Press – NEAR

“While the contemporary dance, with choreographers like Boris Charmatz and Xavier Le Roy, has been institutionalized in museums over the last decade, and therefore brought the dance back to where it once began, with sculptures – smaller dance companies have almost only shown less costly solos. Which is why the bigger companies, who are fewer and fewer these days, have become even more important than before. This is something that Sweden’s largest, and artistically most interesting company, Cullberg has shown. In particular, since Gabriel Smeets took over as artistic director in 2014 and subsequently has raised the artistic bar year by year.”

“…very beautiful.”

“Bauer creates epic monumental images that the dancers move towards, seductively, slowly and noticeably. These pictures with shifting looks and gestures and with Yung Lean’s sad songs speak in their silence about the contemporary inability to move . Yet, sometimes, when all bodies become one body, they move together, showing us pockets of light and hope. Yet more proof that Cullberg’s amazing dancers are at their best in bold collaborations. ”

-Dagens Nyheter

“The rapper, now artist, Yung Lean creates things with a finger on the contemporary pulse. With his crew Sad boys, he breaks new ground in every musical initiative. Today is no exception. ”

“NEAR is an art project that makes Azalea into a different place than it is.”

“They embody contemporary, typical feelings of ambivalence, wanting what you cannot have.”

“When you come to peace with the form, the dance concert Near is at times elusively beautiful. When everyone dances to the complete and melancholy Yung Lean songs, everything else – hangovers, windy hairstyles, this mornings cancelled gigs – ends up in the periphery. ”

-Göteborgs-Posten