LUCKY

PRESS

Anna Ångström, Svenska Dagbladet
Between life and death is where the immoderate borderless stage persona Charlotta Öfverholm has created for herself in the solo LUCKY – an ironic collage of happiness with sharp changes between humour and tragedy, faith and doubt. Everything with music well composed and spiced with a bit of ”mindfulness drugs”. Öfverholm is defying her own advice to calm down. She mixes wild and raw, theatre and soft movements with expressivity that forces the ramp and tips over. That´s why one part where you feel the emptiness in a searching back becomes incredibly strong. Lucky is a scream for help among all strategies to find happiness and meaning. ”There ain´t no grave can hold my body down” is sung by Johnny Cash. One can believe that it is about Charlotta Öfverholm.

“Dance as a Subdued Element” by Lucie Dercsényiová in Tanecni actuality
This one woman show is as dynamic and unrestrained as the artist herself. One would not believe that she has been dancing for thirty years (more on www.tanecniaktuality.cz/charlotta-oefverholm-musim-praze-podekovat/). Her energy is simply a phenomenon that can overwhelm you quite easily. It is not just about the artist’s physical drive, but also about her ability to capture ideas in a consistently clean scenic form with thoughtful dramaturgy and direction. As much as she is straightforward and convincing in her motion settings, her work is similarly invasive too.
On the rear screen there is a projection of a road with a white line in the middle that goes quickly forward and Öfverholm asks: What is important in your life? Do you want to live? Have you made someone happy today? Do you think of death? In doing so, she decided to have a look at the questions about the meaning of human existence a little bit from above. Therefore, when the film stops a lifeless body of the dancer hanging from a rope suddenly appears, introduced by an unpleasant sound. As if she came down to the ground from somewhere above, where everything might seem a bit different… However, her physics does not indulge in quiet meditation, on the contrary, she tastes the ground with almost every part of her body – on the floor she seeks support, security and repose as well as impulses for wilful flings into space. When she is on her feet, she enters rectangular light sectors, quickly runs around in a hectic pace of a musical collage, when her hands perform their own kind of sign language.
After a slow walk, when she stops in the middle of the stage while we can see a demonstration of sea waves on the horizon, she says: “concentration, education, meditation, relaxation“. Light floods the whole stage and Charlotta savours the sensation of freedom, liberty, repose. Adagio melody is disrupted by all sorts of noises and sounds, to which the dancer reacts with falls that make you believe that even her firm, ripped body would shatter to pieces. She takes up a yoga sitting position for a while only to transform herself into a cabaret singer when a red light turns on. She strolls amongst the audiences, asking them questions and “making” them draw something on her skin, already covered with drawings more than enough. She also calls Roman, who comes to her rescue and takes her down from the rope, from which she was hanging, looking in vain for someone to deliver her from the entanglement. In the end she climbs up a tall step ladder, sits on a high-mounted swing and shows a sign Lucky to be here. It seems that Öfverholm knows how to be happy, at least it looks like that. And you believe her because she passes this piece of possible lightness of being and good-humoured light-heartedness on to you.  Czech Republic 24.11.2014

CONTACT
Manager  Izabell Makiela charlotta@jusdelavie.org
Technical director Tobias Hallgren, tobias@lumination.se +46-70-974 3608
Artistic director Charlotta Öfverholm, info@jusdelavie.org +46-70-566 7939