Grind

by Jefta van Dinther in collaboration with Minna Tiikkainen and David Kiers

Imagine a place that defies your senses. Imagine rhythms that affect your vision. Imagine a room where the dimensions of the space appear resilient. Imagine the pressure of sound transforming a body into vibrations. Imagine light that makes you perceive darkness. GRIND offers this place – where the components of body, light and sound create binds that affect, confuse and move.

GRIND is a collaboration between choreographer and dancer Jefta van Dinther, lighting designer Minna Tiikkainen and sound designer David Kiers. Inspired by synesthesia, the performance seeks to challenge our grip on reality by suspending our senses and short-circuiting perception. Minimizing in order to maximize, GRIND forges simple elements into a full-on affective machine. Through duration and repetition the components of body, light and sound turn around and around, mixing until they start to seem foreign. With pulsating, cutting, flickering lights and the unrelenting beats of dark, loopy techno, it is a choreography of matter that GRIND generates.

CREDITS

Concept: Jefta van Dinther and Minna Tiikkainen
Choreography and Dance: Jefta van Dinther
Lighting design: Minna Tiikkainen
Sound design: David Kiers
With music by: David Kiers and Emptyset

GRIND is a production by Jefta van Dinther – Sure Basic and Minna Tiikkainen | Executive producer: Hybris Konstproduktion – Sweden and Frascati Productions – The Netherlands | Co-production: Frascati Productions (Amsterdam), Weld (Stockholm), Tanzquartier (Vienna), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Grand Theatre (Groningen) and Jardin d’Europe through Cullberg (Stockholm)| Funded by: the Swedish Arts Council, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Nordic Culture Point | Supported by: Fabrik Potsdam

Definition of GRIND

verb
1: to reduce to powder or small fragments by friction
2: to wear down, polish, or sharpen by friction

noun
1: dreary, monotonous, or difficult labor, study, or routine
2: the result of grinding
3: the act of rotating the hips in an erotic manner

Awards

  • The Wild Card 2012, offered by the European Capital of Culture – Festival Favoriten Dortmund (DE)
  • Preis der Jugendjury (Prize of the Youth Jury), donated by the NRW Landesbüro – Festival Favoriten Dortmund (DE)
  • GRIND was introduced into the performance network of the NRW KULTURsekretariat (Culture Secretariat of North Rhine-Westphalia) 2012 (DE)
  • Lighting designer Minna Tiikkainen received the SÄDE Palkinto Prize for her lighting deisgn in GRIND. Säde Palkinto is an annual award to the most prominent design work. Categories include lighting design, sound design and video. The award took place at the Thalia Gala 2013 in Helsinki (FI) and the motivation of the jury reads:

    “The amazing visuality in GRIND to a large extent plays with the intensity of light and its discrete shifts, as well as with total darkness. The artistic team of three persons have managed to create a rare suppleness in the expressions of movement, light and sound and the performance becomes an experience of a state of trance. It shoots straight into the marrow and creates a world with its own set of laws, that captivate and enchant. It brilliantly plays with our vision, it confuses and creates puzzling after-images for both the eye and the mind. Tiikkainens work with the light is utmost precise, and the final result turns into a unique all encompassing work of art – both visually and rhythmically.“