When stripper heels create solidarity

In my opinion it is the high heels that are the main characters in the spacial dance performance “JÖRД in Skálin in the Nordic House. After the sign that divides the faroese childrens dance in Klingran to the right, I proceed down to the left to Skálin, where it is  premiere night of the nordic youth project Gátt (https://www.platformgatt.net/)

Finnish Tiia Kasurinen is suggestively inviting us in to sit, as was she a fictitious norn, precisely flushed unto shore, ready to eat together with the sound of of the ocean as the freshest oyster before a luxurious meal, born of foam and carried by the sea.

All of the senses are satisfied and you sharpen them in the darkness, now the leveled floor has been built up so the view down to the floor is a stage in plain view, that everyone can see from the soft chairs. Great spacial measures where the audience needs have been thought through, who now has the opportunity to experience a dripping stone cave and a translucent backdrop.

Women invite you in. Softly and cautiously, step by step, but also with an initiative in the experience, as she comes towards you with well choreographed movements, lights and sound, where all recordings except for drums and strings have been recorded during filming.

Especially Úti við Strond and towards Boðanes, I think, because in April of last year could I see through my camera lens from my ktichen window, when they were performing before the lens of Barbara Lervig at Bukkevald and underneath the oily gravel that drips down from the hill there. Click on the images and they will appear larger.

Fascinating, even in a graphic description, to place these three dancing and paramount main characters in such a barren landscape. Beauty and inviting growth against the fruitless, completely dry and futile, which we read about, when the Earth was a wasteland. In moments it is so silent on stage that we only hear the performers’ breathing. Great soundwork.

In addition to finnish Tiia, is faroese Vár Bech Árting and swedish Lisen Pousette, that lead us through a mix of male gaze and female gaze in mythological and artistic description of the woman, which makes me think of the Kylie Minogue vampire bite that I got when I saw the graphic song “Padam Padam” visualized. Especially present in “JÖRД is Lisen in a hoodie and with make-up like “I am death” from Bergman’s film, where the chessplayer meets his last opponent by the beach. Strong and classic, transformed into female.

But an even stronger visual experience, that brings together all of these three, is the prologue to the performance, that made us on the back row immediately think of the Art’s festival “Edda” which was held in the same house almost 20 years ago, where Benjamin Bagby and Seqentia performed “Edda” as a sitting traditional chant from Sjúrðarkvæði, while a stewardess with the longest arms and fingers I have ever seen graciously showed us the exit doors and how to put on the seatbealts while the noise of an airplane was blaring throughout the house. It is the strongest experience I can remember from the Nordic House. These artists did not perform the famous “No-theatre” from New York, but they did have their own collective work in the Nordic House bound with the same life thread in the dripping stone caves as that time 20 years ago.

The performance “JÖRД, which is 45 minutes, ends with those three fumbling through the darkness towards the backdrop to grab the high heels, that you see in the back of the room, they put them on, zip them up on their legs, stand up, still in darkness, and pull each other up from the floor. Such a physically demanding movement and balancing action that I become scared for them, but then they support each other, also with braids, and stand up together, when the lights go on.

Captivating avantgarde in the middle of Tórshavn. Astonishing. And you might be wondering, how is it possible that you are able to wander in from the street and sit inside such a compact box of total experience that is happening in Skálin right now. Sublimitiy from darkness.

Maria Guldbrandsø Tórgarð is director, Lil Lacy is composer, Maibritt Marjunardóttir og Lydia Vermat-Wallin costume designers and Anton Skarborn stood for lights and sound. Mie Meyle, that moderated the artist talk after the show, was producing for the Nordic House. Some of the Images have been borrowed from KVF captured by Bjarni Árting.

Birgir Kruse