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★★★★★Review of Flying Superkids, 2026
Dazzling powerful gymnastic show from Flying Superkids
25. maj 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
The sun gleams in the paintwork as hundreds of cars swerve off the road and park in the field, below the enormous tent in the background. It's summer in Denmark, the children are happy. Inside the fence there are trampolines and hula hoops, stalls with food and soda. Life and happy days.
Flying Superkids is a tribute to the body's acrobatic abilities. In many ways, the show is like a circus. You have to start early and train hard. There are no keyboard shortcuts or secret cheat codes.
On the other hand, there is support when the children begin training as super gymnasts in Aarhus. It is difficult, and it can be scary.
Skill comes from the courage in the chest. The afternoon you start as a new vaulting gymnast, you meet the wall - "No, I can't".
- Not yet!
It takes a lot of training, and a good mood, to become good at vaulting gymnastics.
Here are some of the jumps that you can experience at the Flying Superkids show:
Flic-flack – Backward handspring, a classic and frequently used connecting element.
Front handspring – Powerful forward jump with a start from two legs (often as a build-up to larger jumps).
Arabian somersault – Forward somersault with a half twist.
Salto (or double somersault) – Backward or forward flip in the air, often double or triple.
Handspring – Forward handspring.
Flyspring – Forward jump with a combined take-off (similar to a forward flip-flop variant).
Whip back (or whip somersault) – Fast backward somersault in a stretched position, used in tumbling series.
Tumbling series – Continuous series of jumps and flips at a high tempo.
Check out the video clips Kulturnyt took from the show, while we were sitting really well and in great company with 1,200 happy people in the tent. Thanks for the experience. It was excellent.
Flying Superkids
Show review
Photo: Miklos Szabo★★★★★Review 'Frost', Musikhuset Aarhus
Frost at Musikhuset makes grown men cry
8. april 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
We are 1,500 people in the auditorium. Some of us are princesses, escorted by dad, aunt or mum. We’re off on an adventure at Musikhuset Aarhus – Disney’s Frost, The Musical, served up in a Nordic style.
The princesses in the auditorium are dressed up, eating sweets, and kicking me in the back. There’s something particularly enchanting about experiencing children’s theatre together with children. The fathers behind us look so happy to be taking their daughters on this trip – into the fairy tale.
Frost is a very long performance when you’re 4–5 years old. But it actually works fine. The children sit on cushions so they can see over the heads of the adults. Perfect. The men in the hall relax and enjoy themselves while their daughters munch wine gums and follow the story on stage.
The story is the one you know from the film – but much less Broadway. In this Vesturport version there’s more Nordic folklore and mythology. Princess Anna is a quick-witted girl with plenty of spirit, full of life and vitality, and with a real longing for a proper man!
Together with her sister Elsa, Anna has lived alone in the castle for many years, but now her sister Elsa is to become queen. Their parents are dead, and Elsa is known for having a crazy temper that can make people collapse with frostbite.
People are streaming into the house to celebrate the coronation of the new queen. Anna steps out of her loneliness and meets a real man for the first time: Prince Hans! He’s handsome, and she wants to marry him – preferably today rather than tomorrow.
But her sister says no. In fact she gets so angry with Anna that she unleashes her freezing magic over the entire kingdom, turning it into winter. Elsa runs away up into the mountains, where she lives in the company of the snowman Olaf – a little happy bundle of snow that Elsa has brought to life.
And now it gets exciting. Anna searches the mountains for her sister, but first finds Kristoffer and his sweet reindeer. The real adventure begins. Sven the Reindeer – played perfectly by Mads Panik Wilfred Steen – with long forelegs that make him look completely lifelike. They also meet the cheerful snowman Olaf, brilliantly performed by puppeteer Diluckshan Jeyaratnam, who also provides the snowman’s voice.
Ahead of Kristoffer and Anna lie many challenges: yet another outburst from sister Elsa, a bunch of crazy men and women with scythes and flails gathered to kill Elsa, betrayal and deceit, and finally – Princess Anna has got an ice splinter in her heart. She is freezing – only death’s cold embrace awaits her.
Unless…! Unless they manage to find true love!
The scenography is raw and Nordic, top class. The actors can really sing. The music is pompous and bombastic – it sounds like Icelandic volcanoes rumbling and steaming as they meet Hollywood’s Rodgers & Hammerstein and some verses from a Swedish Abba blackbird.
But the biggest thing you have to experience for yourself. Your children manage an incredible number of minutes with focus, and suddenly you realise the story has touched you so deeply that you have to sniff quickly and wipe a few tears from your cheeks.
Thank you to Vesturport for the experience, and thank you to Musikhuset in Aarhus. A superb production in the Nordic vein – Vikings and full-of-life men and women. Brilliant!
Frost, by Disney Theatrical Productions
The artistic team, Vesturport Iceland
Show review
Photo: Mikkel Vognæs★★★★Review 'When the Enemy Comes', Teater Katapult
New Danish Drama: Sperm and Rubble, Heat-Seeking Sperm Cells, Cumshot Orgasms in the Porn Machine, and a Micro-Pistol
4. april 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'When the Enemy Comes': I like sex and war. Sex because it’s my expression of love. War because it’s my way of standing up for myself when the enemy invades my country. But mixing the two?
I have to be honest: 'When the Enemy Comes' is an okay play because it throbs with the sexual rhythms of our time and matches the image of headless naked chickens running around. The piece is very violent, extremely vulgar, absurd without meaning – a stew where everyone contributes a squirt from their crotch, and absolutely no one wants to be the chef.
That’s why I suggest it should be translated into German or Spanish. Because the play is different, and Germans and Spaniards have a slightly higher tolerance for new drama.
But in a Danish context it tastes to me like a piece of smørrebrød with way too much pussy juice and sperm, garnished with gunpowder and bullets. The taste is too weird for me personally. Way too far from the vet’s late-night snack.
Luckily, the young audience is thrilled!
That’s why there is quality in 'When the Enemy Comes'. The young audience thinks the play is funny. The youngsters laugh at “naughty words” – I won’t list them – a bare male ass shocks them so hard the ceiling is about to fall on their heads. They are provoked by the Nazi figure on stage who behaves like shit.
The young people like the play – on their own terms. And that is quality: that someone actually likes the art you make, even if other balder men dream of rye bread with liver pâté.
Imagine 2 men and a woman living in a basement while war is raging, and then they are discovered by a sadistic officer hunting for new bodies for the battlefield.
Everything about war is talked about as sex. Defeat at the front is “impotence”. Bombs and missiles are “cumshot orgasms”. Pistols are “dicks”.
And everything about sex is talked about as war. Desire is “attack me”. Pregnancy is “siege of the enemy”. The body is “the casing”.
In the play the oppressed are abused by the officer (“Supreme Ass-Licker”) and his recruit (“the Dog”). It takes a while for them to get killed – until the girl in the group gives the officer’s micro-pistol a blowjob.
