Edith Karlson Scenography for “Cowbody”

Edith Karlson (EKA Sculpture and Installation BA and Contemporary Art MA) has created the scenography for Hanna Kritten Tangsoo and Sigrid Savie’s show “COWBODY/ Oh wow, it’s you!”, which will be premiered on December 5 at Kanuti Gildi SAAL.

COWBODY/ Oh wow, it’s you! engages with shifting focus from extraordinary to the habitual. Bringing together expectations and outcomes, it smoothes into a world where intimacy is exercised from a distance and sometimes only half a sentence is just enough. Sigrid and Hanna Kritten invite the audience to witness a hotpot of dance, sculpture, music and fitness trampolines where in a form of self-defense two bodies enjoy finding the struggle, or struggle to find joy.

Two rather young women. The voice between their thin lips sounds incredibly low. Their seemingly fragile, passive bodies gasp with intensity. They do not offer services but serve. Serving paradoxes, transformations and power. They are self-regulating, self-regenerating. Concrete and figurative. In life-size. They surprise and are surprised. They whisper roars. They play with domesticated forms – crawling, skipping – making the bushes go upside down. 

A very daily routine of believing in a moment where everything will be just fine. Belief that is somehow holding everything loosely together. You are a subject to forces you cannot understand that drive you apart. You are a real person. Don’t worry. The oxygen is flowing. So now you can finally let yourself go, can’t you?

You are maybe always on my mind.

Hanna Kritten Tangsoo is a Berlin-based choreographer and lighting artist. She studied dance at Viljandi Cultural Academy 2011-2014 and graduated BA Dance, Context, Choreography Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz/ HZT Berlin 2014-2017. During her studies at HZT she started to work as a theater technician at the university and thus came into contact with lighting design. In 2021 she participated in the ETC Electronic Theater Controls Ltd Fred Foster Student Mentorship Program International branch program. Hanna Kritten is one of the co-founders of Suddenly, a performing arts collective based in Berlin. Since 2017 Hanna Kritten has been a freelance artist in both dance and lighting.

Sigrid Savi is a freelance performing artist based in Berlin and Tallinn. She graduated choreography/dance teaching at Viljandi Culture Academy 2015. She has presented her first solo work Imagine There’s a Fish (Sōltumatu Tantsu Lava) in Glasgow, Riga, Berlin, Hammerfest, Kiev, Nuremberg and Vilnius. Savi presented her second solo work Pushing Daisies (Kanuti Gildi SAAL) at the International performing arts festival SAAL Biennaal 2019. Savi has collaborated with Jon Konkol on not this pillow fight in New York (Panoply Performance Lab) and Berlin (grüntaler9) and with Edith Karlson on Let’s get lost I know the way (Sōltumatu Tantsu Lava, Tallinn Art Hall) at Tallinn Art Hall.

Choreography: Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Sigrid Savi
Music, sound design: Markus Daßau
Scenography: Edith Karlson
Dramaturgy: Ruslan Stepanov
Lighting Design: Hanna Kritten Tangsoo
Project management: Maarja Kalmre
Technical support: Henry Kasch
Co-producing: Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Sigrid Savi
Supported by: Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR Germany, Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Special thanks to: Heneliis Notton

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Premiere on December 5th 2022 at Kanuti Gildi SAAL

Performance on December 6th will be followed by an artist talk led by Kai Valtna