Butterfly Kiss
A performance about transformation, beauty, and transience.
Inspired by the Large Blue butterfly (Phengaris arion)—a rare butterfly found in Denmark only on the island of Møn—Butterfly Kisses unfolds through a series of poetic portraits of women from different times and places.
From Maria Sibylla Merian to Frida Kahlo and Loïe Fuller, we encounter people driven by curiosity, artistic vision, and lifelong obsession.
The performance unfolds as a collage of stories, dance, costumes, and transformations. The butterfly becomes both a real creature and a powerful symbol—a reflection of life’s fragility and humanity’s longing for meaning.
Butterfly Kisses is a celebration of all that transforms us—and connects us.
Many people experience the butterfly as more than simply an insect. It is a living metaphor for the transformations taking place in both our landscapes and our societies.
The butterfly is both tangible and symbolic: an image of the soul, of death, of love, and of beauty. Its life as a butterfly is brief, while most of its existence is spent in metamorphosis.
It is fleeting, spending its short time in flight searching for a mate and the chance to begin the cycle again. In contrast stands the human being—with our longing for purpose, legacy, and direction.
Butterfly Kisses is a visual and sensory performance in which art, nature, and human lives are woven together. We journey through a series of short poetic portraits of women who each followed a powerful inner drive: scientific curiosity, artistic vision, and lifelong dedication. Along the way, we also discover the extraordinary story of the Large Blue butterfly.
Performers: Helga Rosenfeldt-Olsen & Tilde Knudsen
Director: Peter Kirk
Costume Designer: Susan Marshall
Produced by Asterions Hus Theatre
Recommended for adults, young people, and children aged approximately 10 and above.
Produced with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation, the Knud Højgaard Foundation, and Brand af 1848.
Reviews:
★★★★★☆ Poetic beauty of the cocoons in Butterfly Kiss
by Anne Middelboe IScene:
Nature is wild! At least on Møn.
So at Asterions Theatre and Theatre Møn it is of course the dark-spotted bluebird that has the main role in Butterfly Kiss. Abstract and bodily, poetic and grotesque – and very gifted. As the condensed text says: “Thyme. Marjoram. Sun. Ant.”
Butterfly Kiss is an artistic victory for Asterions Teater, led by Peter Kirk and Tilde Knudsen. As director, Peter Kirk has refined the physical theatrical expression, which, among other things, manifested itself in the theater's Alice in Wonderland, and which has led the theater around the world on many international guest performances.
Tilde Knudsen interprets the butterfly story so wonderfully as a physical actor. She throws her body into all sorts of choreographic expressions – crazy, funny and dedicated. She is unusually well-trained, also when it comes to the art of crawling like a caterpillar or strolling around like an upper-class woman with an urge to faint. And she has both a twinkle in her eye and humor in her feet.
It's great to see her playing ping pong with Helga Rosenfeldt-Olsen, who initially sticks to the role of co-creating musician on her accordion. Until she also lets her body loose in the subtle life of the bluebird with a broken elbow expression and gentle, dark eyes – and lots of good humor. While they slosh their hips back and forth in their sculptural costumes on top of their black jumpsuits, video images of hand-drawn butterflies through the ages are projected. Beautiful and delicate.
Aesthetically, Butterfly Kiss succeeds thanks to an absolutely outstanding costume design by the English costume designer Susan Marshall. She is employed as a costume historian at the University of Milan, but has cast her love for Asterion's House and Møn.
Susan Marshall's costumes are like sculptures when her smooth fabrics in cubist seams slide down the necks or hips of the performers. In Butterfly Kiss, human bodies transform into the cocoons in which the dark-spotted bluebird resides, before crawling around as a caterpillar – and finally being released as a butterfly. Susan Marshall has a penchant for white fabric sewn with visible cross-stitch. Here, hat cubes, rib cage tubes and hip bubbles arise in a seemingly endless flow of imagination.
★★★★
Cecilie Refsager Seen on Stage:
On stage, Tilde Knudsen and Helga Rosenfeldt-Olsen are living through several life cycles in both butterfly and human form. It often takes just a few minutes to play through an entire human life. In several places it is successful – even though it is not always entirely clear how the butterfly and the strong women actually intertwine.
They do, however, receive considerable assistance from Susan Marshall's beautiful costumes. Teater Møn and Marshall share a penchant for costumes that can develop and grow out of each other, being one thing one moment and something completely different the next. This works particularly well when the evening gown is suddenly an insect, or when the white butterfly wings snap on and off. Here you can feel the considerable craftsmanship that must be admired.