MOVING CELLIST

The choreography concert “Moving cellist” is inspired by the memory of time.
There is a certain meditation on movements and sounds.
Some of Edvard Munch’s grandiose paintings, have been on the wall for 5 decades in the
museum hall where we have been rehearsing. There are only faded marks left, even the
smell of the old wooden walls. This space has given a nostalgic dimension which inspired the
artists to shed light on the life of Tanja – where she plays on her smaller cello from when she
was 9 years old, on her professional one and on her ‘silent cello’. The silent one, has been
explored and it has been created textural sounds which are treated electronically. “Moving
cellist” gives a reflection on how ‘the time’ has influenced and shaped us throughout our
lives and our arts.
The artistic research seeks an expansion of the body and sound, coherent with the cellist’s
physic, the space, her 3 cellos and her voice included, and further how to blend all these
elements together. They have explored the limits of what a cellist can do in a dialogue
between music and movement, how the different sounds and movements of these
instruments resonate in space, even along the walls with the cellist’s responding shadow.
(In the history, female musicians have more often been in a service for male composers. In “Moving
cellist” – it’s breaking! You can experience a cellist, a composer who plays in her own way and as a
woman. By doing so, we gradually see a woman who had to be a warrior to get her place throughout
her time.)

Gunhild Bjørnsgaard has studied from: National College of Arts/Dance Ballet College in Oslo-Norway,
International Theater School Jacques Lecoq in Paris, Theater Science at University in Oslo, Chemistry
at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, shorter studies in music and choir at the
Regional Conservatory in Toulouse in France. In 1997 she established Company B Valiente with
Marcelino Valiente and has produced around 30 whole evening performances with tours nationally

and internationally, as well been curator for National stage for world and folk dance/music, and
indigenous people: Riksscenen in Oslo. For the past 15 years, she has also done her own research
with a concept that she calls ‘choreography concert’, where she sees an interaction that challenges
the boundaries between dance, music, choreography and composition in music. The performers in
music and dance go beyond their own limits and into the others’ field, then find a self-esteemed
aesthetics. She teaches in choreography, music composition in space, based on the practitioner’s
personal expression. She works as well as project manager for over 30 bigger projects, among others
done 5 bigger EEA Grants projects with Romania, Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland twice.