Oslo Jazzdancefestival 2023 | Silje Olava Bakken

Oslo Jazzdance Festival 2023

June 2023

During this year's Oslo Jazz Dance Festival, I had the pleasure of performing with the Radix Dance Crew`s latest production; "The Ground".

In this work, the performers in Radix deal with the absence of playfulness and the emergence of pressure and seriousness in adult life, and how dance and music can liberate us and at the same time convey what we carry with us throughout life.

The festival is organized by Natalie Dahl and Ingvild Vaagsether, who founded the festival to highlight the diversity of jazz dance expression on the Norwegian stages. Hip hop share many of the basic principles of jazz and is its distant cousin you might say, so we happily said yes when we got the invitation to be part of spreading the joy of dancing we have in this years festival.

This year we were one of the main actors and were also invited to hold a workshop and panel discussion where we talked about the interaction between music and dance. Text from the website regarding the workshop and the panel discussion:

This time we have also collaborated with musician Svenn Tore Sætrom, who has composed his own music for the work's three parts, where each part has a new expression and a new atmosphere that interacts with the show's dramaturgy and communication.

"There will also be two workshops and a panel discussion held in collaboration with PRODA - Profesjonell Dansetrening.

This year's two main actors, choreographer and dance specialist Sarjo Sankareh and the hip-hop crew Radix are particularly keen to develop the dance in collaboration with musicians. This was also an important part of the original jazz dance and at the same time something that the field has moved away from in modern times, in favor of the use of ready-recorded music. In the panel discussion, we will therefore talk to the main actors about their experience with the development of dance works in the form of a mutual interaction between dancers and musicians."