After two decades, Teet Kask is on stage again in a new performance as part of the Niguliste Museum’s series of dance events

The performance VIIS et modis premieres on Friday, 14 November as the second part of the dance series Life Dances to Eternity, initiated by the renowned choreographer and director Teet Kask. In the St Anthony chapel the solo dance of Teet Kask combines with the music of the Argentine composer Gustavo Twardy.

Recently, Teet Kask has worked as a director, choreographer and teacher, but he personally was last seen as a dancer on the stage of the Bonnie Bird Theatre in London in 2004. Now, twenty years later, he appears in front of viewers once again as a “newcomer”.

“Dance and sound intertwine in this performance into a ritual journey where the dance of death and the mandala take the viewer on a journey where the eternal dialogue of life and death is revealed in every step and every sound,” Teet Kask says.

“VIIS et modis” is a Latin phrase meaning “by all ways and means” or “in any way possible”. Therefore the performance invites us to expand the limits beyond which lies everyday knowledge. The “viis” in the title also means “five” in Estonian. Thus, the central number of the performance is five: the five gates of the mandala, the five wounds of Christ and the five human senses. These are passageways that open doors to deeper understanding. Five, as the symbol of the whole, brings together the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine, the transient and the eternal. The mandala and the Dance of Death of Tallinn, painted in the workshop of the Lübeck master Bernt Notke at the end of the 15th century, both have an element that extends past the visible. VIIS et modis invites the viewer into a timeless space where the harmony of life and death gives birth to presence, light and continuity.

Life Dances to Eternity is a series of dance events in which dance artists reveal their vision of the Dance of Death located in the Niguliste Museum, the most internationally known work of art in Estonia, and reflect on the temporality of life and the culture of death. Maria Solei Järvet and Juulius Vaiksoo performed in the opening performance of the series this spring.

Direction and dance: Teet Kask
Music: Gustavo Twardy
Stage design: Ülar Mark
Light design: Margus Vaigur

We thank: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia