I address you is a personal and societal solo that Carl Knif has created for himself. Drawing on his own personal experiences, Knif’s performance alternates memories and past events with more recent phenomena that put self-esteem, inviolability and empathy to the test.
The performance aims to make visible the unwritten history of the gay minority. How do silenced experiences affect us? In what way are traumas passed on from one generation to the next? And how do we build an identity in an environment where there are no role models?
The longing for real encounters and deep conversations is the driving force behind this furious dance. I address you encourages conversation and champions the idea of a better world – it wants to get to the heart of life, to step close to you.
Duration: 50 min.
Language: English
Premiere: 25 April 2024, Dance House Helsinki
Working group
Director, choreographer and dancer: Carl Knif
Texts: Carl Knif
Light and set design: Jukka Huitila
Sound design and music: Janne Hast
Costume design: Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila
Costume & mask: Nina Ukkonen
Voiceover: Dudley Rees
Photos: Yoshi Omori
Teasers and trailer: Björn Knif
Translations: Julian Garner, Essi Brunberg
Production: Carl Knif Company
“It takes courage to put yourself in the spotlight like this, but Knif does it with a natural confidence. … There is a light in Carl Knif that makes the difficult subject never feel dark. Love gets the last word in a mature and skilfully executed work.”
”Choreographer and dancer Carl Knif has a rare talent. He is able to create a performance about an extremely personal subject that doesn’t make the audience feel uncomfortable in any way and that has something to say even to someone who hasn’t had similar experiences.”
”This is as close as you can get to being yourself on stage. Yet everything is controlled and thought out. Dance and speech alternately take centre stage, but never to the detriment of each other. Contact with the audience is direct and unpretentious. Confusing or even painful experiences erupt in the end into a sincerity and openness that the audience can only respond to with warmth.”
”Knif manages to create a visual imagery, without banal theatricality, which is still brutal and real. Naturalness and inevitability are present in every scene.”
”Spatiality, combining space and elements is one of Carl Knif’s choreographic strengths. The objects are part of the whole, they serve the core theme and their use gives rhythm to the piece. There are levels, there is skilful use of the stage, dynamic and insightful solutions. The mask, as well as the disrobing, is a symbol of a growth story, of coming of age, of discovering oneself and of growing in courage. Knif shows them in his work with restraint, politely, without underlining, without fussing.”
”I address you is a work in which the artist makes the audience stop and look back at our past and see how far we have come together. Our society today has room for diversity in a way that was not at all obvious in his youth.”
”Carl Knif’s autobiographical solo is a powerful and evocative depiction of the times. … I address you is an effective play with different art forms that fulfils Carl Knif Company’s ambition to create high-quality and innovative contemporary dance that transcends artistic and linguistic boundaries.”
”In his solo work, Knif recounted these memories that span generations and reflected them in his own life. The result is a very expressive work. Knif’s powerful movement and poetically beautiful spoken language made for an impressive experience.
”A strong solo dance with a political message.”
”The spoken word and the skilful dancing go hand in hand with each other. The performance is not very long but it is very intense. Knif seeks contact with the audience and gets it. Even the title ‘I Address You’ refers to the dancing self’s search for contact with the audience. At the beginning of the performance he wears a mask. Removing the mask and undressing are gestures that symbolise coming out of the closet and liberation in general.”
”In dancer-choreographer Carl Knif, it’s as if there’s some mysterious magic combining the nocturnal wood nymph and the Goethean Mephisto!”
”Wonderful, brilliant and touching!”
”Knif is a skilled interpreter of these emotions and a performer steeped in Mephisto-like mystery. If one were to look carefully for a luminous performer in Finnish contemporary dance today, one with genuine passion, social message and courage, and the ability to bring them to our close-minded country’s view, one would undoubtedly turn to the cherubic, distinctive master of dance, choreographer Carl Knif, whose performance of I adress you is the best gay performance in living memory.”
”The performance itself is a stunning and masterful piece of art.”
”There is something uncompromisingly honest about Knif as a performer, in the way he is able to cleverly combine the uncontrollable power of the aesthetic with the sensual appeal of his art. What is particularly good about the work is the layering of the narrative and the assignment of the personal to the political and the political to the personal.”
“The outstanding movement of Knif, who appears with a mask on his face, is a search, a silent resistance, even a rescue. English phrases of alienation intrude into the space from the audio track. The work is utterly captivating.”
“Knif knows how to build an atmosphere where hope and horror collide. In the ominous club scene, Janne Hast’s music sounds familiar, but combined with Knif’s movement, it sounds alien, ghostly.”
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