zero visibility corp. is one of the leading Norwegian dance companies that has played an important role for several years. On the international dance scene it has perhaps become more visible since the 2003 production ...it’s only a rehearsal. The company’s leader and choreographer Ina Christel Johannessen has developed an artistic strategy that exceeds some of the oppositions in contemporary dance; between art-dance and pop-dance, “pure dance” and theatrical dance, humorous and serious dance. As member of the audience we are thrown into crossroads between aesthetic extremes in physically explicit and powerful expressions. We are united in a belief in dance as an art form. It is perhaps in this insisting on the concrete and physically demanding choreography that zero visibility corp. place themselves in a theatrical dance tradition, creating their very own artistic profile.

Siren Leirvåg
Lecturer in Theatre Studies, University of Oslo




Choreographer Ina Christel Johannessen founded zero visibility corp. in 1996. Since the beginning the company has been marked by Johannesen’s particular choreographic style, merged with the visual elemnts of stage designers and visual artists. The work is based on improvisation surrounding diverse themes, and the material is created in close dialogue with everybody involved. The soundscape also plays an important part in the performances. Zero Visibility works with some of the most innovative artists within experimental electronic music.

Characteristic for the company is the ambition to create an ambivalent pleasure in the audience. The audience are entertained, but simultaneously the images are displaced in a slightly disturbing way. Thereby they are returned back to the audience who must ask themselves why he or she came to the theatre in the first place, and what expectations motivated the visit. The wish to create cracks in the facade and the understanding that we can never avoid it is always present in the choreographies of Johannessen.

Characteristic for the performances is a play of the gaze. The dancers can never avoid the attention from the audience, they are all seeing and being seen illuminated and staged. There is an extensive use of pastime visualized in the contrast between the choreographed outbreaks of movement, and the dancers’ body at a jog trot signalizing resignation and indifference. This constant change between boredom and feat may be a characteristic of the western subject in a reality culture? Decadence is a result of boredom reflecting a lack of depth and direction baring witness of a level of welfare granted the few in a global perspective.

Camilla Eeg
Writer and art historian