NIE and Teater Joker won the Hedda Award

Congratulations to NIE and Teater Joker for winning the Hedda Award!

Teater Joker was nominated in the category for Best Children's Performance, and won with Brune, a performance based on the book "Brune" by Håkon Øvreås. With stage design inspired by the drawings in the book and newly written music, the story is told about Rune, his mother and father, his grandfather and all his friends, unfriends, the priest and the policemen in the small town where Rune becomes the superhero Brune when night falls. In the jury's statement we read:

The essence of all theatrical art is the theatrical transformation where events, objects and actors appear in new and different ways, to give life to an alternative reality. In this way, the theatre is closely related to the creative power of the child, both as a source of carefree play and as a place to seek refuge when the world of reality does not appear as it should. This year's children's production emphasizes and celebrates this relationship in a precise yet playful direction where the actors shine as exuberant artists of transformation. They switch effortlessly between different roles and together give physical form to a number of scenographic elements and props. The language is contemporary and believable in a dramatization based on the award-winning Norwegian children's book of the same name, published in 2013.

NIE was nominated in the category Best production for youth, and won with We come from far, far away, a theater production based on stories collected at Hvalstad transit reception for underage asylum seekers in Asker. The play follows young people Omar and Abdallah as they flee Aleppo in Syria, until one of them arrives at Oslo Central Station. The audience sits inside a tent that is set up at each venue, and the action unfolds close to and among the audience.

The Hedda Prize jury says:

Theater can build empathy and understanding, and theater can facilitate open discussion. This year's winning production in the best production for young people category does both. The production uses a vital blend of storytelling and puppetry, physical theatre, shadow theatre and musical theatre, with realistically performed dialogue and symbolically presented factual information. The expression is intimate, but at the same time testifies to an overview. In the performance, as in previous performances by the same company, key words such as "hope, survival and vitality" are central. The themes are found in today's society, and the ideas have been gathered through interviews with people who have lived through the escape the production is about.

Scenekunstbruket congratulates!