Annette Max Hansen

Producer

I think of art as a drug without negative side effects. There is nothing comparable like the intoxicating, uplifting effect of a great artistic experience. I remember once seeing Ohad Naharins dance company Batsheva in New York with friend and choreographer Kasper Ravnhøj. In the break, we simply got up and hugged each other with a huge smile on our face. No need for words – it was just the thrill of having experienced a masterpiece that spilled over into a spontaneous hug. Same thing when I go to see Pina Bausch with my good friend and set designer Nicolai Hart Hansen. We have made it our life achievement to see all of her pieeces and we often travel to realise our ambition. Her works are brutal, touching and disturbing – but also immensely funny and I we have had some of the best laughs of ours lives sitting in the dark watching Pina. I could go on; reading Molloy by Beckett when studying with one of my eldest friend and now radio host Celine Hastrup. And obviously I have had some of these experiences with my friend and colleague Nina Larissa Bassett – which is of course why I chose to work with Nina on this podcast. And while we come from different sides of the stage, her writing and directing and me writing about and producing – we come together om the same notion of what is disturbing and what stays with us and we even agree on some of the pieces which have and still does affect us. Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B being one of them crucial pieces which keeps sticking in our mind and which convinces me that art can spark awareness, insight and wisdom in a way that no other except for maybe the real experience.

Art has a transformative power – it can literally catapult you into different stages of awareness and once in a while it can make you stay there somewhat enlightened. This I call disturbing. In a truly inspiring sense of the word. This is why it is interesting to explore the phenomenon and talk to great people who insist on making me a wiser, better and happier person through pushing me, challenging me, disturbing me.

Nina Larissa Bassett

Theatremaker

I can’t remember a time when my mind was not thinking of the world as a place for performances. Our ability to connect through an artistic experience - big or small, spectacular or very simple - fascinates me. There are transformations that take place in a performative space that are able to lift artist and audience out of everyday life into another existence, be that physical or metaphysical. These transformations touch upon the very essence of human experience.

Theatre has been the longest lasting love affair of my life - with ups and downs, as in all relationships. As a theatre practitioner the most important thing for me has always been to challenge myself to do something new and unknown. To be unsure of the outcome, to be disturbed and pushed out of my comfort zone. And this has provided me with the privilege of working with some wonderfully talented and thoughtful people; from creating a site specific theatre company with director Solveig Weinkouff and playwright Vivian Nielsen, to directing a contemporary circus piece for Teater Glimt in Monthelon, to making an international network of independent artists across Europe, to being dramaturge for director Ong Keng Sen and so on. And along the way I have shared plenty of these experiences with my friend and colleague Annette Max Hansen.

We met for the first time in 1999 when Annette interviewed me for the University Radio. I was bringing British playwright Howard Barker to Denmark to direct my translation of his play Wounds to the Face (Det Sårede Ansigt) and was a bit nervous and thrilled to bits about realising this dream. I’m so excited that audio has brought Annette and I back together again through this podcast where we can delve into shared disturbances together and hopefully unpack some great reflections on the art of performance making along the way.