TankeSUS - This is Harald (Grensen)

 

More pictures can be seen here.

Script, direction, choreography and set design:Jo Strømgren
Performers Dansens Hus: Ida Holten Worsøe and Jørn-Bjørn Fuller-Gee
Original cast: Ida Holten Worsøe and Jørn-Bjørn Fuller- Gee
Lighting design: Stephen Rolfe
Sound design: Lars Årdal
Photo: Knut Bry.
Video production: Ivar Mykland
Production: Hålogaland Theatre/ Jo Strømgren Kompani
Producer Jo Strømgren Kompani:Sunniva Steine
Co-production: Agder Theatre
Supported by: Norwegian Arts Council
As last time, Dansens Hus had a nice, safe atmosphere to enter, with candlelight and calm, subdued music creating a cozy atmosphere. The performance we saw this time was Grensen.
"This is Harald," says a voice as the performance begins and Jo Strømgren enters the room. The backdrop, which makes the stage look like an office, is lit and when the voice says "And this is Harald's workplace." you know that the performance is going to be something a little out of the ordinary. Grensen is a mix of dance performance and theater. Sometimes it can work really well, but other times, like this one, it can be a little confusing.
The performance was mostly done in voiceover, which we would have liked if we didn't find the language difficult to understand. The language was probably better suited to the slightly older people in the audience who understood the slightly strange and abstract lines of the even stranger plot.
It was quite difficult for us to understand how it can be interpreted as a border conflict between two countries when we didn't understand much about the actual conflict between the man and the woman. The dance wasn't very impressive in the sense that they didn't show any particular "skills" and we thought it was a bit "now we're going to dance to dance". It was very unstructured and strange.
Something that surprised us was the nudity they showed. We realize that it's quite common to see in a theatrical performance, but we were still surprised by how much nudity there was in a performance intended for young people. Sexuality was in great focus, and there's no hiding how much the word "sex" captures the attention of young people. However, we thought the nudity and sex simulations were too much, especially when they seemed to have no meaning.
"We liked some parts of the show, those were the parts we understood. As mentioned earlier, we think that the performance is suitable for a slightly older age group in terms of language, humor and sexuality. The adults in the audience probably got more out of the play than we did.