Productions
PERFORMANCES fall 2011:
light – moon – shape
Scenehuset/Oslo(NO):
August 19–21, hr 1900.
Co-producer Carte Blanche AS
gracerunners/LDT
Lublin Dance Festival/Lublin(PL):
November 9, evt 10
TO/kf quiet works
Lublin Dance Festival/Lublin(PL):
November 13
Co-producer Carte Blanche AS
light - moon – shape
A splitprogramme, consisting of 2 pieces of choreography and an intermission. August 19 – 21, Scenehuset/Oslo, hr 1900. Duration of show app. 75 minutes including intermission.
A double – bill including the solowork choreographed by Suzie Davies, in collaboration for Mattias Ekhom and the trio dance choreographed for Karen Foss, for Gry Bech-Hanssen, Marianne Kjærsund and Daniel Racek, is an eveningperformance.
Associatians of the moon and how it throws light and shadows on our thoughts and makes us laugh at the lurking powers: What is hidden in dusk dark and otherness and in the oddities of shapes: This is the inspiration.
© Marit Anna EvangerWolfMan/Lycanthropy
(duration app. 35 minutes)
A solo performance by Suzie Davies. Dancer and co-creator – Mattias Ekholm. Light/space/projection – Sigve Sælensminde.
Stage Technique – MaSi. Music – Jørgen Knudsen.
Can´t you hear it?
That wolfs cry
A lonely howl raised to the moon
Rotating in an ashen makeshift circle
This is not a European delusion
But an honoured transformation
A forcible lunar occurrence
Fully illuminated by the sun
A bite from a rabid disciple
And I became a Hound of God
I am Wer, a man, a beast
A rogue wolf sent to guard the sheep
Lycanthropy – a supernatural affliction in which people are said to physically change in to wolves.
The Norse God Odin, associated with war, battle and death, has chosen Wolf Man as one of his warriors. Harald l of Norway, who was associated with Odin, had a company of Ulfhednar, fighters dressed in wolf hides, who channeled the spirits of wolves to enhance their effectiveness in battle. These warriors killed viciously and were resistant to pain, much like wild animals.
Is this man deluded, or does this beast exist in him?
Text: Suzie Davies
© Marit Anna EvangerMan Shape
(duration app. 30 minutes)
Idea, concept – Karen Foss. A solo. Choreo: Karen Foss.
Dancer and cocreator: Daniel Racek.
Light/space/projection – Sigve Sælensminde. Stage Technique – MaSi.
Music – Jørgen Knudsen.
" - and so I say, I am tall blonde and beautiful, I mean, I am tall blonde and want to be seen, ah well, I mean, I am tall blonde and mean, no I am tall blonde and a hunter, no I am a man, not a beauty, yes a sight for seeing, and never more human than when male out of nothing apart from the power of moving and sense of something masculine but no I am not a sex gender bender machine man made. I am a man. My shape is the Man Shape.
A modern Man -"
Text: karen foss
Interested in how a man sees himself: Karen Foss delves into the challenge of asking a man, of his shape. So what is a Man? What makes his shapes and shadows? When is he modern, and how and what more?
The production is build for touring and can be set in ordinary venues as well as in more informal settings, in which case this is negotiated. Excerpts evt. one or both pieces can be set in other eveningprograms, with complimenting pieces for diverse showings. Dancing space: Can be negotiated. Tech rigg, no less than 10 hours before performance time. Persons travelling: 4 performer. 1–2 technicians, depending. Producer additionally if needed.
The production is supported by the Arts Council Norway,
Fund for Sound and Image, Fund for Performing Artists.
kf quiet works receives support from the Bergen City Council for year 2011.
to - 2010
to, working on the number TWO with its mathematical and cultural connotations, in combination with desert imagery, the production is designed for contemplation of silence, vastness and quietude. 7 dancers fill the large and empty space, enhancing the sense of solitude and sparseness of existence.
Performed at Logen Teater/BIT teatergarasjen and Dansens Hus/Oslo 2010.
Collaborators
Participants: Gry Bech-Hanssen, Suzie Davies, Mattias Ekholm, Marit Anna Evanger, Martin Flack, Jørgen Knudsen, Marianne Kjærsund, Maja Markegård, Pernille N. Mogensen, Magnus Myhr, Kenya Parsons, Morten Pettersen, Daniel Racek, Sigve Sælensminde, Brynjar Vik. Concept and choreography in collaboration with the participants: Karen Foss.
