A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Alexander Ekman’s spectacular *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* is coming to Umeå. Whirling hay, synchronized drinking, circle dances, and a heart-wrenching longing for togetherness. Forty-one dancers, one singer, and six musicians make the floor shake with their powerful ensemble performance. A shimmering dance performance by the Royal Swedish Ballet where Swedish traditions meet Shakespeare, and where dreams and nightmares merge.

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Throughout the ages, the same longing for the bright summer night—a dream of the origin of all things, a night filled with love and eroticism. The line between reality and the supernatural blurs. Traditions distort, the world changes, and suddenly we don’t know—is it all a dream?

In 2015, the acclaimed Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman created the highly praised full-length work *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* for the Royal Swedish Ballet. Just as with his *Tyll*, *Eskapist*, and most recently *Cacti*, the work was a huge success at the Royal Swedish Opera. The music was composed by New York-based composer Mikael Karlsson, who, in addition to several collaborations with Ekman, wrote the opera *Melancholia*, which had its world premiere in the fall of 2023.

The performance brings together Shakespeare’s comic farce and Swedish Midsummer at its best, its worst, and its most bizarre. The choreography moves freely between classical ballet and modern dance. On stage, longing, intoxication, and herd mentality are brought to life through swirling hay, synchronized drinking, and circle dancing, as 41 dancers, a singer, and six musicians make the floor sway in a powerful ensemble. The paradisiacal, light-drenched scene degenerates into something surreal, raw, and grotesque. It is by turns funny, shimmeringly beautiful, and dreamlike. It is a Midsummer Night’s Dream.