SLOW RIFFS: FIVE STAGES OF YES
SLOW RIFFS / FIVE STAGES OF YES is a transdisciplinary sonic choreographic work working from Heidi’s one-note concept. Positioned between concert and performative installation, it unfolds as a spatial sound environment that continuously slows down—an immersive landscape of sculptural bodies and resonant sound that the audience can navigate. The piece reimagines the electric guitar as a gendered cultural artefact, queering its use by limiting its sonic material to a single note.
By tuning every string to one note, the work subverts “guitar hero” tropes and masculine-coded notions of mastery. Sound becomes a space of intimacy, care, and refusal rather than dominance or spectacle. Through the sustained repetition of a single note, the piece distils classical dramaturgy into an extended inhabitation of a collective, destabilising state of vibration.
The choreography is minimal, sculptural, and concept-driven. Movement emerges from the body’s relationship to the guitar. Recurring gestures, such as stroking, rubbing, gliding, and strumming, produce resistance, vibration, and presence and blur the boundaries between instrumental play and embodied pleasure, exploring sound as both physical and affective material.
Concept and choreography: Heidi Rustgaard
Performers Norway: Ida Jakobsen, Karen Røise Kielland, Monica Bothner, Linn Nystadnes and Heidi Rustgaard
Performers UK: Laura Burns, Ese Okorodudu & Heidi Rustgaard
Sound design: Ross Flight
Spatial design: Ulrike Steven/what-if:projects
Lighting design: Philip Isaksen
Dramaturg: Martin Hargreaves
Producer: Anna Einemo Frøysland
Co-production: Rose Choreographic School, Sadler’s Wells, Fest en Fest (UK) & Fierce Festival (UK), Høstscena Ålesund, RAS Sandnes, Rosendal Teater Trondheim (NO), Köttinspetionen Uppsala (SE)
Funding: Norwegian Arts Council & Fond for Sound and Image (NO), Rose Choreographic School & Trinity Laban Seed Funding (UK)
Photos: HenriT
