Everyone Says I Love You (2006)
Everyone Says I Love You is a duet based on a complex relationship. The exact nature of this relationship is left intentionally vague in order to present a multiplicity of possibilities. Examining the popular European perspective that Americans are "in love" with everything and the word "love" itself is overused, the duet takes on the guise of lovers, families or even warring countries in order to embody the different contexts for the word "love". The text is comprised of "I Love You" in 17 different languages both as an exercise in the power of the exact translations, and the mystery that is created when speaking these foreign versions. Have Americans devalued the word "love"? Does it mean more to hear it in another language? Do we, as lovers, use it to comfort or to coerce? And where has this power taken us?
Choreography by Janessa Clark
Music by J. S. Bach,Bright Eyes, and Aretha Franklin
Performed by Ulrika Berg and Eline Tan, New York City, 2006
Performed by Ulrika Berg and Janessa Clark, Borlänge, Sweden, 2006
