Mette Edvardsen

The work of Mette Edvardsen is situated within the performing arts field as a choreographer and performer. Although some of her works explore other media or other formats, such as video, books and writing, her interest is always in their relationship to the performing arts as a practice and a situation. With a base in Brussels since 1996 she has worked for several years as a dancer and performer for a number of companies and projects and develops her own work since 2002. She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists, both as a collaborator and as a performer. Recent work of Mette Edvardsen are the performances oslo (2017) for which Matteo Fargion created the music, We to be (2015), No Title (2014), Black (2011), and the ongoing work Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2010). Together with Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion and Francesca Fargion she created Music For Lectures/ Every word was once an animal (2018). She edited the publication Not Not Nothing (2019) and a forthcoming publication on Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (for end of May 2019). A retrospective of her work was presented at Black Box theatre in Oslo in 2015 and a focus program in MACBA in Barcelona in 2018. She is currently a research fellow at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Matteo Fargion

Matteo Fargion's interest in contemporary dance began in the late 1980s when he saw the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform at Sadlers Wells in London. This experience encouraged him to apply for the International Course for Choreographers and Composers, where he first wrote music for dance, and through which he met the choreographer Jonathan Burrows, with whom he has been collaborating for 30 years. Over the past 17 years Burrows and Fargion have made a series of 11 duets conceived, choreographed, composed, administrated and performed together, redefining their collaboration on more equal terms and bringing Fargion fulltime onto the stage. All are still touring. Matteo has written a lot of music for theatre, mainly in Germany, for several productions directed by Elmar Goerden and Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne Berlin. He has also collaborated with many choreographers including Siobhan Davies, Russell Maliphant, Lynda Gaudreau, Noé Soulier and Mette Edvardsen (oslo). Based in London, Matteo is active as a teacher and, apart from leading several workshops each year, is a long-time visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S, the school of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in Brussels. He has developed an approach to teaching composition to choreographers, set within a framework of music practice but built also on his wealth of experience as a performer. Recent work of 2018 includes The Solo Piece, a dance solo for himself, writing music and performing in Music For Lectures/ Every word was once an animal (2018) with Mette Edvardsen, Jonathan Burrows and Francesca Fargion, writing music and performing in Claire Croize’s Flowers (we are), and We Have to Dress Gorgeously, a punk opera made with Andrea Spreafico for the Borealis Festival Bergen. Penelope Sleeps will be his third collaboration with Mette Edvardsen.