Co-producers: BIT teatergarasjen and Carte Blanche AS in Bergen. The production received support from the Arts Council Norway, Fund for Sound and Image, Fund for Performing Artists, The Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Bergen City Council.
”An overall sense of a desert: Ecstatic contemplation – Something post - apocalyptic rests, a new start, the Sisyfos rock is yet again rolled up the mountain. The dancers change into birds, robots, the interchangeable images are not satisfying – not quite reminding of a dream entirely, but perhaps pointing more in the direction of a nightmare. It is visually beautiful, but the smouldering sense of something unpleasant pervades, as if the reflexive mindfulness in ones own thoughts are overexposed to the world. One can perceive the performance as visual lyricism, as a learning piece or critical of society, or perhaps all and more at the same time.”
Review: www.scenekunst.no,
Karoline Skuseth. September 2, 2010.
Technical production
Suitable performance space: minimum 12 x 14 m, height minimum 6, 5 m. Normal theatrical equipment, including sound and light. Technical rider available on request. The production travels with setdesign, a largescale carpeted horizon, mounted from the ceiling. Total rigging time: 1 day in advance, minimum 10 hours rigging time on stage. Number of persons travelling: 8–9. Excerpts from the production can be performed and workshops and/or audience talks linked to the performance can also be arranged.
© Vojtech Brtnickytgracerunners (hvitt løp) - 2007
gracerunners is a raw and forceful performance, fronting challenges about energy, exertion, disturbances and exhaustion, ending with the questions of what lies beyond the moments of exhaustion, and what can be considered the limits. Simultaneously dynamic and poetic, in a large and wonderfully shaped space, lightdesign and video - work, the 3 dancers appear strangely intimate and present.
For the spectator the performance represents a breathtaking visual and auditive experience.
Performed at BBT/Oslo, BIT teatergarasjen/Bergen, Ponec/Praha, RAS/Sandnes Kulturhus 2007 – 2008.
Collaborators
Participants: Jan Benes, Thor Brødreskift, Lea Capkova, Suzie Davies, Camilla Eeg, Tomas Jerabek, Marianne Kjærsund, John Inge Knudsen, Jørgen Knudsen, Jan Malik, Tomas Moravek, Morten Pettersen, Daniel Racek, Sigve Sælensminde, Concept and choreography in collaboration with participants: Karen Foss.
Co-producers: BIT teatergarasjen and Carte Blanche AS/Bergen, Nanohach/Prague. The productions received support from the Arts Council Norway, Fund for Sound and Image, Fund for Performing Artists, The Foreign Ministry, Bergen City Council. Through Nanohach, The Czech Ministry of Culture and Prague City.
" In gracerunners, (Karen Foss) allows the physical and visual idiom to speak for itself, and the result is one of the most clearly expressed performances she has ever produced... a little piece of social criticism about consumption and production that creates an atmosphere of great urgency and pressure, where the choreography appears soft and beautiful in contrast... The dancers are constantly moving, but they tire as time passes... energy is resource that can run out." Bergens Tidende 12.04.07
"Symbolically, this latest production by karen foss quiet works is an attractive and politically correct warning light for our times. We live in an affluent society and when those who have everything want more – what happens to us?... Sound-wise, the production is a convincing attempt to push back the boundaries of what we can absorb." Bergens Tidende 12.04.07
Technical production
Suitable performance space: minimum 12 x 14 m, height minimum 6.5 m. Normal theatrical equipment, including sound and light. Technical rider available on request. The production travels with a setdesign, and uses a microphone on stand during performance.Total rigging time: 1 day in advance, minimum 10 hours rigging time on stage. Number of persons travelling: 5–6. Excerpts from the production can be presented and workshops and/or audience talks linked to the performance can also be arranged.
© Thor Brødreskifteuropa woman (europa kvinne) - 2006
The production europa woman is the final part of the PEARL TRILOGY. The piece tracks the haunting story of “European identity” - how this identity has evolved and is linked with the past and present politics of the European continent and the historical shaping of one present-day modern and westernised woman. Three separate and interwoven stories throw light on the complexity of the European citizen of today and her potential for interacting with the world: the Greek myth of Europa, the Phoenician princess and her abduction and the personal story of a modern European woman of today. The awareness of a loss of authentic identity combines with elements of an actual European identity to produce poignant situations; suffering and desperation, sorrow and experiences of violence are all in play when Europeans try to communicate and interact. Modern, peaceful and civilised behaviour is at stake; this production gives an insight into why and how.
