The musical storytelling performance Vår combines source material from Norse mythology, fornalder saga and the autobiographical or life stories of me as the storyteller, with field recordings of Norwegian landscapes, song, and percussive music, mixed and manipulated into the storytelling live by the composer/musician Kristin Bolstad. The performance is produced by Adverse Camber – their great team of the all-wise director Paula Crutchlow, the goddess producer Naomi Wilds and the “worth an olympic medal” marketing associate Jenny Babenko. And this time my once storyteller teacher and the divine Laura Simms will have a talk after the performance.
Vår evolved between 2017-19, and after several studio performances in 2019, the 2020 pandemic moved the production online. In 2021 the performance was live streamed from a Norwegian Laftehus in Oslo to a global audience. We are going back to wood 19th of February.
The performance space is further expanded through a downloadable audio files, pre-recorded prologue and epilogue made available to audience members in advance and after the live event.
The main story in the performance is about the female warrior Hervor taken from sagaen om Hervarer og Kong Heidrek (Thorarensen, 1847). Hervor is a woman who becomes a warrior and travels to retrieve the magic sword Tyrfing in her father’s grave.
In addition to this main story, autobiographical episodes and Norse mythology is used, and the performance also includes a small lecture.
The performance space is further expanded through a downloadable audio files, pre-recorded prologue and epilogue made available to audience members in advance and after the live event.
The main story in the performance is about the female warrior Hervor taken from sagaen om Hervarer og Kong Heidrek (Thorarensen, 1847). Hervor is a woman who becomes a warrior and travels to retrieve the magic sword Tyrfing in her father’s grave.
In addition to this main story, autobiographical episodes and Norse mythology is used, and the performance also includes a small lecture.
My experience as a storyteller is that memories take place in dialogue with different forms of texts; to hear, read, or experience stories evoke memories.
The process of the performance began with story I recognized myself in, a story I could write myself into. The choice of the story of Hervor had long lived in me as an afterthought. There was a similarity between my personal memories and the Norse material about the woman Hervor – her father was dead, as was mine, I recognized the isolation the protagonist found herself in.
I would call this an intertextual presence where I discover textual similarities between different memories.
Intertextually because different memories are in dialogue with each other, presence because these memories also collide, and affect each other. At the same time, this carries with it a sensitive material and can lead to a speculative process and expression. There are narratives that are suppressed historically and presently, this requires a delicate methodology.
The process of the performance began with story I recognized myself in, a story I could write myself into. The choice of the story of Hervor had long lived in me as an afterthought. There was a similarity between my personal memories and the Norse material about the woman Hervor – her father was dead, as was mine, I recognized the isolation the protagonist found herself in.
I would call this an intertextual presence where I discover textual similarities between different memories.
Intertextually because different memories are in dialogue with each other, presence because these memories also collide, and affect each other. At the same time, this carries with it a sensitive material and can lead to a speculative process and expression. There are narratives that are suppressed historically and presently, this requires a delicate methodology.
I am looking forward to performing it 19th of February. You can get tickets here.
Below you can read old posts about the performance: