Voice

The inspiration for Voice was the drawing Parad (1945), by Peter Weiss. The title refers to the Gesamtkunstwerk Parade, a ballet featuring scenography by Pablo Picasso, music by Eric Satie and ballet choreography by Jean Cocteaus, and premiered in 1917. Weiss’ Parad consists of 18 figures who combined illustrate the idea of a world theater with a death dance theme. Weiss was inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s imagery, as well as evangelical symbols such as the lion, the eagle and the ox. The drawing depicts two nightmarish figures, one of which is an eagle-like creature.

Ingela Johansson has interpreted Peter Weiss’ drawing and created a mask inspired by the nightmarish figures in Parad and the drawing’s surrealistic expression, but with a modern idea of humanity’s relationship with the non-human, in the light of the Anthropocene era. The mask is an object that we can hide behind, and which allows us to portray something else. The mask can be found in most cultures and civilizations as a means to pass on oral histories in the form of allegories. It also represents the relationship between the inner psyche and the outer nature. Johansson is interested in exploring and processing forms of materiality in the world of theater, inspired by memories from childhood theaters like Ika I Rutan and Byteatern’s puppet theater productions of Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. In the video Voice, a dancer activates the mask. The dancer seems to transform into an eagle-like creature, and we get to witness a meeting and a tension between man, eagle, and dancer.