White Christmas with a dark side for Maria Nilssen Waller
She has an international reputation, and several awards for her intensely individual, poetic work across Europe.
This week, with her new show, Blanca, she brings a Scandinavian take on Christmas to Ireland. Together with two musicians and a filmmaker, she will present a magical, epic journey through the wonderful frozen morth of the Sami people.
Not, however, as you might expect it. In the Nilssen Waller piece, forceful choreography is merged with cutting-edge jazz and organic and computer-generated visuals to create something that is exciting, beautiful, and frightening. Inspired by psychology, video games, creation myths and improvisation, it’s a journey of raw sound and physicality.
Nilssen Waller grew up in the famous Sami region, beyond the Arctic Circle, and imbibed its legends and traditions in childhood. “In that landscape, the mythology is so linked to the environment and the dark winters, and that is what I connect with quite well, from living among them.”
She was just 15 when she left for Stockholm, to train as a dancer, and later left for Austria and France to further her career. Now she has gone back to her roots, to bring the Sami culture to the people of other lands, in vivid, striking imagery and music.
In the gentle Irish climate, it’s hard to imagine the world inhabited by the Sami reindeer-herders. Their bright, traditional costume is often the only colour in a landscape of frozen, white snow, trees crystallised into ice, the wind howling across vast wastes where the reindeer, blending perfectly into their background, provide food, clothing, and trade for their owners. In winter, there is little or no daylight.
When Nilssen Waller and her fellow-artists were developing Blanca, “we almost wanted to create a video version of this landscape, so others could experience it, too.”
What evolved was, she says, a virtual and imaginative game. “That’s because the young generation, now, are incredibly in tune with video games, technology. They’re familiar with the theme of waking up in a world you don’t know and trying to sort out what you should do, trying to answer the question of ‘where am I, where am I going’.”
When they first performed it in Sweden, she says with delight, the kids would come backstage. “Instead, of asking just dance questions, asked me how we managed that, how we created this. They were really interested in how we did it.”
Though planned for 12-15-year-olds, most adult members of the audience have been drawn into the story, too, finding the entire presentation, movement, sound, effects, immersive. “Four to five-year-olds loved it as well. It has a visual language which speaks to everyone,” she says.
Having studied contemporary dance, Nilssen Waller later trained in classical ballet, because she liked the discipline.
“It has given me such a wide creativity, the contemporary, to choreograph and create. I am glad I have this wide spectrum. Without it, I could not have created Blanca.”
Snowy darkness, eerie music, 3D visuals projected onto the dancer’s body, sudden shocks, followed by moments of beauty, Blanca transports you to another world, one that is not always fairytale.
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