How the absurd antics end, you’ll have to experience for yourself. But I can reveal that there is no real story – and that the audience doesn’t mind. The play is a fragmentary scene-concert with clips of hardcore OnlyFans meeting National Socialist Hitler’s hysterical temperament, with a taste of downfall and resistance. A taste of iron in the air from the good use of stage blood.
Thanks to the team behind 'When the Enemy Comes', and thanks to Jonas Thorsted Frederiksen for writing absurdly about the two most important things in life: love and standing up for yourself. It was a good experience. Now I’m going to the fridge for that liver pâté.
When the Enemy Comes
Teater review
Photo: Henrik Ohsten★★★★Review 'My father can fly', Livingstone's Cabinet at Teatret Svalegangen
Her father was crazy, but then he hanged himself
23. marts 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
A fine little piece about the director’s father who was crazy, and he commits suicide. So there she stood,
Nina Kareis’ father was sometimes a fantastic character who shouted “shit and piss” in church, and at other times he was sectioned and given electroshock treatment. He loved his green Saab 96 (two of them), and he bought himself a bow and arrow. I tell you, the audience was scared when he aimed the bow at us and fumbled with the arrow. Our row in the auditorium at Teatret Svalegangen was right in the line of fire – genuinely frightening.
Much of Nina’s childhood was shaped by this whimsical father with a huge imagination. He believed you could buy a bottle-green fibreglass boat and sail around Denmark with your daughter, so that’s exactly what he did.
You will love the set design – go and see the show – it forms part of the portrait of the girl’s father, the girl who is now an adult director. A simple wooden crate stands on stage, and this crate is deconstructed as the father’s manic-depressive story is painted before us. Graphically beautiful and it adds real context to the piece.
You will also love the music. It is Pete Livingstone who creates the moods and melodies. Sad, happy, Bob Dylan-esque, classical – spiced with well-chosen suspense effects. Extremely impressive work by Livingstone; he can play music on all instruments – violin, piano, guitar, synth – a great musician, in my opinion. His work perfectly suits the piece and frames the portrait of the mad father.
The acting is a monologue in the form of a voice-over, where the performers provide bodies and movements to what is being told. Original and absurdly effective. The actors wear masks created by Julie Forchhammer. There are bears, doves, crocodiles, herrings and so on. Absurd and very well executed.
My Father Can Fly based on an idea by
Teater review
★★★★★Review 'A Wobbly Waltz', Bora Bora in Aarhus
Don Gnu delivers world-class bromance!
6. marts 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Hold up! I'm completely hooked on Don Gnu's new bromance. It's modern as hell with its masculine humor, friendship, and slapstick. 'Slinger i valsen – A Wobbly Waltz' is Bora Bora's latest answer to the more traditional gender-focused trends. The show celebrates three straight guys' non-sexual friendship, jealousy, competition, and real feelings through physical, hilarious theatre. Five stars, hands down. Man, this is good!
On the European scene, Don Gnu is already top-tier, and this Aarhus-based dance company tours the world with its masculine performances. In this new piece 'Slinger i valsen – A Wobbly Waltz', three men take the stage.
Quick news flash: We're in Hollywood, 1910. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin cross paths. It's the silent film era. Slapstick, laughs, masculine love between men – Laurel and Hardy were like brothers their whole lives – and competition between Chaplin's little Tramp and the Laurel & Hardy duo.
Three real men with humor, battling with and against each other on the Bora Bora stage. They dance. They box. They take flight. They're jealous of each other. They try to impress and outdo one another. Just like guys do. It's funny. It's...
...Yeah, damn it, it's actually moving, man! Go see it for yourself – premiere tomorrow Saturday, and tickets are selling out fast. (Kulturnyt is non-profit and ad-free; we get zero kickbacks or anything – this is just honest: go see it!)
There are flashing lights in the show. And if you're feeling suicidal, maybe depressed, lonely, abandoned, and your dog just died – because they always do at the worst possible time – here's another heads-up: 'Slinger i valsen - A Wobbly Waltz' will guaranteed make you happy! I got so damn happy I started crying at the end of the story. Seriously! Men's friendship, humor, masculinity, and straight-up hetero love for each other – it's beautiful to watch.
Thanks to Don Gnu for the bromance, thanks to Bora Bora for bringing international physical theatre about men to Aarhus, and a special shout-out to you who actually read all the way down to this final full stop :) Man, that's impressive.
Slinger i valsen – A Wobbly Waltz, by Don Gnu
Performance review
Photo: Montgomery★★★★Review of 'The Job', Teatret Svalegangen
See 'The Job' and Find Out If You're an Aluminum Pot or a Fragile Coffee Cup
14. februar 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'The Job' at Teatret Svalegangen: Problematic. We humans are fascinated by watching people get killed. I don't get it. The play 'The Job' at Teatret Svalegangen explores how we are affected by seeing people executed on the internet, sexually abused, cut with shards of glass, and so on. The consequence is PTSD for the sensitive porcelain souls, or indifference and laughter from the tougher aluminum pots. Make your own choice: Are you porcelain or aluminum? 'The Job' deserves 4 stars. I myself am mostly a chipped coffee cup in fragile porcelain. Ha!
The best thing about the play - directed by
We are in the psychologist's office. The young woman Mia - played with speed and precision by Rosemarie Mosbæk - has seen too many brutal videos in her job as a content moderator on a social media platform. It has given her PTSD.
Now she is in session with the psychologist - played warmly and credibly by Erik Viinberg - trying to get "well" again.
The large projection behind the two characters reflects some of the thought processes, image storms, and anxiety that Mia carries inside her. It's a beautiful and effective visual contribution to the story, in a scenography created by Nick Pedersen.
Should we ban images on the internet of people being abused? To protect advertisers, and to protect fragile souls like me?
No, not for my sake, because images don't kill. And where would we draw the line? Have you seen an MMA gladiator fight? Or 1,000 men with Bonnie Blue in one day. The world is full of cruelties.
What if we just banned cruelty altogether?
But it is problematic, the images we see. Maybe we should ban them? Images of accidents, war, assaults, and so on. We become sick in the soul from watching them, because we can't do anything about it. Mia has gone mad in the play because she has seen people being mistreated without being able to save them.
But what about the psychologist? Is he actually mad too, or an unpleasant, malevolent person? Does the psychologist resemble a man Mia has seen online, one who raped his own children? Is there something about the earlobe and his dialect?
Experience it for yourself. A thriller that unfolds between Mia and the psychologist. He is old and experienced. She is young and has a gun.
Thanks for the experience. It was good. Go see the play yourself, and check if you're made of porcelain.
