Following the success of If We Shadows Have Offended (2015), Alan Lucien Øyen was invited back to create a new full-length work for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani. Premiered in spring 2016 and later performed at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, Kodak brought back familiar characters such as Peter and Think (Tinkerbell), and introduced the figure of Mickey. All text was written by Øyen himself, and the choreography was created in collaboration with Daniel Proietto, together with the company’s dancers.
Exquisitely elegant — dance as soft as if movements were embedded in down feathers.
A reflection on our era where illusion always outweighs reality.
Kodak asks: What are our dreams made of? How are we shaped by our longing to become the icons of our time? The stage becomes a kind of living photo album — memories flickering like snapshots, blurred with advertising slogans, Disney references, and cinematic fragments. From Hitchcock to Wong Kar-wai, from Disney’s myths to the once ubiquitous Kodak logo, the performance reveals how lives are framed by illusion, image, and collective memory.
Revisiting the universe of If We Shadows Have Offended, Øyen expands the narrative into a meditation on mortality, desire, and the need to belong. Characters reappear, grief resurfaces, and yet the humour and vitality of popular culture spill through, turning loss into something both poignant and playful. The work balances striking dance passages with text, creating a collage where the body, voice, and image blur into one fabric.
Kodak critiques the selfie-obsessed society where the cult of the icon and the cult of the self intertwine.
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