Commissioned by Adolphe Binder for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani’s 2015 Shadowland/Neverland season, If We Shadows Have Offended marked the beginning of Alan Lucien Øyen’s narrative explorations with major contemporary dance companies. Crafted with dramaturge Andrew Wale and co-choreographed with Daniel Proietto, the work unfolds in a hybrid of spoken text, acting, and physical theatre, brought to life both by the full ensemble and guest artist Kate Strong.

Greatly impressive — Alan Lucien Øyen’s work expands the stage into a cinematic space: narrative, humorous and deeply human.

— Dagens Nyheter

The title borrows from Puck’s farewell in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while its central figure is drawn from Peter Pan — a man confronting his mother’s death and the terrifying prospect of adulthood.

Around this poignant premise is woven a layered tapestry of metaphor: a shrink named Think (or Think), the memory of his missed school performance, and the uneasy laughter that sits beside grief. Childhood fantasy and contemporary anxiety collide in a universe where imagination is both refuge and reckoning.

What emerged was a hybrid form: a full-length, narrative dance-theatre piece built from the performers’ own choreographic input, sharpened with actorly presence. Øyen — used to working with actors in winter guests — trained the dancers at Binder’s company in acting, introducing a new dimension to their movement language. The result is at once intimate and spectacular: a work that grapples with the Peter Pan complex as both personal metaphor and cultural symptom, reflecting on how we resist responsibility — and when, or if, we ever truly grow up.

Imagination yields no answers to the big questions — but it can render them infinitely beautiful.

— Svenska Dagbladet

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Info

Year: 2015

Duration: 60min

World premiere, March 14 2015 at The Gothenburg Opera

The choreography was created in close collaboration with the dancers.

Credits

Choreography / Set design / Text

Alan Lucien Øyen

with

Dancers from The Gothenburg Opera’s Dance Company

Creative Collaboration

Andrew Wale, Writer
Daniel Proietto, Choreographer

Costume design

Stine Sjøgren

Light design

Martin Flack

Sound design

Gunnar Innvær

Guest artist

Kate Strong

Rehearsal director

Stephan Laks

Still Photography

Mats Bäcker