Mette Ingvartsen / Great Investment — Manual Focus

Manual Focus is rotating heads 180°, turning arms into legs, and swapping front and back. Three nude women with masks on the back of their heads, transform into a twelve-legged creature, removing their identity by covering their real face with the artificiality of a mask. The monstrosity lies not in the creature itself, but in the monstrous interplay between the naked and masked, the artificial and real, the male and female, distorting our perception of familiar bodies.

The Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen made her debut in 2003 with her choreography Manual Focus, which proved to be groundbreaking for her later work. In this performance, she emphasises physical actions and movements, regardless of psychological motivations that may lie behind them.

Manual Focus is an almost sculptural work in which Ingvartsen's fascination with identity and binary oppositions shines through. The visual piece is an excellent example of her 'mission' in dance: in-depth research into the relationship between body, space and audience, to raise social and political issues.