The Job by Max Wolf Friedlich
Teater review
Photo: Jubal Battisti & Adam Munnings★★★★Review of 'Remachine', Jefta van Dinther at Bora Bora in Aarhus
Life is 78 and a half square meters large, and it spins around
21. januar 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
The wind smacks flat-handed into my head. Again and again. Pitch-black evening in Aarhus. Streetlights struggle to keep their cones of light afloat. Police cars race past with blue flashes slicing into the night. People hunch into their dark shadows. It’s cold. Again. My legs repeat themselves. Stumbling forward to get home to warmth.
That’s exactly what life feels like in the work 'Remachine' at Bora Bora in Aarhus. Choreography by Jefta van Dinther. A performance worth 4 stars - and unsuitable for anyone with a leaning toward depression.
You’re born, you die. But between those two points lie so many damn tedious days. Thousands of repetitions.
The sun rises, it sets, 25,000 times. Your heart beats 2.5 billion times. I just spent 2,520 of mine in the big hall at Bora Bora. No idea if I’ll ever get them back?
And what about those 2,520 heartbeats the other day in the ER waiting room? And the 3,000 on the light rail out toward Ryomgaard? Living is expensive. Thousands of heartbeats flake off us, just to uncover a handful of fun and happy ones.
Darkness. Light creeps in. A giant revolving stage, about 10 meters in diameter, turns endlessly with 5 dancers perched on its rim. They sing mournfully to a 16-bar loop repeating forever. It’s morning in life. Over the next eleven and a half minutes the dancers fight their way up onto the platform. Then they lie there twitching—like newborns in life, or like people jolted awake in panic because they’re late for work.
Through the piece, while singing along to techno’s endless repeats, the dancers show how we live in the grooves of a vinyl record. So we work hard. And we think: “Look how diligent and capable I am.” And everyone else thinks the same. We’re copies of each other. Individuals moving in the same direction like one huge school of fish.
Fantastic individuals, just like everyone else. Yeah, fuck, that’s pretty depressing, I think.
'Remachine' is carried by hypnotic music, the turning stage, the dancers’ repetitions. No smiles here, no funny Chaplin-like moves from Modern Times’ feeding machine. Hopelessness. Existence cynically gnawing on our bones, draining our strength.
In the end we grow old. Maybe we’re born again? That’s it.
Thanks for the experience. Principally, I still think my life is better than this. But it’s true, isn’t it? Every morning the same: “Did you sleep well?” Coffee. Work. Night pours over us. Good night.
Quick repeat summary: 'Remachine', 4 stars, original scenography, hypnotic music and singing, decent choreography, good lighting. And if you’re already depressed, keep the number for the Lifeline in your back pocket. You’ll be glad you did.
Damn! Where the hell did I put that number?
Remachine
Photo and film: Jubal Battisti, Elin Berge
Production management: Uta Engel, Romy Hansford-Gerber
Dans review
Photo: Øystein Haara★★★★★★Review of 'Cancel Bertha - Carte Blanche', on Bora Bora in Denmark
14 Dancers Teach Me the Difference: I Love Iterations More
13. november 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Cancel Bertha - Carte Blanche' at Bora Bora: I love the grotesque performance that rolls imposingly back and forth across the floor between the tall walls of Bora Bora. It is like a gigantic Flemish wave of repetitions, created by the Belgian Jan Martens. Performed by 14 Norwegian dancers. In the middle of the stage floor, the image of a sleeping dog, 6 x 8 metres. The dancers are dressed in reflective costumes created by Indrani Balgobin, making them resemble athletic, shimmering figures in a sporty, futuristic universe. The dance performance is an experience worthy of 6 stars.
Huha, that was tough. You know, just because caviar is expensive and sought-after doesn’t necessarily make it my cup of tea. Privately you must understand, this reviewer never went to school, and he loves a good story.
So, do you get it? Cancel Bertha is huge shovelfuls of caviar, and me with my mouth shut just dreaming of a hotdog, maybe a bit of cancan and striptease.
Or the other way round. This review might taste a little like a vegan’s experience of a hotdog, or like a jigsaw puzzle box depicting a dumb man’s experience of an intellectual work. But I mean what I say. Hang on! By reading further, you have given consent.
A woman in a reflective leotard enters the stage. She makes movements, rolls around on the floor, repeats poses, half dance steps, gets on all fours like a dog sticking its bum in the air. Do you understand? Then she repeats herself until a bearded man enters the stage.
The man shows off his strong forearms. He has tattoos. Swings his arms around, drops to his knees, stands up. Repeats himself.
A couple in reflective costumes enter the stage. The man strips naked except for a pair of reflective Speedo-style briefs. Together with the woman he makes movements in sync, drops to his knees, gets on all fours together like two dogs.
And so it continues. Every time new dancers enter the stage, the others continue their repetitions. In the end it is a whole gaming machine filled with gears and glittering costumes that repeat themselves in a grand geometric choreography with a dash of mathematics.
Repetitions. Repetitions. This is the picture of the dreadful life of repetition. At work. In yourself. In your legs when you walk, and in your arms when you eat. Life is a repetition.
Repetition without iteration. There are two concepts for the state that 'Carte Blanche' portrays: Death without development, or simply a soulless robot.
Is this what modern man has become? Soulless, or with a mechanical movement pattern that any AI robot today can already perform much better than the Norwegian dancers?
Most of Europe – especially in Norway and Belgium – is thrilled with 'Cancel Bertha'. I understand the fascination with the complicated choreographies that weave the dancers’ movements together into huge swirling rivers of repetition.
It is exactly reminiscent of workers picking cotton or packing goods from China into cardboard boxes all day long in a huge warehouse. The movements are empty, but efficient.
The sound also contains repetitions. A woman sings “We have change of the moon” with guitar accompaniment. This line is repeated about 100 times. Then there is a metronome at 180 BPM that pounds my ear for about a quarter of an hour. And finally, when the repetitions are about to ebb away, a song about “When we get home from work”, maybe 80 times.
Yes, I got a bit seasick from the repetitions. I love iterations, all people do. No one loves repetitions. So thank you for the experience, I love that Jan Martens makes us aware of the difference between repetition and iteration.
The latter is fruitful, the former is barren. Stillborn already before the sun rises.
Thanks to the 14 Norwegian dancers, Jan Martens, Carte Blanche, and to Bora Bora for inviting great European dance art to Aarhus. Now I need a hotdog.
Cancel Bertha - Carte Blanche by Jan Martens
Dans review
★★★★Review: 'Death is Not the End', by Andreas Constantinou
A work of art for those who survived
31. oktober 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
When my son died, I bought a spade in Brugsen and buried him in the forest. I remember that now, as we sit in a church in the middle of Aarhus, 60 people at the end of the day. No one is crying yet, but we will. The performance "Death is Not the End" is about the dead. 6 people tell private stories about the time they met death. Death of their daughter. Or they lost their husband. Their burden, their suffering. Their mother. We experience a performance about the dead, told by those who survived, those who are still here. Created by
Mostly, anyway. We are sad about it. My grandmother died. I bought a red rose and threw it down on the lid of her coffin at the bottom of her grave. Afterwards we had coffee and cake.
