Riding Romance Trilogy

From hysteria to romance

Henriette Pedersen’s Animal Magnetism, the final part of her trilogy performance focusing on hysteria from a variety of angles and in a range of eras, was premiered in December 2010. Henriette Pedersen now intends to embark on a new trilogy which takes romance as its starting-point. Like hysteria, romance is characterised by its tendency to exceed norms – a designation that can also be used to describe Pedersen’s artistry as a whole. If we look at Henriette Pedersen’s artistry over the last ten years, she has at all times drawn on the ideals of romance – Henriette Pedersen is quite simply a genuine romantic.

Riding Romance 1 – 3

Three directions from the period will be held up to the light of day and exposed to a hardcore romantic approach before being recreated. The trilogy takes as its starting-point the following iconic works from the romantic period:

Riding Romance 1: The ballet Swan Lake in which a young woman becomes lost in a forest and is transformed into a swan by a wicked wizard.

Riding Romance 2: Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Der Wanderer Über dem Nebelmeer is a magnificent landscape painting in which nature represents a troubled inner mind.

Riding Romance 3: The fairytale of Red Riding Hood is one of the Brothers Grimm’s national romantic folktales. Once again we meet a young girl who has lost her way in the forest, but instead of meeting a wicked wizard she now meets the big, bad wolf.