DISORDER-ORDER-DISORDER-ORDER

DISORDER-ORDER-DISORDER-ORDER (2023)

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In the work DISORDER-ORDER-DISORDER-ORDER, made in collaboration with the choreographer Sebastian Lingserius, six people perform a bodily, choreographic enactment of the language that police officers use when reporting on events and interventions.

The work is based on examinations of thousands of police reports, all of them from the Norrmalm police district in Stockholm, describing someone being taken into custody. The reports involve a range of situations, from alcohol, drugs, and bar fights, to traffic violations, domestic violence, theft, and escalating confrontations for no apparent reason other than the intervention itself. Many times, these are situations that people can relate to, although it is obvious that some groups are viewed as more suspect than others. The reports always contain a brief statement of the reasons for the intervention as well as a summary of how it unfolded. Sometimes there are also custody records, interrogations, medical reports, counter-reports, and more detailed incident reports written by the police officers involved due to an internal review of the case.

The current version of the work consists of a video and sound installation in several parts that processes informal linguistic conventions of the sections in the reports where police officers describe events and movements from their point of view.

The six people who participate in the scenes demonstrate and correct each other, before the camera and those watching. Vocabulary is situated via a range of situations and interpretations, revealing the gap between body and movement on the one hand, and the expression of text and speech on the other. In the friction between dance and violence, disorder and order, the language of the monopoly of violence – how it regulates the perception of bodies – movements and events, is scrutinised and reexamined. Ultimately revealing connections between power and perception, state and individual.

Script and director: Andjeas Ejiksson. Choreography: Sebastian Lingserius. Producer: Fredrik Egerstrand. Dancers: Majula Drammeh, Noah Hellwig, Robin Ivarsson, Siriol Joyner, Kim Källman, Benno Voorham. Voice over: Kerstin Wixe. A photo: Fabian Engström. B photo: Carl Bengtsson. Costume: Ellen Utterström. Editing: Fredrik Egerstrand. Sound processing: Hans Olsson.