This performance starts specifically inside a small chapel at the Church of Our Lady. Pointed vaulted ceilings decorated with pink, violet and orange along the edges. An altar. Wall paintings. 6 people. Stories about death.
Next we go out into the monastery courtyard. It is dark. We all get a black umbrella (as is appropriate for funerals) and walk around the courtyard and into the main church.
The atmosphere is sacred. (Yes!) We sit in the booths and the 6 people tell several stories, all the way up to the altar. We move, and it moves us. Finally, large parts of the audience are invited up to the altar. Those who told about the dead disappear, and then the audience stands next in line.
We do not get out of here without feeling the sadness that people die. And in the end we die ourselves, but without crying about it. That job is for the others to take.
I love talking about death. It makes me happy. Like, rather the others than me? Is that wrong? Maybe. The audience around me is moved, and many cry. I don't.
Then my brother died, and I dressed him in his last set of clothes, put him in the coffin. Then Jan died. Shot his head off with a hunting rifle (the day after I told him about life's beauty). Then Anni died, in Fitness World, of an aneurysm, and I read about it on Facebook. Then a craftsman in Vamdrup died, thrown out through the windshield of his van, bleeding from his ears while I held his head and the ambulance howled in the distance on its way towards us. Then my business associate died, and I bought him flowers. Then my mother died, I carried her from the church to the cemetery and lowered her into the grave. Then...
It's obviously something we have to get used to. Very annoying.
Thank you for the experience Andreas Constantinou, it was good. As a nice period to your other works in the series "The Grief Work Series", where in "Death is Not the End" you create a work of art out of everyday deaths, told by those who survived.
Next we step out into Aarhus, out of the church. It is All Saints' Eve. The city is filled with horror and fear, and young girls in hot pants, bare legs and stilettos. They laugh and are happy in the warm October night, as if death has no meaning for them yet.
Cool.
Death is Not the End, performance by Andreas Constantinou
Performance review
Backstage with Palle Granhøj, dancer and choreographer
You just slam a door hard enough, then there are two others that open up
22. september 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Palle Granhøj has been a scenographer and dances for more than 35 years. His Dance Company has visited 50 countries, and stood on stage several thousand times. Right now he is current at the theater Svalegangen with the performance "It's not Mårup Church". A story of longing.
Here is Palle Granhøj Backstage.
Compared to the time you started, until here where you are now, what has happened to Palle?
- In the beginning, everything was a fight. It's always been a fight. Until I gave up to Aarhus Municipality in 2017, I spent too much effort until then, fighting for my survival - for the dance.
- Ever since it has been more relaxing for me to be an artist.
Your new performance is a dance performance and you also have music. It's about a really old church in Vendsyssel from the 13th century. How did you create a link between that church on the west coast, and then a performance in the middle of the city?
- I think we all have longing in us. In different ways. The best example is actually the first crush you experience. I can still long for it.
- The naivety one had, the one who completely devoted to a crush. But you can never get it again because it's not the first time next time.
- If I then, along with some dancers and some musicians, manage to try to get the audience to recall some of their longings, then that's fine for me. Then I reach my goal.
Your signature as a dancer is to work with obstructions. What is it?
- I see that the dancer becomes very comfortable when operating in a fixed frame. Obstruction makes them extremely creative. Like when water runs down and meets obstacles. The water will probably find out how to get by. And such is the dancer's artistic path as well.
I have read you are not intellectual in your performances, why not?
- I never instruct with emotions. I only instruct with these theories that I have developed.
Time, I think, is becoming more and more political. What we eat, how we move, everything is political?
- I wouldn't say that a few years ago!
- I made a performance called 'An Eve, and An Adam' - where the dancers are naked - which we are going around in Mexico with just in a little while. And I just sat down and given a lot of interviews with magazines in Mexico and they say, "Why are you so political?"
- haha hehe. - I've never intended to be politically. I never have a political motive. But in Mexico they think it's very political.
- It is my privilege as an artist. We have been in 50 countries for 35 years, so I have experienced many exciting receptions on something that I had thought of my way, but which was perceived in a completely different way.
- It's a great privilege. I am very happy about that.
What is 'It's Not Mårup Church'?
- And they are wonderfully beautiful. It's wonderfully beautiful people.
I look forward to seeing the performance. Thanks.
Dans
Fotografen.dkPicasso, Miró and Léger at Aros
Je ne parle pas français, mais Lille is not petit
9. maj 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
I know 200 words in French, and that’s why I love traveling in France and only speaking French. You should consider it too. Head to Aros and check out this year’s French exhibition with Picasso, Miró, and Léger. "Modernism’s Many Voices" welcomes you until the end of September. The artworks were trucked in from LaM in Lille to Aarhus - so that you can enjoy a five-star art exhibition right here in the city while the French museum gets a facelift. Visit Aros, and you’ll be ready to hop on a Billund-Paris flight for a thousand kroner each way, then zip up to Lille on the TGV train at 320 km/h. Can you tell I’ve been paid to tell you this? With food.
So, in a way, you could say I’m better at French than understanding Danish. Kulturnyt sneaks into the Sunset Lounge at Aros, floor 9.
- Are we misunderstanding the invitation? we whisper to each other.
Charlotte Lesénécal, press and PR for France’s Tourism Board, shakes hands and flashes a wide smile.
I snatch the bubbles so I’m ready for our Afterwork talk tied to the Picasso, Miró, and Léger exhibition here in Aarhus. "Afterwork" is going to be a big deal after we’ve checked out the paintings on floor 5. I’m sure of it.
But then I spot François Navarro, a solid guy with intellectual glasses, a jovial vibe, and a sticker on his jacket. "Hello Lille", it says.
- I’m the general manager of the organization in Lille that pulls in tourists, events, and companies, he says. Serious but friendly. His English is as beautiful as only a Frenchman can make it.
- I know Lille means "petite" in Danish, he continues, - but we actually have 1.2 million residents. 700 headquarters for international companies. Plus, we’re leaders in digital, health and nutrition, and we’ve got retail firms with 74,000 employees. Have you visited Lille?
- Not yet, I reply.
So, the room is full of lovely people from Lille’s tourism office, nice folks from the French tourism board in Copenhagen, Danish travel journalists, influencers - plus Kulturnyt.
- Uh, we cover culture and performing arts in Aarhus.
Then the machine starts. PowerPoint, and charming Frenchmen speaking English. I’m sitting there thinking about performing arts, recalling all the marketing events I’ve experienced in my life. Slick images. Bullet points. Numbers. For example, Lille is France’s third-largest city. Bet you didn’t know that.
The crowd takes in a colorful show on a really big, very fancy screen. I’m warming up to the calm François, who passes the ball to Maxime Vermeulen, director of global investments in Lille. Steady eyes behind glasses, business-minded, casual suit, gray temples, but not chubby. If only I’d brought more than a 100 kroner. Super credible guy—talk to him if you want to start a new business in France this summer.
