Time is out of joint. It resides in the body. True Random attempts to grasp the feeling of balancing on the edge of the abyss. Losing orientation. Losing the organization of the world.
There is so much that matters in a life that is ruled by chance. It can be felt when the world is undergoing rapid transformation, and it serves as a reminder of how vulnerable we are, and how quickly everything can change. True Random is a performance where community and the poetic force of moving together are central, and where the meaningfulness of the randomness is explored.
In Marie Topp’s works, the audience is placed within emotions. 360 degrees. We are them. We see them. We feel them. We reflect on them. Universal emotions. You get sucked in.
True Random will be shown as part of CPH STAGE program 2025.
ARTIST TALK May 27 there will be an artist talk with Marie Topp after the performance.
True Random is the third piece in a series of performances exploring our personal, inner time in different phases of life. The experience of the passage of time is embodied through different formats, spaces, and temporalities. The previous works in the series are The Labyrinth (2022) and Maze (2023). By following the architecture of the labyrinth, the logic of the maze, moving towards the concept of “True Random”, these choreographies invite the audience to reflect on life and existence in relation to the most fundamental movement: the passing of time.
The Danish Arts Foundation’s Award Committee for Performing Arts wrote that: “The Labyrinth” from 2022 is a masterpiece that grips the audience in the gut and gives form to the essence of life.”
Press Reviews
“Sometimes you see a work that reminds you of how fantastic art can be. In a way where you feel that the world opens up, everything comes alive again. Not because it is only nice to experience the work, but more because it strikes the deepest chords in the understanding or feeling of existing as a human being. For me, “The Labyrinth” by Marie Topp is such a work.” Karin Hald, Bastard Blog 2024
“Maybe that’s how it is to live. Life in a nutshell, like essence. Impressions and expressions in association with the surroundings. “Maze” slows down and repeats again and again cyclical formations to challenge our own and the present tendency to run in one direction full of distractions along the way.” Dorte Grannow Balslev about Maze, Iscene.dk 2024.
True Random will be shown as part of CPH STAGE program 2025.
Artistic Collaboration
Marie Topp has closely collaborated with composer Julia Giertz, lighting designer Mårten K Axelsson, and dramaturg Igor Dobricic over the past 10 years. Together with various collaborators, they have created a series of choreographies, including Oceanic, Hail to the Good Listener, The Labyrinth, and Maze. Since 2019, their shared works have primarily been produced by Visible Effects, a platform for choreography.
About the Artistic Collaboration
“The music by Julia Giertz and the lighting design by Mårten K Axelsson. Music, light, and choreography are not merely woven together, but play together like a jazz band, giving space to each other as equal partners. There are layers of narrative that we cannot see, but sense as inner images and dream visions in a blend of movement and light.” – Iscene.dk on The Labyrinth
Marie Topp
“To experience a billion years in one hour”, a reviewer wrote in 2021 describing a performance by Marie Topp. Her performances are characterized by their meditative and hypnotic effects on the viewer. By using slowness as a way to create hyper awareness and by building landscape-like scenarios on stage through the movements of dancers, sound and light, Topp is creating performances that hold potential for intense emotional journeys. Through artistic collaborations she makes performances that function as spaces of resonance that support sensorial encounters, embodied thinking, collective concentration and reflection.
Marie Topp has collaborated with artists such as Julia Giertz, Mårten K Axelsson, Igor Dobricic, Margret Sara Gudjonsdottir and Eric Andersen and others. She is associated artist at Milvus Artistic Research Center and has collaborated with organizations such as Dansehallerne, MDT Stockholm, MARC, Dansk Danseteater, Aaben Dans, Bora Bora, Inkonst, K3 Tanzplan Hamburg, Kampnagel, Inkonst, Atalante, Dansstationen. She was educated at The National School of Performing Arts in Danmark in 2009.
Mårten K Axelsson
Mårten K Axelsson is a lighting designer and scenographer. Educated from Statens Teaterskole 2009. Mårten has worked as a lighting designer both in Denmark and abroad. Among others at the Royal Theatre, Malmö Stadsteater, Aarhus Theatre, Folketeatret, Norrdans Härnösand, Den Jyske Opera, Odense Theatre, Kampnagel Hamburg, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Schauspiel Köln, Atalante, Dansehallerne, Aalborg Theatre.
