Teheran Mon Amour

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This show has received a reward by Danish Arts Foundation in 2012.

A performance about the situation of homosexual men in Iran today. It opens with the intial screening of the film: A re-make of one of the greatest love stories on film: “Hiroshima, mon amour”. But instead of a frensh woman and a japanese man, two men –one scandinavian, one persian occupies the leading roles.
Just like in the original, we never learn how they meet, as the story begins right after the two of them has spend a night together at a hotel in Teheran.

In the original film from 1959 the love affair is complicated and impossible. In the this version set in Teheran 2012 the love affair is punishable by death.

 

The show has received a reward by Danish Arts Foundation in 2012. The jury states:

… an intelligent performance where the audience is presented with different realities in layers, and challenged to ask themselves a series of questions. The love story from Alain Resnais film “Hiroshima, mon amour” is paralleled with a gay love story in today’s Tehran, and the loving couple on stage is confronted with themselves on film. Daniel Norback and Farid Tristan-Sohrabi are touching and credible as the couple, where the intimate and human desire for love are threatened by social forces and the growing threat of war. The performance manages to erase the theater’s affectation and open up to life’s own complexity. Highly successful political theater!

 

Teheran mon amour premiered April 19, 2012 at Får302, Copenhagen

a performance by Daniel Norback
staged by Erik Pold
video by Helle Lyshøj
scenography by Seimi Nørregaard
music by Martin Vognsen
dramaturgy by Jeppe Kristensen
research by Jaleh Tavakoli
light by Tobias Stål
acting by Farid Tristan-Sohrabi and Daniel Norback

When Kamal met Maria

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Restaged in English: 26 October – 18 November, 2012 at Taastrup Theater.
 

– A love story in silent movie pace
Kamal’s parents want him to marry his cousin, “the beautiful Soraya”, who is getting dangerously close to her last expiration date. Terrified, he flees and soon has a gang of pursuers at his heels.
Across town the very pregnant Maria is brutally assaulted by her ex-husband, who has escaped from prison. She takes flight with her ex-husband after her, and soon has her own group of pursuers, including a gang of immigrants.
The two refugees collide and hide in each other’s arms, causing their pursuers to run past. They release their embrace and the scene is set for love at first sight.
But before they can have their happy ending, the two lovers must overcome great obstacles.
 

Laughter lies
Laughter goes through the audience at the show When Kamal met Maria in Taastrup Theatre, which has now been on its first tour in Denmark. The show is a nutty silent film comedy with wonderful piano boxing by Mathias Grove Madsen in evening dress. And just as the movie plays, the actors come forward in the flesh – the irresistible Stine Holm Joensen and the noble Joseph W. Nielsen – and then it becomes really funny. Niels Grønne from Danish Rakkerpak has delivered his funny street theater stunts to the story of an immigrant boy who meets a pregnant girl whose violent man has just been put in jail. And the madness is crowned by grotesque local color, because Helle Lyshøjs silent movie is filmed in Taastrup social housing as a maze-stage design. That must surely create an relief in the country’s concrete free cities …

Anne Middelboe Christensen, Information (Danish newspaper).
November 26, 2012

 

A well-tested recipe for entertainment – paired with modern technology.
The show is in black / white and completely non- verbal with the physical expression in focus. It is told in the style we know from the old flickering and stuttering silent movies from the early 20th century America – simple, crude and universal. It’s entertainment with equal parts coarse humor, slapstick and romance.
 

Silent movie and theater tableau… it is a pleasure to say that I am deeply impressed with the implementation of the performance. The relationship between film and theater – the Laterna Magica-illusion – is sovereign and accurate.

Janken Varden, børneteater avisen (children’s theater newspaper). 2011

 
Press photos When Kamal met Maria. Photos: baesfoto.dk

THEN KAMAL MET MARIA
premiered Nov 4, 2011 – restaged in English October 26, 2012
Writer: Niels Grønne
Direction: Niels Grønne og Torkild Lindebjerg
Cast: Josef W. Nielsen, Stine Holm Joensen, Niels Grønne, Torkild Lindebjerg
Composer and music: Mathias Grove Madsen
Film og film technique: Helle Lyshøj
Producer: Taastrup Theater

Jagten på et Plot

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In Search of a Plot

The performance is adapted to each specific venue, giving the audience opportunity to see an area of the city in a new way. This piece is suited for industrial areas or other parts of a city that are interesting and different. IN SEARCH OF A PLOT can very well be part of various cultural events, a festival or related to activities at a museum.

