Janne Eraker & Kristoffer Lislegaard // Øy

Practical info: Øy is presented in a shorter version as part of a shared evening at Nagelhus Schia Studio, where two performances are included in the same ticket. Read more about the other performance, Good Morning, Sindre, here.

Body and technology are connected in a truly unique concert performance; the sound of tap dancing is used as raw material in an electronic soundscape, and human rhythm is allowed to control the machine's language.

The music ranges from the dreamy and poetic to the groove-based and noisy, inviting the audience into an auditory world full of images, pulsations, and surprises. Each performance is improvised and unique, in a lively interplay where the boundaries between dancer and musician, instrument and body, are constantly shifting.

In the duo Øy, tap dancer Janne Eraker and electronic musician Kristoffer Lislegaard merge their artistic worlds in a boundaryless encounter between dance and sound. Together, they explore a concert form where dance becomes music and music moves—literally.

Eraker's tap dancing is processed in real-time by Lislegaard's self-developed software. The result is an interactive dialogue: the dancer's movements influence the sounds, and the sounds shape the dance's expression. Together, the duo creates an organic and dynamic interplay, alternating between seamless unity and contrasting dialogue.

The tap dance – typically characterized by a clearly defined and percussive sound — is expanded through electronics into an unexpected and varied sound palette. At the same time, the electronic expression is imbued with a physical and human nerve, as the dancer's movements directly affect the various sound processes. The interaction is close and intuitive, based on improvisation. The soundscape is modern, groovy, and richly textured—with associations to both club music and contemporary art. The collaboration draws inspiration from traditional and new tap dancing, jazz, electronic music, free improvisation, and Nordic nu-jazz.

Øy creates soundscapes that ignite the imagination and set the body in motion—and challenge ideas about what a concert and a dance performance can be.