A group of people meet together. They all cherish a vague, common dream to move to somewhere far away, to freedom, maybe to Alaska.
Or perhaps they are actually already there? They look as though they come from there. Some of them are talking together, someone is singing. What’s the penguin doing there? And the woman in the poncho with the strange hairstyle? Each of them has their own story, but deep down there lies that same longing for the wild, wide open spaces.
Someone once said that it is the people who have not been able to manage life so well elsewhere who move to Alaska.
Alaska is the first work by Gunilla Heilborns for the Göteborg Ballet. She trained as a choreographer at the Danshögskolan in Stocholm and has worked with several different genres, including dance, performance, text and film. Alaska was created for and with the dancers of the Göteborg Ballet.
More about this performance:
See also the film “This is Alaska”, originally made for and shown in the performance, but later recut and now shown as a shortfilm.
Press quotes
”Heilborn är mer intresserad av vad vi människor gör, det vill säga hur vi beter oss, än att skapa tjusiga turer och bilder. Resultatet brukar bli dans med underfundig humor, träffsäkra iakttagelser och mänsklig tafatthet som kännetecken. Så även i Alaska.”
”Dans, tal och sång faller i varandra som vore det den naturligaste sak i världen. Med kurssituationen som samlande centrum förenas uttryckssätten och de brokiga berättelsefragmenten i en humoristisk, vacker och melankolisk studie av människan och hennes underliga fågeldans”