Together with the theatre group Hotel Pro Forma I created the theatre piece COSMOS+, which is cocktail of modern physics and cosmology mixed with performance theatre and visual arts; all prepared for an audience of children of all ages.
The aim of my collaboration with Hotel Pro Forma is to explore modern physics and cosmology from an aesthetic perspective. The message is the experience of wonder, of beauty, of awe when we are faced with the reality, that science reveals to us. It is the visual beauty of mathematical formulas, the wonder that seizes us when contemplating infinity or the nature of time. It is the fundamental question “why?”
Shows:
2016
- 12.03 Uppsala Stadsteater, Sweden
2015
- 31.05 + 01.03 – 26.04 Lithuanian national Drama Theatre, Vilnius, Lithuania
- 04.02 – 14.02 Den Grå Hal, Copenhagen, Denmark
2014
- 21.03 – 21.12 Lithuanian national Drama Theatre, Vilnius, Lithuania
The press wrote:
Lithuanian Morning News, online edition
…The images seen on the stage are truly impressive, and sometimes simply enchanting. The goal of creating a unique alternative image of the cosmos is what makes this production truly extraordinary…“It’s the best thing that I have ever seen”, my seven-year-old son told me when the lights went up.
Read the full review here (lithuanian)
Politiken (DK) – 5 hearts
When it comes to setting out into the cosmos, Dehlholm is on home territory. Precisely because only two per cent of the universe can be described and, basically speaking, we know precious little about it. So this is all the more reason to send us off on an insanely fine, sense-tingling tour de force out into space, packed with info about everything from the five billion years the sun has left to ‘live the life’ to the number of years a twin can catch up with on a long-distance journey in space. Kosmos+ is a performance that is mind-boggling.
Read the full review here (danish)
Teater1 (DK) – 5 stars
With COSMOS+ Hotel Pro Forma has truly produced a new format for children’s theatre. A format of fantastic international artistic quality, that in no way talks down to the children. The little ones, just like the adults, have to be on their toes to follow and understand or just enjoy the unique images and music in constant motion. Star images in constant eternal change. They have to look up!
Read the full review here (danish).
Seven Days of Art (LT)
…a parallel view of the cosmos created with the help of new image reproduction techniques, which extends across the entire space, sometimes exceeding the stage, surrounding the audience, immersing it into the approaching and receding virtual universe of images. The video designers Magnus Pind Bjerre and Birk Marcus Hansen together with the lighting designer Jesper Kongshaug have found fantastic analogies to convey the most important bodies and phenomena of the universe. Fascinatingly ingenious motifs.
Read the full review here (lithuanian)
Ore.lt (LT)
The performance is a synthesis of image, sound and text...“Cosmos+” is an undoubtedly educational and work of popular science, but I would dare to call it philosophical as well.
Read the full review here (lithuanian)
Information (DK)
…It is important to note that new drama also has wild cross-over art on offer. Most recently with Kirsten Dehlholm and Hotel Pro Forma, whose Big Bang performance Cosmos+ at Den Grå Hal was a sizzlingly beautiful family performance on understanding the origin of everything. At the same time, it was also an existential problematizing of modern man’s explosive knowledge of our own infinitesimal smallness.
Teateravisen – 5 stjerner
Efter forestillingen – så vældig og visuelt fabelagtig som den har været – sidder jeg, næsten til min forbløffelse, tilbage med en større kundskab end jeg havde før. For jeg har også været til en slags skoletime – bare fuldstændigt anderledes. En masse oplysninger er nye for mig, jeg har set sammenhænge, jeg ikke kendte til før, og noget er påmindelser om ting, jeg har glemt. Og samtidigt har jeg haft en stor oplevelse – visuelt, musikalsk, teatralsk. Jeg bestyrkes i min tro på, at teatrets evne til at visualisere, menneskeliggøre og forklare ellers ubegribelige sammenhænge, er enorm. Uden sidestykke, vil jeg sige.
‘Kosmos+’ er både smuk, eventyrlig, sanselig og klog.
Frederiksborgs Amts Avis – 5 stjerner
På en mærkelig måde favner Hotel Pro Forma hele vor uoverskuelige viden om verdensrummet med vor trang til at få alt fortalt i billeder.
Den jordiske teknik er udviklet i imponerende grad, så »Kosmos+« bliver både viden og science fiction for øjnene af publikum.
Og da forestillingen slutter med, at sæbebobler i hobetal daler ned over tilskuerrækkerne, springer børnene blandt publikum op for at fange dem. Menneskeheden vil altid hoppe og række ud efter det uhåndgribelige.
CPHCulture – 5 stjerner
…en visuel overdådig forestilling…
Berlingske – 5 stjerner
Styrken i »Kosmos+«, der er Kirsten Dehlholms første forestilling for børn og kreeret som et bestillingsværk til Litauens Nationale Drama Teater i 2014, er netop evnen til at tale til både børn og voksne. Man bliver suget ind i de flotte, foranderlige videobilleder af stjerner og planeter og musikkens stemningsfulde, elektroniske lydlandskaber i det gennemarbejdede og helstøbte værk, der er det bedste Hotel Pro Forma har vist herhjemme siden »War Sum Up«. Og i sit krydsfelt mellem kunst og naturvidenskab er »Kosmos+« både fin, sanselig og tankevækkende formidling om universet.
Børn i byen – 4 stjerner
Flot, flippet og fascinerende.
Skal man vige tilbage fra at tage sin guldklump ind og se det, hvis man ikke i forvejen har tapetseret børneværelset med stjernebilleder? Ikke nødvendigvis. For man må gerne udfordre sit afkom ind imellem, hive dem væk fra Disney Sjov og give dem (og sig selv) en oplevelse ud over det sædvanlige.
Jesper møller grimstrup 