Guest performance Teaterhuset Avantgarden, Trondheim April 2000

A Journey In Discomfort
This performance becomes an unsettling experience as it maneuvers through grotesque, spastic and disturbing forms of expression. Yet it is precisely because the audience is imprisoned in the 'disgusting' that the performance is so strong.

Øyvind Jorgensen takes us into a disturbing world of crippled human creatures, grotesque in body language and confused in the soul. Spastic creations who creak at the joints. Creatures who try to fly, but melt instead. Who balance on the edge of this performance's many precipices - in a twisted landscape. This production is a manifestation of these dancers' in-depth study of a physical and mental high-wire act, and an extraordinary tribute to the body's possibilities. The body is presented as pure matter, detached from the spirit and soul. The experience can be best likened to witnessing a dance of death where the citizens of the cemetery have wakened to some kind of existence. The music builds, creating a sucking, trancelike mood - a gasping for breath. This ugliness is contrasted by the production's thorough, simple aesthetic in light, set and costume. The light design creates a range of moods, and goes from milk-white, cold -enhanced by almost naked, white bodies and colourless faces - to a warm sun-drenched atmosphere. The characters live in relation to each other, yet are apparently without without dialogue and communication, without empathy and emotion.

However, moments of communication sweep across the stage with the warm golden light. The dancers take us on a journey into the inner world of discomfort. With its inadvertent, introspective form of expression, this performance forces a feeling upon us of being witness to something we would rather not see, would rather not display: our own and society's hidden -and unpleasant - sides. It is by insisting on a looming nausea that the performance grows so strong. While we wait for some resolution, some liberating 'normalcy', they hold us tightly in nausea. "Manøvrering i kupert landskap" has a great capacity for touching its audience. This is not the case with every dance performance one sees.
Idun Hagen Adresseavisen May 20000

Guest performance Carte Blanche, Oct. ’99
"Impressive mastery of the body in a pure performance where restriction and resistance in movement combine to create stasis. The weekend’s guest performance from Oslo offers us noted Norwegian dancers who possess great integrity of movement. Manøvering I Kupert Landskap shows us the body and terrain in a way anyone – despite their physicality – could recognise themselves in. However, recognition is not the only prerequisite for communication (...) the performance is thoroughly developed and manoeuvres with artistic confidence on the basis of solid dance skills and sober scenography, showered with poignant musical moments ... the twitching legs – jerking as if commanded by electrical impulses, the swaying pirouettes accompanied by sounds of hissing and buzzing create a surreal and futuristic performance that is well worth visiting ..."
Marit Strømmen, Bergens Tidene, October 1999

Black Box Theatre premiere, September 1999
"Øyvind Jørgensen is an exceptional dancer and choreographer. He made a big impression with Songs Of The Last Hour (1997), where he was celebrated as a Butoh expert with a highly personal mode of expression. This is further developed in Manøvering I Kupert Landskap, performed with Ellen Johannesen and Reidar Sjøset. These two dancers have grasped much of Jørgensen’s movement vocabulary, adding fine nuance to his choreography.
(. . .) this darkness, the twisted – and anything but polished - is what Jørgensen seeks in his choreography and his narrative on co-existence and civilisation. The spastic spasms, the body’s contortions and controversial way of moving, simultaneously imply insanity, extreme finesse, and comedy."
Inger-Margrethe Lunde, Dagsavisen, September 1999

Øyvind Jørgensen is a choreographer who has mastered many different modern dance genres – from pure abstract movement, to cabaret. Those of us who have followed Jørgensen’s work form the 80’s, have followed an artist who has never been afraid to take chances or follow new directions – regardless of criticism. A simple functional set by Harald Fenn is maximised by light designer Petter Steen and costume designer Franz Schimdt, who show a genuine sensitivity to the choreographer’s intentions. (...) This performance is one of the most communicative I have seen in a long time. The body language is intense and gripping – sometimes beautiful and sometimes ugly and grotesque. (...) This time Jørgensen’s connection to the aesthetics and stylistic elements of Butoh are even more obvious, and it is good to see a choreographer who is so consistent in his choices.

Lise Nordal, Morgenbladet, September 1999