Bum. Then there’s culture. Sélic Lenne is the boss of telling European journalists about Lille’s cultural scene. And it’s not small potatoes, let me tell you. For example, in September, Europe’s largest flea market with 2 million visitors. World-class architecture with Flemish inspiration from Belgium and Holland. BAL - beer festival in Lille, out in November. Christmas market.
But there’s also Justine Minet, PR and press officer at LaM - who lent Picasso, Miró, and Léger to Aarhus. She’s a hit with the travel journalists because she’s sweet and young. Smart, eloquent, and—new twist—Justine speaks English with just a flirty hint of a French accent.
- Can I take a picture of you? shouts one of them, a 79-year-old man. - With my smartphone!
Justine smiles, a bit unsure but kind. He’s allowed. He snaps so many photos of the press officer that in 1985, it would’ve been three rolls of Kodachrome. Those were pricey back then.
You know how sometimes our subconscious tricks us? I thought we were here to experience art at Aros and talk about the works. "Afterwork". But then there’s a buffet and a crash course for tourists and businesspeople heading to Lille.
- There’s some good food and wine, says Marie Stefani from the French tourism board.
I love a buffet! A French buffet. The bread. The cheeses. Olives. Cured meats. French wine. It doesn’t get better. I’m heading back to France soon! Maybe Lille. Because it’s freaking huge, not petit. Bon appétit!
Read more about Picasso, Miró, and Léger at Aros. Or check out Lille’s tourism office, "Hello Lille".
Kultur
Photo: Pietro Bertora★★★★★Review: 'Batty Bwoy', at Bora Bora in Aarhus
The massive force of sexuality
1. april 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Batty Bwoy' at Bora Bora: I do like the clinging juice from Harald Beharie's gender, when he reached for my hand and I gently embraced his open palm and long fingers, to reach the connection to the performer from Norway with the juice of my own. You know, 'Batty Bwoy' is a word from Patois, a Jamaican expression that does not sincerely embrace the gay sexuality. In fact not. But in the dance performance of
So, this dance performance 'Batty Bwoy' is a story of sexual transformation. You will enjoy it, no matter what sexuality you're into. Or you might tremble with fear, as the performer dissolves the fourth wall, drawing the audience - seated raw and close on the floor - into the juice of life, where his private member bathes in the generous nectar of love, water, and lubricants.
The character on stage do not enjoy being 'Batty Bwoy'. He had to swallow all too much lubricant, seed and water. He had to show his anus to everyone, trying to find someone to make love to. He struggled with the long hair - the role as 'Batty Bwoy'. Tries to find an escape from cultural defined roles, and reaching for an embracement with himself, and his sexuality. Hang on. He finds the way out.
Ever since I lived as a prostitute, I've enjoyed the question of sexuality: 'Why do I do, what I do, and do I like doing, what I do? Well, you get the drift. English is not my language. The body is.
So when Harald Beharie transforms from self hate, into the next step - which is reaching out - I am game. He wants to grab the hand of someone. I share him mine, all wet and juicy. And then he dances like a crazy and is engulfed in the provocative kind of sexual expression. And after that, he finds his real sexuality. And after that, what happens then? When you have transformed into to your true sexuality?
I ain't telling you. Go to the performance and see for yourself. This massive force of sexuality. Oh no. Like a tsunami, or even stronger. You know.
Thank you very much, Harald Beharie, and thanks to Bora Bora for opening the space for 'Batty Bwoy'.
Batty Bwoy
Dans review
Photo: Christoffer Brekne★★★★★★6-star rating: Review of 'Shroud', at Bora Bora in Aarhus
Dying Is Never Easy, Shrouded in the Curtains of the Mind
22. marts 2025.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Time to say goodbye. Andreas Constantinou is in a coffin, with his parents' funerals adjacent on video screens. The father on his right, the mother on his left, his own coffin in the middle. The next one to enter the universe of death. 'Shroud' is a public performance of the privacy of grief and death, a masterful work of art, deserving a six-star rating. Thank you.
Now, there is nothing more to say about the performance 'Shroud'. Great art does that to us, leaves us silent with moist eyes. Completely engulfed in our own inner worlds of life and death. Everybody in the audience cries from the beauty of the scene, crafted by
That’s never easy. To die, knowingly. To let go of the handgrip of life, while your son holds your hands.
Entangled in grief and his nascent sense of death - both the incoming and the one alive - the performance 'Shroud' takes the audience to the land of the not-living. I’ve never seen anything like this, with the soundscape created by
The enormous shroud seems to be a living organ with multiple faces and personalities inside. I think Andreas Constantinou is only one, but at times there seem to be three or more not-living persons in the shroud. The material of the shroud makes patterns of light and shade, so that I see dozens of faces in it.
Like grief. Faces projected onto the inner curtains of the mind. Terrible scenes of longing, transformation, sadness. The loss of body, but the reminder of expression and personality.
Still, I will stay silent - holding my stance in the waves of the audience’s hands showing their gratitude and admiration with the sound of living people clapping. Curtain fall has arrived. In the dark, we walk through the city, talking about death and life. I thank you for a profound experience at Bora Bora in Aarhus. It’s good to be alive.
Shroud
Dans review
★★★★★Review 'In the Middle of Life', Teatret Svalegangen
Are you having sex with your husband, or are you just arguing?
16. november 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Midt i livet': Are you tired of arguing with your husband? Then go to Teatret Svalegangen and see 'In the Middle of Life'. A well-functioning argument worth 5 stars. Super well played by
I myself don't argue with my woman. Only about small things, I think. Where the bed should be, and that kind of thing. Small things.
But Charlotte - and this is not to point fingers - she is on the loose side as a woman. She is boiling. She has met Mads. 3 months ago. A police officer in Aarhus, who is married, but who no longer loves his wife.
If only Anders had said what every man thinks:
And... I don't know. It's rare that arguments make any sense. Most of the time we argue because we've momentarily lost touch with each other, and our foothold in reality.
'Midt i livet' is super realistic. The lines are straightforward. The dilemmas are familiar for every counselor - and therefore also familiar to anyone who has experienced a bad relationship.
You get humor too. Black humor.
Charlotte is a mix of a tough wife and a manipulative bandit. Her husband is a mix of a warm hearted man and a tiring sissy.
They've both lost their desire. The joy of working. Happiness in family life. Connection. Lust. They have become empty shells who feel sorry for themselves.
They can't talk to each other at all. Just complain, grumble, and grieve.
There are 2 stars for the actors. 2 stars for the dialogue. 1 star for being relevant to you if you're tired of arguing with your husband.
Midt i lieft by David Eldridge
Teater review
The struggle in the middle of life for love and eroticism
In the middle of life
5. november 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
In the middle of life, many married couples are hit by the question: "How are we living! Is it good enough!"
Is there a difference in how the two characters deal with life?
