Ellen Friis
At Berliner Luft 3 Ellen Friis performed the first version of “The Evidence”:
At Samtalekøkkenet, Friis presented “Six Saints: Lene Vestergaard Hau”. Six Saints is a series of performances investigating various time-concepts; an artistic analysis of six famous Danish scientists, who have concerned themselves with LIGHT, ENERGY AND TIME. The research also touches on other topics shared by physics and the performing arts, such as the questions of documentation, observation and ownership.
At Hitparaden 1 Ellen Friis presented “Six Saints: Tycho Brahe” & “Six Saints: H.C.Ørsted”
Can a performance happen in space only? Can a performance happen in time only? In her performance-series, Six Saints, Ellen Friis investigates the time concepts of 6 famous Danish scientists from the renaissance to the present. The last two performances concern Tycho Brahe, who lived in a feudal and static society with no clocks, and H. C. Ørsted, who regarded energy and change as the worlds true nature. The two scientists have been translated into two works presented simultaneously. The first one happens in space only, the other in time only. The works are both interpretations of a danced choreography, which Ellen Friis bought from the company DON*GNU, and which no one else will ever see.
In the last of the series, Tycho Brahe and H.C.Ørsted, Ellen Friis will present two works simultaneously; a work that happens only in space, and one that happens only in time.
With a background in stage design (Akademiet for Scenekunst, Frederikstad, Norway) and a diploma in Interdisciplinary Arts from the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee (2005), Ellen Friis has an unconventional approach to the basic matters of time and space. She wonders how various time structures affect or change the space and the narration of live performance. In her works in theatres and museums in Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Finland, she investigates performance combined with recordings to see what happens if time runs backwards, slow, or not at all.
For the serie “Now and Again”, she performed “Still-life (after Wilhelm Bendz) ”