The performance begins at one joint location. Here the actors divide the audience into three groups and guide them on separate walks. Along their way the viewers meet different characters and see parts of various stories – it all seems to be part of a bigger story.  A film crew interacts with the performance; members of the audience get the chance to interact with the plot – if they so desire. Towards the end, when the walkers are reunited a video is shown. The stories told on the walks are connected and the fragments can be tied together. Just how they connect is open for individual interpretation.

IN SEARCH OF A PLOT looks at plot as phenonema in stage art as well as in our daily lives. In a complex and global world, what narratives lends coherence to our lives, and just how different do we experience the same reality?

The stories in the guided walks are inspired by the works of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
In his books we often find the central character searching for a sense of meaning – a search that leads to weird and mythical journeys where the most unexpected becomes normal.

The reviewers wrote:
“an international performance level of morbidity amidst a sensory loaded place in the slipstream of “Hotel Pro Forma” (Information)
“A very exciting, different and entertaining, spellbinding and intimate experience that I strongly recommend” (Oestrogen.dk)
“An interesting and funny project – an inspiring attempt to challenge the black box theatre.” (Politiken)

trailer

In Search of a Plot premiered June 7, 2011 at Dansehallerne, Carlsberg, in Copenhagen.
On tour in Denmark September 2012: Rønne/Bornholm, Teater Momentum/Odense and Horsens Børneteaterfestival.

Concept and staging: Adelaide Bentzon and Erik Pold
Performers: Johannes Lilleøre, Merete Byrial, Daniel Norback, Sigrid Kandal Husjord, Nina Kareis and Erik Pold
Dramaturg: Karsten Johansen
Videodesign: Helle Lyshøj
Set design: Rebecca Arthy
Music: Pelle Skovmand

Etudes

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Etudes is the eleventh reconstruction of works from the Danish Culture Canon for the Performing Arts by Zarathustra’s Uncle.
Etudes is created by Harald Lander in 1948 with music by Knudaage Riisager based on Carl Czerny’s Etudes.

Etudes was performed May 22, 2010 at Zene+, Viften in Rødovre, Denmark
and January 28, 2012 at Showcase Beat Le Mot: Residenz Evil in Marstall, München

Dancer: Henrik Vestergaard Friis.
Video: Helle Lyshøj.
Choreography: Hilary Briggs, Henriette Thorslund and Harald Lander.
Music: Carl Czerny, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Knudaage Riisager and DJ radio.

Read more at zonkel.com

etuder-press

Show Real

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A show about reality – is reality a show?

… what is the reality in reality, as Morten Lindberg aka Master Fatman funny asks about in the opening sequence where he acts in the three video manifestations that even engage in dialogue with each other.
…
For Show Real is not just about forms of representation, but also about the downward slide that has happened in our values, from thinking it’s important “just to be” to “have a lot of things” and “to be seen and act”.

Lots of atmosphere

Helle Lyshøjs video sequences are sophisticated, from which the dancers Pierre Enaux, Ole Birger Hansen and Matilde Wendelboe Dresler in bright-red colors dance live onto stage as from one reality into another.
* * * * * Vibeke Wern, Berlingske Tidende (Danish newspaper)

Show Real premiered February 9, 2010 at Aaben Dans’ new stage in Roskilde, Denmark
idea and choreography: Thomas Eisenhardt
performance: Master Fatman
dance and choreography: Therese Glahn, Matilde Wendelboe Dresler, Ole Birger Hansen and Pierre Enaux
music: Master Fatman and Kristoffer Sjelberg
video artist: Helle Lyshøj
lightdesign and production: Mogens Kjempff
costumes: Mette Myr
extra/naked woman: Ivonne Cadovius
produced by: Aaben Dans


teaser for Show Real

The Post-Human

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a stage terror-regime

The wish has always existed – the hope for a new human being. We have always been captivated by the dream of removing all of the mediocrity, idiocy, meaninglessness, the foibles and flaws from the otherwise pristine spiral of DNA. From Plato to transhumanism. But how will the new human being look? Will it be taller, stronger, and more beautiful than us? Will it be free from all our hopes and dreams of self realization, our self-satisfaction and hate?