- She tries to wake him up, somehow. Because she is well aware that they are not where they want to be. And should you just keep doing it? Should they be unhappy forever, or should they do something about it?
In one of the scenes, the married couple argue about sex. They have just been on an inn holiday, and Anders is proud. "We had sex twice!". But it turns out, it was compulsory sex. In fact, Charlotte no longer wants sex with Anders. They have lost contact with each other, partly because Anders commutes between Aarhus and Copenhagen. They are not good at talking together about the problems, but they try.
There is a lot of drama in theatre, but sometimes there is just as much drama - or more - in one's own life. Is it a play about the lives of ordinary people?
The man in the play does not want to talk about the problems. What's the matter with you, Caspar?
Silence creates rust in a relationship. It's good to talk together.
Where do you want to lead the audience?
'Midt i livet' plays at Teatret Svalegangen from 9th of November till the first week of December.
Teater video
Photo:Fotografen.dkArt talk: Grief gives power to art and to science
Art talk about 'Shroud' on Bora Bora
29. oktober 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
My cigarettes say with no shame in life that I will be killed in a little while, in a moment. With EU guarantee. So that's why I have a special interest in tonight's art talk on Bora Bora's stage. It's about grief, and it's a prelude to 'Shroud', which you must see in the month of March 2025 at Bora Bora. A performance created by
It's not a popular topic to talk about, in general. Grief. Have you also experienced grief?
Tone: How did your interest in grief as a theme in your art begin?
And you? Why become a professor in grief?
Grief is private. But it is also personal. And in the personal lies a power that can become art and science. The artist Andreas and the professor Dorthe use that power in their work. One with analysis and data, the other with practice and body.
Man in the audience: You both talk about 'research', each with your own method, but I hear you arrive at roughly the same result. Can you talk about how you do 'research' in relation to grief?
Dorthe: - As a scientist, I talk to people who have experienced grief. I collect data, I analyze and I create viewpoints that shed light on the grief. We can see that rituals are needed. We gather in a church, or make a grave site, we eat some good food on the anniversary of someone's death, we do many different things. There are no right ways to deal with grief. Everyone chooses his own method.
With the freedom of expression on X, there are endless ways to experience grief. Many videos of cruelty and brutality, pictures from everyday life. Oppressed people share depictions of death and destruction with each other - to tell someone. People die online and we get sad. We experience grief even if the dead person is a thousand kilometers away.
Woman in the audience: Can you give any advice on how to deal with grief over long distances? When you're online, you often sit alone, and don't have anyone to share your sorrow with?
There were many more questions and answers at the art talk than I can remember. So you must go and experience the 'Shroud' and find answers to your own questions. But basically the question is: "Is it best for me to close my throat and keep the grief down? Or should I cry and talk about the grief to the people around me?"
Thanks for art talk on Bora Bora. It was a good experience, for me and my grief.
Dans
Photo: Martin Dam, Carla Jiménez Puigdevall, Joseph Mayer★★★★★Review of 'Short & Sharp' at Bora Bora in Aarhus
Art is, daring to be real!
11. oktober 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
The evening's three pieces of open-faced sandwhich (smørrebrød) at Bora Bora are about the art of being human. You know it. "Short & Sharp" is world-class art, a dance performance at 5 stars. Think you will love to experience it at Bora Bora in Aarhus. Last chance Friday. Buy a ticket. Otherwise, it's time for butter and bread pudding. Such is life.
I was captivated by 'Gossip Body' with Ottavia Catenacci. She has a blue leotard and some sturdy running shoes. Pokes around a bit in the evening's first solo performance. Goes backwards a lot. Have her back to the audience. Making all the mistakes I have to avoid if I want to be an artist. And she does it on purpose.
'Gossip Body' talks sincerely about how difficult it is to look the audience in the eyes. That's how it is. Denmark's greatest artist - currently dead and buried - Storm P. had an eye for it. Art is a difficult thing. Ottavia Catenacci tells about it. Can hardly contain herself.
And it is difficult, in life's work of art. All art is about the audience. The artist is not that important. Like a selfie or a business card. Art is something that audiences love because we find ourselves in art. Therefore, the most popular art forms are: Pornography, football and pop music. Although it is all unimportant and insignificant, the audience finds itself in the art.
So the first step in art is to look the audience in the eyes. It is well told by Ottavia Catenacci. It is so difficult to stand out in the world - for all of us - and be seen, and see others.
Now I'm getting excited. Will Magalí Camps - dancing on 'smørrebrød' number 2, 'Double You Single View' - build on Ottavia Catenacci's 'Gossip Body'? Yes! She dances more in relation to the audience. Looking at them. Talking. But still difficult. When we are on the way to find ourselves we say things like "Hello" without listening for the answer. And she does. "Hello - hello!"
After some time she gets tired of the lack of response from the audience. Pours water onto the dance floor. Undresses. She continue the dance in a bathing suit. Running and throwing herself on the floor, pirouettes - and it's great. As good as a performance in a strip club in Las Vegas.
Because that is the question for you, and for all art. "Does it end up being just entertainment if I make art?" Magalí Camps shows us that challenge. To be myself, or to be entertainment for others.
Art is becoming human. To be seen as human. To find oneself. That's why I love Charlie Trier. He is a laban. Or she, what do I know, at least a mustache and very nice legs. Charlie opens your mouth and coaxes 'smørrebrød' number 3 into you. She has - she must be so, and Charlie must forgive me if he is she, or vice versa - she has a great show where she looks the audience in the eyes. And she says: 'I am real!'
This is the greatest art. There is no greater art! 'I exist!' - it is the highest expression of art.
What it is - this 'I am real' - it doesn't matter really. You can be a goldfish, a Shetland pony, a tablecloth from Bing & Grøndal, a jaguar, school teacher, night watchman, dancer, clown, businessman...
It doesn't matter what you are. But you exist! And that's important!
Thanks to Bora Bora for the experience. Thanks to Laban, Ottavia and Magalí. It was a good experience.
Gossip Body
Double You Single View
Surfacing Hypocrisy
Dans anmeldelse
Photo: Laura Ratschau★★★★★Review of 'The Girl With the Hurricane Brain', Teatret Svalegangen
Are you ready to die? With a drink in front of you?
14. august 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review: 'The Girl With the Hurricane Brain'. It's a 5 stars rating to the opera 'The Girl With the Hurricane Brain' at Teatret Svalegangen. Thanks for the costumes, music, singers, direction and story. I am impressed by the professional level of the performance by all 14 participants (including the conductor). It was even touching. It's painful to have a hurricane brain, we get that.
Don't read my review because I don't know nothing about opera. Can barely understand the words in an English pop song (the opera is in English). But on the other hand, I have seen John Wayne on German TV in the 5th grade, 2 years before we got a German teacher, so I understand everything without being able to understand the language. Thank you, ZDF.
