BEAST
About Beast
Working with choreographer Martin Forsberg, designer Jenny Nordberg and lighting designer Guy Hoare, and inspired by the confronting images of photographer Joel-Peter Within, Daw has created an intimate and hyper-theatrical spectacle that licks the eyeball of normality while charging down deviant neurological paths visiting sexual vertigo, expectation, intention and effect.
Reviews
“BEAST is an intelligent work by an important, unafraid artist.” Dance Informa, Australia
“Daw’s performance proves that dancers, indeed, are capable of physical feats which make the rest of us wonder if our own bodies even contain the same muscles.” On the Town (Theatre Now)
Production History
BEAST 2018
28 – 29 June Sophiensaele (Berlin, DE)
16 – 19 January Carriageworks (Sydney Festival, AUS)
BEAST 2016
16 March British Dance Edition (Cardiff, UK)
BEAST 2015
6 – 7 November Greenwich Dance (London, UK)
3 November Brighton Dome (Brighton, UK)
28 – 30 May (World Premiere) Swedish Performing Arts Biennale (Malmö, SWE)
Biographies
Martin Forsberg (DK)
Martin Forsberg is a choreographer and dance maker based in Scandinavia. He has created work for companies such as Göteborgsoperans Danskompani, Skånes Dansteater, Moscow Chamber Ballet and Corpus (Royal Danish Ballet). Together with producer Marie Schulz he runs the project based choreographic structure Fors Works. Since autumn 2018, Martin has been the Artistic Director of Norrdans in the north of Sweden.
Martin’s choreographic work derives from an interest in human/situation-based logic and the invention of choreographic methodology in relation to his collaborators. He strives to visualize human patterns in relation to choreographic aesthetics, looking at the body as a function in time and space.
Guy Hoare (UK) – Lighting Designer
Guy has been designing lighting for dance, theatre and opera for 20 years, creating work throughout the UK and internationally. He created Beast with Dan Daw in 2015. Other designs for dance include Macbeth, The Odyssey, Dracula; Made In Heaven; Love & War; Sea of Bones; Green Apples; Dive (Mark Bruce Company); Chotto Desh (Akram Khan Company); Something About Wilderness, Spectrum, To See the World While The Light Lasts, This Moment Is Your Life, Rikud (Skånes Dansteater); The Metamorphosis, Noumena (Royal Ballet); #minaret (Maqamat); Ex Nihilo/The Human Edge (Royal Ballet/ATMA Dance); The Land of Yes and The Land of No (Sydney Dance Company); Front Line (Aterbaletto); Vamos Cuba, Varmints; Mischief; Havana Rakatan (Sadlers Wells); And Who Shall Come to the Ball? (Candoco, International Tour); The Point At Which It Last Made Sense; Me+You=5; (Robin Dingemans); Square Map of Q4 (Bonachela Dance Company; International Tour); Dream (NDCWales); Pavlova’s Dogs (Scottish Dance Theatre); Just As We Are, The Lessening Of Difference; About Around; The Diminishing Present (bgroup); Strange Blooms; Bruise Blood; Flicker (Shobana Jeyasingh); White Space; Shot Flow; Second Signal; Expression Lines; Dido & Aeneas (Henri Oguike); This Bright Field, Of Land And Tongue, Chalk (Theo Clinkard); After Effects (Darren Ellis); Badlands; Amstatten (Robert Clark); Channel Rose (Eleesha Drennan); Without Stars (James Cousins); A Darker Shade of Fado (Nuno Silva); Something Then, Something Now (Seeta Patel); Spring, Sigma, Meta, 4x4Ephemeral Architectures (Gandini Juggling)
Designs for theatre include: Julie, The Deep Blue Sea, Here We Go, Strange Interlude (National Theatre); Wings, Winter, World Factory, A Doll’s House; Far Away (Young Vic);One For Sorrow, NSFW; In Basildon (Royal Court);We Know Not What We May Be (Barbican); Clarence Darrow (Old Vic); Roots; Serenading Louie; Be Near Me (Donmar Warehouse); Little Revolution; A Delicate Balance; Waste (Almeida); All My Sons (Regent’s Park); And No More Shall We Part (Hampstead Theatre & Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Cock (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); The Father (Theatre Royal Bath); Peter Pan (National Theatre of Scotland); Future Proof (Dundee Rep & Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Rutherford & Son; Othello (Northern Broadsides, UK Tour & West End); Faith Healer (Bristol Old Vic); Grease, A Streetcar Named Desire (Curve); As You Like It; A Christmas Carol; Macbeth (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Going Dark (Sound & Fury, UK & International tours)
Opera work includes: Jakob Lenz (ENO, Hampstead Theatre); The Firework-Maker’s Daughter (The Opera Group, UK Tour & New York); American Lulu (The Opera Group, Young Vic, Edinburgh & Bregenz); The Cunning Little Vixen (Janacek Theatre, Brno); King Priam, Paul Bunyan; The Lighthouse; Gianni Schicchi, Promised End; Katya Kabanova; Don Giovanni; Eugene Onegin (ETO).
Jenny Nordberg (DK) – Designer
Living in Copenhagen, Nordberg trained in Set and Costume Designer for Performing Arts at Dramatiska Institutet, Stockholm.
Following her further studies at Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten van Antwerpen/ Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium, Nordberg worked with institutions such as Göteborgsoperan (SE), Moderna Museet (SE), Det Kongelige Teater (DK), Fors Works (DK), and Moscow Chamber Ballet (RU). Her work has been selected to take part in Assitej, The Swedish biennale of Performing Arts and Bibu.
Responsible for the design of the overall visual expression, Nordberg’s work acknowledges the actuality that the stage and the auditorium is one room and designs her sets accordingly. Her sets are often with few props and her work can be described as Minimalistic Baroque, simplified and grand.
Based on the premise of the performance, in collaboration with the choreographer/ director and possibly other artistic team, the basic concept of both the physical and visual expression is laid.
Working in close collaboration with the director/choreographer and their creative teams, Nordberg approaches her design with a concrete use of theoretical research in societal structures. Atmosphere, sculptural approach, combinations of materials and finish detailing are strong components in her designs.
The key components she works with in her concepts and designs are visibility, transformation, tactility and durational work.
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