… in dialogue with the four walls, where the appearance of screens and canvases draw the axes of the cross in the space. One axis is drawn by two smaller screens on which Marx and Socrates appear … on the other axis, we find two large screens … where the hooded young man appears and interrupt the dialogue of the philosophers in a perfect timing …with which depicting references to both Zarathustra, Messiah and the Finnish school mass murderer are pressing in a loud beautiful music video …
A small video camera is used for transmissions in close-up view of the acting body: a blood sample needle, piercing into the white skin of the arm: a transmission from the singing uvula or a close-up view of his eye … a face in protoplasmic transformation (a transformation, realized virtually in a video projection in which the nameless face dissolves into a large number of others: Andy Warhol’s, Willem Dafoe’s, Karen Blixen’s, Mahatma Ghandi’s, bin Laden’s, Thomas Skade-Rasmussen Strøbech’s …)
Lilian Munk Rösing, Information (a Danish Newspaper) January 2009

 

The Post-Human

The Post-Human premiered January 21, 2009 at Teater Camp X Aveny in Copenhagen.
cast:The nameless from Das Beckwerk
text and direction: Das Beckwerk
music: Bjørn Svin, Henrik Sundh and Das Beckwerk
video: Helle Lyshøj

NV® (New Value)

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Doubt is the modern man’s most faithful companion. But now everyone can get rid of even the most existential doubt in life – NV ® (New Value) is the answer to all your prayers.
Too long the art has felt as its primary function is to ask questions, problematize and provoke. But now, five artists say no! They will give answers instead. They believe that modern man needs clear guidelines and an ethical reference point in their lives. Someone needs to stand up and say: “We have the answers.” With ‘New Value ®’ they have created a set of values that everyone can enjoy. Consistency force for us as people and nation.

The art of seduction
New Value is clever, funny and much-needed satire … The video artist Helle Lyshøj is the woman in NV in charge of presentation technique and she shows the idealistic, staged lifestyle of the NV-people in video clips already at the entrance, and later she shows us the worldwide network of New Value.

Vibeke Wern, Berlingske Tidende (a Danish newspaper) 2006

It’s stand-up dance with catchy tunes and live video. It is mysterious ritual moods. The workshops, which expands the audience’s spiritual experience. Yes, there is even a wheel of fortune with unique NV-prizes that really gives the audience something to take home with them. In a satire on the values and power to posess them.
The performance is staged as an opening event for the first NV-shop in Denmark. Anyone with an open purse and mind can buy accessories here for their new, more valuable life.

  • Projektioner på et 8×6 mtr. back-drop samt mobile skillevægge og foamboards

The End

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… en total action-packed katastrofe performance
Det starter i foyeren mens publikum bliver iscenesat i en katastrofe situation: teatret er sprængt i luften, og svensk tv er på vej op af trapperne.
En forestillingen der aldrig begynder men hele tiden slutter. THE END er en forestilling som på humoristisk vis og i højt tempo sætter fokus på det uundgåelige, uforståelige og dybt frustrerende element i vores eksistens: at alting har en slutning.
THE END bruger forskellige medier, omfatter slutscenen af Hamlet, og henter sin inspiration fra katastrofefilm.

 

Skøn katastrofehjælp til dansk teater
Teatret er dødt. Den Anden Opera er sprængt i luften. Svensk TV trænger ind i de røgfyldte lokaler for at sende de chokerende billeder direkte ud til seerne … Forvirret? Så vent bare til “behind the scenes” optagelserne af prøverne til Hamlet. Gensynet med Requiem … Katastrofe på katastrofe udspiller sig for os. På scenen. På storskærmen. I foyeren. I tankerne.

Marianne Skovlund Christensen, Teatermagasinet 2006

 

THE END
premiere: May 18, 2006 at Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen
instruktør: Erik Pold
video: Helle Lyshøj
musik: Pelle Skovmand
scenografi: Rebecca Arthy
performere: Maria Rich, Daniel Norback, Pernille Koch og Vidar Hansen
produceret af: LiminalDK

 

 

  • stills right: Teatret er sprængt i luften og vi ser en ‘direkte’ udsendelse af begivenheden. En rapporter interviewer øjenvidner og brandmændene på stedet, men efter et uheldigt styrt bliver videoen afbrudt og af et teknisk uheld. Den iscenesatte udsendelse er optaget med publikum i rollen som øjenvidner i foyeren i begyndelsen af forestillingen.
  • stills below: Scene med katastrofer filmet ‘live’ ved hjælp af blue-screen teknik. Baggrundene er ligeledes manipuleret og filmet ‘live’.