Mermaid(s) of the Hypersea

Mermaid(s) of the Hypersea is a somatic and performative research on being a body of water, set in a choreographic context. It is a dance with and by the water we all carry within, the water we are, and the water that passes through us and blurs boundaries between you, me, and us - the human and the non-human. The ‘Hypersea’ is what Dianna & Mark McMenamin calls water we, all living organisms, carry within. The piece works on getting in touch with this common inner sea by working in the borderland where bodies of water are transformed, where bodies dissolve, and where the imagination, the sensual, the performative, and the fictional creates an overall understanding of an aqueous body.

The performance works with the mermaid as a mythical figure, a diva of liquidity, and a queer persona in between species. It searches for empowerment through this figure that allows sensitivity, fragility, emotionality, and femininity. Through spending time with body liquids, singing, dancing, tea making, moving, and pouring bodies of water the performance manifest itself as a ritual of becoming mermaids of the hypersea.

Mermaid(s) of the Hypersea is an adaptation of the solo performance Mermaid of the Hypersea from 2018 by Snorre Elvin. Over the last years, the performance has been shifting its shape and turning into a duet along with Peter Scherrebeck Hansen.