Stigma

STIGMA by and with Kitt Johnson

Aaben Dans is very moved and honoured to show the performance STIGMA here in Roskilde.

In 1999, when Aaben Dans was still located in Copenhagen, we produced the festival Singler, which showed dance soli at the National Gallery of Denmark. And this is where the famous performance was born. 

Now the solo will return to Aaben Dans, only in Roskilde, after having performed countless times across the world. Stigma has been nominated for a Reumert award in Denmark and featured on New York Times Top 10 list of great dance performances. It’s a show you don’t want to miss. 

About the performance: Sigma explores the themes of the innate, the self-chosen and the acquired – the marks, seperating one human from another. “A gaze, looking inwards, toward a dark point at the very core, at what’s left. A whisper in inaccessible frequencies, below ground, below sea, in small slits between the detected wavelengths”. Extract of ‘Passage’ by Paal-Halge Haugen.

Stigma received an award from the Danish Arts Foundation when it was produced. Here’s an extract from the fund’s reasoning: Disturbing, provocative, etching itself onto the retina, you leave with a searing impression in your mind… through Kitt Johnson’s total immersion and distinctive charisma, it becomes the story of everyone – of humanity – and our heavy journey on earth. The stigmatised human being. Absurd… grotesque… shocking…. A modern graphic by Palle Nielsen and a classic blend of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel all at once.