Performance artists take Paris

The Mob is two girls from Sweden who, under this alias, tell stories of another world – this world – with their bodies and voices. Both Emma-Cecilia Ajanki and Julia Giertz were educated at the Danish National School of Contemporary Dance and have been invited to dance and art residencies all over the world. In their words, they present a mix of slow-soul-heavy-heart music and contemporary dance.

They performed at the Paris launch of the 11th issue of Her Royal Majesty and are coming back on the 16th of June with their new performance: Maggie is a twat – the talk show. They spoke with HRM about their work and inspirations.

1. What is this performance about and what are you hoping to do with it?
The performance Maggie is a twat – the talk show processes Margaret Thatchers political actions and how they changed, not only a whole nation, but the mind of the people living in it. It is about how she and her politics made us accept the loss of a society where solidarity comes first. A society where we are in the shit together and your health and happiness is not depending on what kind of family you were born into. It’s about her power and the powerlessness that struck great parts of the British people. In the performance we introduce different characters who all have been affected by her way of thinking about society. Through the use of surrealistic and anarchistic elements we create a universe where we at the same time deal with poetical landscapes and politics.

2. How does this work draw from your previous pieces?
Our work always has a kind of poetic and very naive air around it, but has a solid and very serious base. For Maggie is a twat – the talk show it is the same, but here less concrete then in our previous work. We are often recognized for our literal approach, while Maggie is a twat – the talk show is more of a visual poem. Since the theme is so concrete and deadly serious we felt that the way to communicate it was through beauty and surrealism.

3. What are you two inspired by right now?
Right now we are very into what we define as pop surrealism. A way of placing mainstream ideas and feelings in new situation and amplify them until they become absurd. This last 6 months we have been playing a lot of pop music so with those concert experiences behind us we’ve started to think about performing arts in a new different way. We’ve realised that our interest lies in creating universes for an audience to step into, then when they step out again they look at the world in a slightly different way.