Collaborators
Participants: Indrani Balgobin, Karenna Ceun, Suzie Davies, Camilla Eeg, Katrine Nylund, Stephen Rolfe, Antti Sakari Saario, Alan Lucien Øyen. Concept, script and choreography in collaboration with Suzie Davies and Camilla Eeg.
Performed at BBT/Oslo, BIT teatergarasjen/Bergen, and Tou Scene/Stavanger 2006.
Co-producers are BIT Teatergarasjen and Carte Blanche AS in Bergen. The production received support from The Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Sound and Image and The Fund for Performing Artists in Norway.
"...a biography that poses questions about a people who are transformed from uncivilised underdogs to privileged nationalists... In spite of a maximalist approach with a wealth of both textual and scenic information, Karen Foss succeeds in creating a generous room for reflection.." Aftenposten 12.03.06 "...the choreography, through all the productions, has proved to be exciting/exhilarating and filled with contrasting chemistry." Bergens Tidende 09.02.06
Technical production
Suitable performance space: minimum 5 x 6m, height minimum 6.5m. Normal theatrical equipment, including sound and light. The production travels with its own wireless microphones. Total rigging time: one day in advance, minimum 10 hours rigging time on stage. Number of persons travelling: 3–4. Technical rider available on request. Excerpts from the production can be performed and workshops and/or audience talks linked to the performance can also be arranged.
© Thor Brødreskiftquiet red (stille rød) - 2004
”Lo thus by day my limb, by night my mind, for thee and for myself, no quiet find” excerpt from sonnet no. 27, a travel poem by Shakespeare. Sonnet no. 54 by Shakespeare reflects on aspects of love, time, vanity, beauty and death – wide-reaching issues poetically and succinctly presented in a total of 12 lines and a couplet. quiet red, the second part of the PEARL TRILOGY, embodies a technical discourse of the poem, propels the two performers into personal ponderings about love as a large and confusing entity and ends with a quiet monologue about love in our present times - its forms of generosity, sorrow and longing. The piece highlights the intimacy and closeness between the two main performers as they slowly intertwine with lovers hovering in the background. The English and Norwegian text is written and performed by Suzie Davies and Karen Foss.
Collaborators
Participants: Indrani Balgobin, Thor Brødreskift, Suzie Davies, Anne Regine Klovholt, Katrine Nylund, Stephen Rolfe, Antti Sakari Saario, Yvonne Øyen and Alan Lucien Øyen. Concept and choreography in collaboration with Suzie Davies.
Performed at BBT/Oslo and BIT teatergarasjen/Bergen
2004 – 2005.
Co-producers: BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen and Carte Blanche AS, Bergen. The production received support from The Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Sound and Image and The Fund for Performing Artists in Norway.
Technical information
Suitable performance space: minimum 8 x 8m, height minimum 6.5m. Normal theatrical sound and lighting equipment. The production travels with its own wireless microphones and special lamps. Total number of persons travelling: 4-5. Total rigging time: one day in advance, minimum 10 hours rigging time on stage.
Technical rider available on request. Excerpts from the production can be performed and workshops and/or audience talks linked to the performance can also be arranged.
pearl simply (perle enkelt) - 2002
pearl simply views and reviews the eye of the beholder and subjective perceptions of beauty. A pearl is created by the oyster’s layers of lustrous secretion around an invading grain of sand. The production pearl simply, the first part of the PEARL TRILOGY, is structured in a similar way to the pearl - its richness of layers creates many associations and aesthetic forms. In part inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando and its vast time span, pearl simply uses this concept of time to create a space for the spectator to contemplate and practice reflection. Another salient feature of the piece is its very sensual form: careful lighting and costuming, scents, chamber music by Beethoven and a quietly appealing soundscore with a simple and poetic text.
Collaborators
Participants: Indrani Balgobin, Frode Breivik, Thor Brødreskift, Suzie Davies, Marit Anna Evanger, Katrine Nylund, Robert Roespel, Sigve Sælensminde, Henriette Slorer. Concept, script and choreography, Karen Foss.
Performed at Black Box Theatre in Oslo and BIT Teatergarasjen in Bergen in 2002– 2003.
Co-producers: BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen and Carte Blanche AS, Bergen. The production received support from The Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Sound and Image and The Fund for Performing Artists in Norway.