The story - starring the soprano Peyee Chen, and I don't understand the words she sings - is about pain, fear, anxiety in the last 1 hour and 20 minutes of our voyage on the Titanic. Okay, I recognize "climate", "horse", and "changes". But it's not much out of a libretto of 34 pages.
Peyee Chen is in the role of the little girl who personally feels the iceberg approaching. She is unhappy. She howls and torments her parents. They don't understand her. Do their work. Grinds coffee from morning to night. And the kid howls and cries and shouts.
I feel for those parents - Ted Schmitz and Jessica Aszodi. If I stood on the deck of the Titanic in freezing weather, I didn't go into the howling choir either. As we crash into the side of the iceberg, I'd rather sit at the bar. Asks for a whiskey and smiles charmingly at the nearest woman.
This is how we are different. The end of the world cannot be stopped. The Incas went down. The Egyptians. The Greeks. The Indians. The Romans. Yes, even the Vikings had to give up.
All highly developed cultures end in collapse!
Is our culture highly developed? Yes, I think so. Our fate is sealed. Doom awaits!
The wise can predict the future. On stage, Joseph Bolger is smart. He looks at the patterns, he sees the development. He lets the girl know how bad it looks.
So the girl tries to convince the parents to stop their coffee grinder and do something! Just something! Stop death! Stop climate change! Stop grinding coffee! Don't buy more electric cars. Buy no more at Temu! Just stop!
But she has a hard time convincing the parents. 20% of us buy cheap junk on Temu.com - manufactured with devastating consequences for the environment. We get it shipped home on container ships from Maersk, with devastating consequences for the environment. We play with it and throw it out. Such is our life. Who wants to turn off the internet 9 months out of the year? Who will stop consuming, just to save our common Titanic?
And, it is not actually ordinary people who steer the ship. It's something... It's culture. All cultures bloom, bear fruit, and perish when winter comes.
Or what?
You can look forward to the costumes in 'The Girl With the Hurricane Brain'. The clothes are sewn from parchment - skin skinned from an animal approximately one meter long. Probably pigskin. The clothes are sewn nicely. That's what we're all about. Fashionable clothes on the Titanic.
Those who understand opera say the singers sing skillfully.
There is a 9-person symphony orchestra in the performance. 3 strings, 3 wind instruments, percussion, guitar and grand piano. The music is abstract - not melodic - symbolic.
Many young people go out of balance in this time. Like the girl in the play, they listen to the prophets who preach doomsday. There is much to be afraid of. Personally, it doesn't matter to me. We have to die of something. There is no telling which will come first.
Line 2A in a pedestrian crossing. New corona. Plague. Putin in Ecco shoes drops an atomic bomb in Aarhus Harbour. The Gulf Stream shifts and the climate in Denmark becomes cold like northern Finland, and I hate cross-country skiing. Someone continues to use 4 times our resources and our world is slowly and surely burning down.
It ends with us dying. That's what this opera says, and it's true. But until that happens, I'm happy to meet the little grandmother in Rema on the way home from the theater.
- There are 5 kroner missing, says the man behind the till in a sad voice.
The woman speaks Greenlandic, I can see that in her. Her eyes are strong and alive, her skin has had a lot of sun, on the edge of the inland ice.
- You can get a fiver from me, here!
The woman smiles wholehearted. - Thank you, that was a good deed, she tells me.
- You are welcome, I reply.
We smile at each other, late at night in Rema. Just like that, heart to heart. That's how I want to go down with my ship.
Thank you for the experience. It was good.
'The Girl With the Hurricane Brain'
Performance review
Photo: Louise Herrche Serrup★★★★Review of 'The Weather Report', Bora Bora in Aarhus
A shout out to all of us who love to save people - up from the bottom of the well
24. april 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'The Weather Report': I love to fly. But only if I'm the pilot. You know it. No one wants to be a passenger in a car driven by a manic satan trying to break all world records on the motorway between Aarhus and Copenhagen. We want to manage our lives. Crazy driving is not our preferred mode of transport. But sometimes we ourselves are him - the crazy, the maniac. Depressive, bipolar, manic, aggressive. 'The Weather Report' is about crazy people in life. Us who can't find the right path. Much of the time we are on the verge of entering the death spiral and crashing to earth.
The show begins with slow movements on the floor. Good music. Next follows a video projection that explains the turbulence we experience when we fly (or just go down to the grocery store and live our life). Then follows an insight into psychiatry. Electric shock and chemical straitjackets. Finally the death spiral. The plane - or the person - spiraling towards the ground because we can't follow the right path. We repeat our mistake. All the way down because we don't know any better.
That's the way it is. With everything from corruption, drunk driving, low self-esteem, bad morals, burglary and so on. We don't stop on our own, until the police grab us and drive us straight to prison, or to a mental institution.
Well. 'The Weather Report' is a well created performance with video, sound and music, stroboscopes and 3 performers. A 4 stars rating. It's good work.
But the audience in the theater at Bora Bora is divided into two camps, and that is a problem. I think. One camp cheers and screams for at least 7-8-9 stars. The other camp looks at the clock, 10 times an hour and seems confused. 2 stars? I doubt the other camp can get all the way up there. Maybe a single duty star?
This piece is made as a call. Like a scream in the dark that demands that the audience humble themselves, sit still, listen and accept the pain. It is problematic. I think. There is more to life than pain.
There is no better news than people falling into a well. Children, old wives and young girls. We love people who fall into the well.
- And who are rescued back up again!
I can hear the pain, the screams from the bottom of the death pit. The loneliness. The depression. The madness. The abuse of psychiatry. People's indifference. 'The Weather Report' depicts the pain of being crazy. My own mind is also quite crazy, but I always have a red Superman cape in my coat pocket. I think we should save each other when we hear the cry from the bottom of the well. On that point, 'The Weather Report' is a disappointment.
There is no rescue possible in 'The Weather Report'. The characters are gripped by despair, hopelessness, powerlessness. I understand them.
But I think next time - Jon R. Skulberg - you will do 'The Weather Report - 2'. Just for my sake, and for those in the room at Bora Bora who need solutions, ways out, hope and optimism. And if you need a red Superman cape, call me. I bought a pallet of them in China. They cost nothing. Being brave is the only thing in life that is free. It is the anxiety and doubt that costs us dearly. Braveness is always free.
Thank you for the show. It was good.
The Weather Report
Performance review
Photo: Rumle Skafte★★★★★Review of 'Desolate', Aarhus Teater
'Desolate' is a superb piece of theatre, stolen from dead men
12. april 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Desolate' ('Øde lagt' - 'Wüst'): You'll have 7 young and beautiful actors, an excellent German writer, Enis Maci. What can go wrong in 'Desolate' at Aarhus Teater? Nothing: 5 stars rating. The graduation performance from
Perhaps it is the translation by
- The restoration of my honor requires my total destruction.
- She speaks the language of power. Not her own language.
- Talk to us, instead of passing out all the time.