Julia Giertz
Julia Giertz is a sound artist, her practice is based on physical and choreographic aspects of sound where synthesizers, manual and electronic filters and live coding become instruments and sound sculptures. Central to her practice are the long-term, close collaborations she shares with visual artists, sound artists and choreographers such as Marie Topp, Camilla Barratt-Due and Tarek Atoui. She has participated in concerts and works at The Venice Biennale, Sonic Acts, Unsound, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, MDT and Norrlands Opera amongst others. Since 2023, Giertz has been working as a studio engineer at Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm.
Igor Dobričić is a dramaturge and artistic advisor to a number of choreographers including Christina Ciupke, Keren Levi, Meg Stuart, Marie Topp and Guillaume Marie. He teaches concept development at the Amsterdam School for New Dance (SNDO), and since 2009, he has served as a research fellow with the Amsterdam School of the Arts, working on a long-term research project, Table Talks. His interests include the exploration of parameters of performative action between different fixed production contexts (theater and visual arts, professional and non-professional status, individual and group work, ethics and aesthetics).
Maria Folkmann Ipsen has texture and movement in the material central to her work, as a costume designer, which is often in the context of contemporary dance. In addition to Marie Topp, Maria has collaborated with Fernando Melo, the Institute of Interconnected Realities, and the Danish Dance Theatre.
The dancers
Karis Zidore is a choreographer and composer based in Copenhagen. Through body, voice and sound, her choreographic practice moves between loaded images and heartfelt sensations. In her works, she often departs from gendered and loaded expressions only to tease, disrupt and reshape. Zidore recently presented her solo work, Slit Show (2024), at Dansehallerne in Copenhagen. Karis Zidore is a co-founding member of Danseatelier and the artistic director and curator of the carrierbag festival together with Emilia Gasiorek.
Emilie Gregersen is a choreographer and dancer based in Copenhagen. She’s a co-founding member of Dance Cooperative, holds a degree in dance and choreography from The Danish School of Performing Arts and has since 2018 produced her choreographic works. Emilie’s work is driven by sensorial practices and questions around intimacy, power dynamics, artificiality and the use of the senses. Through the uncanny, the erotic and the bizarre, she playfully works with the distortion of images and movements to challenge binary perceptions and narratives. Emilie also performed in Marie Topp’s recent piece “The Labyrinth”.
Snorre Elvin is a Copenhagen-based dancer and choreographer, born in Aarhus in 1991. His work revolves around themes of transformation, tactility, queerness, collectivity, and ecology. As a co-founder of the dance collective Danseatelier, Elvin engages in both artistic, organisational, and curatorial practices. He holds an MA in choreography and a BA in dance from the Danish National School of Performing Arts. His work has been showcased at Roskilde Festival, Rakete Festival, Det Frie Felts Festival, and Gothenburg Theatre and Dance Festival. As a dancer, he has collaborated with artists such as Michele Rizzo, Esben Weile Kjær, Sara Gebran, Daniela Georgieva, and Martin Forsberg.
Alexander Montgomery-Andersen is an Arctic artist from the Greenlandic diaspora. Alexander has his dance education from Bårdar Dance Academy in Oslo. Since then, Alexander has taken part in many various productions and projects as a freelance artist. Alexander has, in recent years, among others, worked with artists and companies such as AVIAJA Dance, Yggdrasil Dance Company, Antero Hein and Bobbi Lo Produktion. For most of his career, Alexander has worked within inter-Nordic collaborations. He produces and choreographs his works as well, debuting his first full stage piece in 2015 called IdentiD. His most recent production, Dualism, premiered in 2023 at RAS, Norway and has since then toured to Denmark and Greenland.
Alexander’s artistic work has had a strong focus on the exploration of the body’s physical limitations and how this can correlate with aesthetics and evoke emotional responses from the audience. Often in correlation to both nature and people.