"The gaze of both male, female and peeping Tom is titillated, turned around and given new focus. The performance is fruity, thoughtful and loaded with energy – a great achievement for Karen Foss and her dancers. Foss has also written the text, which she delivers with a sense of rhythm, rhyme and crisp one-liners." Bergens Tidende 14.10.02
"The dancers and music melt together in an atmosphere of tenderness and fragility... In pearl simply there is a lot of sensuality that is beautifully and sensitively developed." Aftenposten 14.02.02
"With an obstinate expression on her face, Karen Foss questions the relationship between beauty, the subjective eye and conventional truths. At the same time, she presents a delightful allegory of beauty on a stage where the baroque blends with the modern through the costumes, sound and movement. Karen knows where she is going and what she wants to convey, and she does so with an energy, willpower and communicative strength that surprises the senses and stimulates the intellect." Klassekampen 25.02.03
Technical information
Suitable performance space: minimum 8 x 8m, height minimum 6.5m. Normal theatrical sound and lighting equipment. Two microphones on stand. Total number of persons travelling: 5-6. Total rigging time: one day in advance, minimum 10 hours rigging time on stage. Technical rider available on request. Excerpts from the production can be performed and workshops and/or audience talks linked to the performance can also be arranged.
place (plass) - 1995
Premiere 20th September 1995, Teatergarasjen, Bergen, Norway.
A production that reflects on concepts of space and on a particular place (a town square, market square, piazza…) as the venue for many events and situations. Four dancers spring in and out of an empty stage and portray potential structures of movement in places where humans often meet and communicate. The dancers shape and reshape square patterns and improvise different episodes and incidents that can occur in time and space in such meeting places. Like constantly changing human relationships, the dance moves from the clear-cut into more indefinite territory and flights of fancy, and back again to more concrete situations. Two musicians, one a percussionist, the other playing a viola, accompany the dancers with variations that also alternate between the distinct and the ambiguous.
Collaborators
Participants: Marianne Albers, Marit Anna Evanger, Gaute Grimeland, Jørgen Knudsen, Gro Løvdahl, Katrine Nylund, Terje Tjøme Mossige, Erik Wiedersheim Paul, Cecilie Lindeman Steen, Hans Kristian Tjos Sørensen. Concept and choreography, Karen Foss.
The production received support from Arts Council Norway, The Fund for Sound and Image and The Fund for Performing Artists.
Co-producer: BIT teatergarasjen
Technical information
The performance is suitable for touring and guest performances in normally equipped theatres with a minimum of 8 x 8 metres moving space and a minimum height of 6.5 metres. In addition to normal sound and lighting equipment, one cordless microphone is required. Total number of persons involved: 7 - 8. Excerpts from the production can also be performed and workshops linked to the performance can be arranged.
© Marit Anna EvangerNorwegian Tale (Norsk Tale)
Performance period: 2003–2011, public places/informal settings.
Simple barstool readings on issues to do with current living conditions in Norway. This duo work, performed by Karen Foss, functions as a short and poetic, political comment on everyday life in the social democracy of Norway. The text can be delivered in Norwegian or in English, to suit the situation.
Amongst the themes are:
• Sex, visions and myths.
• The real sound of Beethoven:
Norwegians' misguided prejudices against "elitist" music.
• The fine dividing line between the heroism and piracy
of public figures.
Reader: Karen Foss Music: Jørgen Knudsen
Technical information
One microphone on a stand, simple stage lighting (1–2 lamps), one barstool or other sitting arrangement. A computer connected to sound equipment. Listen to excerpts from some of the Norwegian Tale barstool readings. More readings may be held during 2011 at BIT-Teatergarasjen in Bergen, Norway.
Productions since 2000
2010:
to – based on the number two and desert images
2007:
gracerunners – observations on energy, exertion and possible exhaustion
2006:
europa woman – woven on myths and identities of Europe
2004:
quiet red – designed around Shakespeare’s sonnet no 54
2003:
Ongoing – Norwegian Tale - a series of barstool monologues
2002:
pearl simply – focuses on aesthetics and taste,
style and beauty
2000:
tall/blonde
The PEARL TRILOGY, consisting of pearl simply
– quiet red – europa woman:
previous productions by Karen Foss from 1984–1995
curves / pinholedrama / madrigal / largo / utenom og vals / duet / duet II / plass
Additional work:
2005:
balanse – a project for Sunnhordland Folkehøgskule
2006:
heart matters – a study for art students and the Norwegian Theatre Academy at Østfold University College.