The Court

The Court is a sensory and groundbreaking experience that invites the audience into a seductive parallel universe where the power games of the past and the desires of the present collide. Inspired by sociologist Avery Gordon’s idea that we are always living side by side with the ghosts of the past, The Court explores Western dance history as a form of dystopian speculative fiction. The production takes us into a space where what we thought was forgotten is still vibrating beneath the surface.

Resonating on the Baroque era’s court parties, where dance was political propaganda and an aristocratic demonstration of power, The Court wrenches history out of its familiar forms. It blends Louis XIV’s spectacular court ballets with contemporary dance aesthetics, rhythms and physical expression in a work that challenges, seduces and disrupts. The result is a timeless, absurd and deeply physical experience, taking Baroque dances, social rituals, desires and fictions from the past and present, and weaving them together in new forms.

The Court is not a production that you ‘see’ – it’s a world that you enter, at your own pace. For more than three hours, the audience can freely come in and out of the room, choosing how they want to follow the nine performers’ constantly changing choreographic landscape.

This is an invitation to lose yourself a little, to feel history physically, and to imagine an unknown future.

The Court is the culmination of the multi-year project Rehearsing the Not Yet, a collaboration between choreographer Ingri Fiksdal, Marie Nerland’s curatorial project Volt, and dancer and choreographer Louis Schou-Hansen.

Ingri Fiksdal is a choreographer living in Oslo. She has a PhD in artistic research form the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and has been affiliated with the CoFutures research team at the University of Oslo. In her works, she uses choreography as a form of speculative fiction, exploring the hierarchies of power in relation to the body, knowledge and history. In recent years, she has presented works at a number of international festivals and art institutions, including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussel, Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf and Steirischer Herbst in Graz, and has also been on tour in Norway. Her later works include Sand Flight, created for The Bentway in Toronto in collaboration with director Jonas Corell Petersen, and the choreographic installation Hjemsøkt hus at Kunstnernes Hus, developed with Helle Siljeholm.

Louis Schou-Hansen is a choreographer and dancer living in Oslo. Their work explores the human body as a vulnerable and disobedient arena for fiction, often shaped by desire, mortality and self-destruction. Schou-Hansen frequently returns to history and counter-history – particularly the political chaos of early-modern Europe – to trace ghostly figures in contemporary culture. They have an MA from The Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and a BA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Louis’ work has recently been performed in venues including ICA London, New Art Dealers Alliance in New York, Dansehallerne København, Black Box Teater Oslo, Suprainfinit Bucuresti, My Wild Flag Stockholm and Centrale Fies in Dro, Italy, and they have also toured Norway. In 2024 they initiated and have since run the Mind Eater performance festival, alongside Runa Borch Skolseg.