Position of Elsewhere was Johan Inger’s second full-length work choreographed for the Cullberg Ballet. The piece is divided into three parts that as a whole comprise a kind of survey of Inger’s five years as the company’s artistic director and primary choreographer from 2003-2008.
“The beginning of the show is very physical in an nearly manic sense. The goal was to conquer or take space with an almost mad, pressing energy. The first part is just about conquering the room. To come and take your place, to work your way in from the sides. In the second part, there is a meeting of sorts that appears. In the third and final part there is a farewell. There it will again be left clean and laid bare,” Inger said about his work before the premiere in the winter of 2009.
As in Inger’s first full-length work for the Cullberg Ballet Point of Eclipse (2007), he again collaborated with set designer Jens Sethzman and composer Jean-Louis Huhta. Sethzman and Inger felt during the first production that they were interested in taking their collaboration further, to see where it might lead.
“Johan is heading in a completely new direction, towards a new language” said Jens Sethzman, “and it is an honor to be invited into that process.”
The set design and lighting have collapsed into a singular sculptural and technically complete apparatus. It both lights the stage and is simultaneously an independent sculptural object.
“At the same time as Johan develops his large scale work which includes a huge bank of materials and ideas, this sculpture as illumination also carries a solid conceptual framework and can stand on its own as an aesthetic object. I do not know how much our ideas might clash. It is not until we see it built up on stage that we can understand what it means for the entirety of the work,” said Jens Sethzman.