Prime Mover

Roosna & Flak

A Prime Mover is an impulse to do something. It is also the huge machine we are part of, a machinery of environment, technology, history, and a sense of our impressions and dreams.

A: May I put my heart at your feet? B: As long as you don't soil my floor. - Heiner Müller

In Prime Mover, the Estonian / Norwegian choreographer duo Külli Roosna and Kenneth Flak take motion as both cause and effect, with freedom and inevitability. What moves us in a world where all parts are moving? What do we find in this? How do we make sense of it all? 

The audience is invited into a vibrant, breathless universe without beginning and end, to a place where play and seriousness melt together, where thought and movement is one.

Photo: Tiit Lukk

Concept Külli Roosna and Kenneth Flak Choreography Külli Roosna and Kenneth Flak in collaboration with the dancers Dance Isabell Bartnes Johansen, Kenneth Flak, Külli Roosna and Rakesh Sukhesh Sound design and music Kenneth Flak in collaboration with Külli Roosna Software development Kenneth Flak Lighting design and technique Thomas Dotzler Dramaturgy and rehearsal director Thomas Falk Software-mentor Marije Baalman Produced by Roosna & Flak Co-production Bærum Kulturhus/Regional Arena for Samtidsdans, Endla Teater (Pärnu, Estland), Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (Pärnu, Estland) and Scenekunst Sør Supported by Arts Council Norway, Fond for lyd og bilde, Eesti Kultuurkapital, Pärnu  Kommune, Kristiansand Kommune, Vestagder fylkeskommune.

Duration ca. 60 min

Külli Roosna (Estonia) and Kenneth Flak (Norway) are international choreographers, dancers and educators who have collaborated since 2008. They have produced several performances for the Korzo Theater in The Hague and Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava in Tallinn, as well as performances for the Estonian national ballet, Festival Classique in The Hague, Lublin Dance Theatre and others. Their performances have been based on, among other things, Norwegian mythology, internet culture, totalitarian regimes, belief systems and deep ecology. 

Külli Roosna studied contemporary dance at Tallinn University's choreography faculty in Estonia and the Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands, and has an MA in choreography from Tallinn University. As a dancer and performer, she has worked with Kari Hoaas, Richard Siegal, Dylan Newcomb, Amy Raimond, Teet Kask and Fine5 Dance Theatre. She has also been a guest lecturer at various universities and academies across Europe and has given workshops all over the world. In 2010, she received the first prize at Vitebsk International Modern Dance Competition in Belarus for her solo piece, Circle Through. 

Kenneth Flak studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and physical theatre and contemporary dance at the Amsterdamse Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands. As a dancer and performer he has worked for André Gingras, Dance Design, Kari Hoaas, Preeti Vasudevan and Richard Siegal. In 2007, he received the Bessie Performer's Award in New York for his interpretation of Gingras' solo Coreography CYP17. He is self-taught in encodes and composes music for his own work as well as for others artists performances. He is currently chair of the Norwegian Cultural Council's professional committee for dance.