Balsam for the soul at the Box
It's not often that one is left with a such a rare feeling of well-being as after seeing The Adorers Journal at Black Box Theatre ...

During Øyvind Jørgensen's dance performance an ethereal contact is established between dancer and observer. The sense of worship and adoration one experiences in the performance is directed at the observer, and causes an intense dialogue between one's inner voices. Øyvind Jøregensen massages the body, mind and senses with his highly personal language of movement, and generously allows space for reflection.This extraordinarily soothing experience in a black box in the middle of the city is so unexpected that a loud chorus of approval should be given Jørgensen and his colleague - musician Petter Wiik.

Good Dance
This performance is good dance - because it has its own identity in a postmodern time that produces more and more performances with a tendency to use postmodern performance methods and intellectualism. The usual language of 'performance-expression' has become predictable. This has weakened the expression's impact on the audience, and it is high time that performances follow a new and different direction. The Adorers Journal does just that.

Øyvind Jørgensen and Petter Wiik have easily avoided all dangers of falling into the realm of scenic clichés. They compile a pure and simple performance that restores emotion - and this after a long period in dance of performances filled only with ideas. Petter Wiik´s very effective and beautiful composition expresses an organic theme that speaks directly to the emotions and leaves nothing unrevealed. Kitsch is latently implied in the music without causing problems. Together with Jørgensen´s abstract motion patterns the music´s emotional character works as a catalyst and driving force in a fruitful collaboration between light, movement and sound.

Butoh-Inspired
As a choreographer Jørgensen is focussed on the movement itself rather than motion as part of the storytelling structure. As a dancer he moves his body in a black room with grey clothes and only elegant light to help him. Inspired by Japanese Butoh Jørgensen produces spastic movements spurred by inner impulses, and gives sound to voices deep within. In the transition to softer themes of motion the spasms release the performance's energy and direction. Jørgensen selects music after he has created the choreography.

As a result the breaches in synchronisation make way for unexpected tension - both for audience and choreographer - and create many different moods and rich associative rooms. The artistry in the performance lies within the barely noticeable displacement of music and dance, between the light-design and choreography and in the contradictions the displacements create between shadow and light, harmony and disharmony.

Jørgensen´s style minimises the grotesquerie of Butoh into good-naturedgrimaces and mimicries.. His is pure, and induces a whole and positive feeling. What the themes of movement imply is therefore irrelevant. What is important is that the movements give the observer the feeling a field of flowers gives - without one actually seeing the field.

The Adorers Journal rests on a meditative expression with focus on consciousness, emotion andinstant beauty - like a haiku poem
.
Grete Indahl Klassekampen May 2000

An inner volcano in Jørgensen's choreography.
With minimal movement Øyvind Jørgensen exposes an inner life.

Dancer and choreographer Øyvind Jørgensen likes to work on solo projects. His one man show The Adorers Journal is running at Black Box this weekend and is absolutely worth seeing. The performance begins with Jørgensen popping up in small pools of light on different parts of the stage, and in short sequences he introduces a variety of physicalised states of mind. These states of mind are well established in the space, for when he latepasses these points on the stage, he repeats the identical form of expression he defined at the start.On subsequent reflection one can see the journey between these points, and it becomes crystal clear that this is not a presentation of physical expression, but of an inner space in a human being that is being given a physical language.

Details are everything
Jørgensen's physical language is extremely minimal, and this is a form of expression he has developed over a long period of time. Japanese-inspired,
but still very much his own, and which he honours in the smallest details. For here one must observe that details are everything. Not a single look, not a single movement of a finger is unnecessary, and at the same time one wonders - during the most powerful moments - whether his body contains any bone structure at all!
The most fascinating aspect of Jørgensen as a performer is that emotion and thought become such clear physical expression. He transforms himself right before our eyes, from a happy whimsical little person into a crook-backed ancient, or a nervous confused man, without any direction in life whatsoever. The body is merely a shell housing these inner lives - yet at the same time imprisoning them. There is so much that wants to come out, yet which is trapped. And it this that Jørgensen is able to visualize. An extraordinary thing to witness.

Specially written music
The musical soundscape which follows Jørgensen hand in glove, has been specially written by composer Petter Wiik. Together with light design by Ruth Marie Bottheim the states of mind in the performance are enhanced, aided and abetted by the simple costume designed by Silje Fjellberg.

Fredrik Rütter Aftenposten May 2000