You can look forward to the text in 'Desolate'. I think. Furthermore, I am a great admirer of the direction, the stage, the costumes, lighting and sound. But you can see that for yourself.
It is so eloquent, this year's graduation performance - the stage, the sound, the lighting, the direction, the actors - that you could consider buying an author as well. A person who can write her own stories. But instead, someone chose a box of chocolates from the Otto Duborg district.
Enis Maci.
The German woman has nicked half of the play from Heinrich von Kleist. It's easy enough. The man has been dead in the coffin for 200 years. He shot himself because of low self-esteem and no money. In order to gain courage, he first shot his new girlfriend (who also wanted to die), and then he could 'desolate' himself. It was popular back then, when you were poor and an artist.
It was thought that the great destruction - death - would restore man's honor. It must be something German. I don't understand.
The second half of the play, Enis Maci has ripped from Russ Meyer. He is also dead, but in the 60s he was a celebrated film director. In his films, all the female actors had large breasts. The Vixen, they were called. The film was always set in a desert. There was something about big cars and murders.
Russ Meyer's stories never made any sense, but we didn't care back then. Too busy with those breasts, and you yourself are 15 years old. And 35. And 45. And so on, and the glasses keep sliding down the nose.
It's good theatre, 'Desolate'. In the old days. A young woman is rescued by an officer from a brutal gang rape. He chases the fleeing gang. Kisses the young girl who has passed out. Kisses some more. Pulls up her skirt. And now it's happening. Perhaps the most famous rape scene in literature, written by Heinrich von Kleist. Here you get the scene in an English version: "Then— the officer." And in the German version: "Hier – traf er."
The line of thought - can you see it - it is the sign of a rape? Most German intellectuals think so. I don't know. It was easier to understand the imagery in Russ Meyer's stories, I think.
After she has been raped, the story is exciting. I couldn't sit still. The young girl - 200 years ago - lives in a culture where you don't get pregnant before marriage. So she gets a little harsh treatment, I'm sorry for that, because she doesn't even know she's been inseminated. She was passed out while it happened. Now she is judged unfairly because she has become pregnant.
The story continues with an elegant jump, from Heinrich von Kleist's play 'Die Marquise von O's birth in 1808, across Denmark's bankruptcy, industrialization, the birth of communism, the world wars, the Beatles - right up to "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! ". The film by Russ Meyer from 1965. A film that takes place in a desert. All the women have big breasts, and so on. The film has been reviewed as "the world's worst film". That is, the lowest. Worst. But that is probably because the film reviewers then sat in the cinema hall and could not enjoy themselves with the essentials of the movie.
In the new era, with the violent Vixen women, it is the men who go on the defensive. The women have the power. A nice contrast to the old days.
Our female protagonist - now super pregnant - is fighting for her life. Restoring her honor, and clinging to her unborn child. Fighting is a better restoration of honor, I think. Kleist may disagree, in his cold and wet grave.
Over time, the victims change faces. But the bad people are the same. Namely, those who were harmed. And then they take revenge and kill people without really having any reason. No reason other than evil.
See it for yourself. Or no, together with other audience members at
Desolate by Enis Maci (Heinrich von Kleist, Russ Meyer)
Teater review
★★★★★Review of 'Liberty', Brilliant physical theatre
Liberty is a brilliant piece of physical theatre
6. februar 2024.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Liberty': Attitude. Kristján Ingimarsson has developed that ability to perfection. And because he is a lovely artist, I like it. He welcomes the crowd to Bora Bora like he's a rock star - high on MDMA, Viagra and the scent of himself. He gets us up and running on that attitude. The smell of success. The picture of a winner.
'Liberty' is physical theater with humour, lots of wild stunts. Beautifully choreographed and with added perfect sound effects by Andro Manzoni. The performers are resilient, elastic, humorous and precise. Some of them are younger than others:
'Liberty' is about the secret question that everyone has, at work, in the family, in private: 'What if I just stopped following all the silly rules!'
Yes, then we were probably all a rock star or one of the performers in 'Liberty'. Let go of the rules and take your freedom, that's the inner core of the show. One sparkling star for that.
In a series of scenes 'Liberty' explores the human being. We follow the rules. Not our own rules, but the rules set by the boss, society, religion, mating desire, tradition, good behavior.
There are some who make the rules. The rest of us are just weak, "filled with hot air" and cheap for sale. We are dandelions in a field that can't quite figure out how to put the bull in his place and ask him to stop eating us.
That's why Kristján Ingimarsson is making a revolution on stage. The dandelions - us fools, yes it's hard to say out loud - rise to battle. But can we win, or are we going crazy as humans, if we drop all the rules?
I think so. But crazy people can also be brilliant, so maybe it's worth taking the chance? 'Liberty' takes a chance and it's fun and entertaining.
The festive and fantastically entertaining performance uses the old trick of making the audience laugh when we are criticized. It works wonderfully. Kristján Ingimarsson says he is not an artist, but maybe funny once in a while. I disagree. He is both an artist of international class and funny. If you can stand being teased.
The audience at Bora Bora is excited. They love the show.
Personally, I admire that Kristján Ingimarsson on stage roughly only adheres to 2 rules.
Thanks to the team behind 'Liberty'. It was a very good experience. I think.
Liberty, Kristján Ingimarsson Company
Teater review
★★★★★Review of 'Enoch's Circus Show', in Aarhus
Circus with clowns and spirit
8. december 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of Enoch's Circus Show: The circus tent is hot. On both sides of the elongated riding arena it is packed with families and happy children. Circus artist Jimmy Enoch welcomes you to a one-hour Christmas circus in the middle of Aarhus. There is fast DJ music. There is spirit. Skilled artists. You and your children get a show of the highest class. It's a 5-star performance. As many stars as Cirkus Arena usually gets. But I think these stars have a slightly stronger glow. I can see them shining in the eyes of the teenagers and children. I can see them thinking: "wow, I'd like to be a circus artist."
I am quite happy to sit in the tent, where you are very close to the artists - as well as the happy vaulting gymnasts from Flying Superkids. The closeness you and your family have to the artists creates a good atmosphere. In a traditional circus, there is actually a long way down from the 7th row and up to the dome of the tent. Here you are so close that everyone in the tent can see everything. The seats are all sold as "loge" seats. Everyone can see.
The performance lasts one hour. It is better, I think, than the long performances with breaks in a traditional circus. That hour goes by quickly because there is so much spirit in the performance.
There is a lot to experience in Enoch's Circus Show, but I am particularly happy with the woman who does handstands, Sophie Alton. With her legs she shoots with a bow and arrow. Her body is made of marzipan, super flexible in all directions. A world-class artist.
The juggler, José Rameros is skilled. I can juggle 3 balls, but he continues all the way up to both 7-8-9 objects (or more, it's hard to count) which are juggled up to a height of 5-6 meters. He is a showman. Together with his partner, he also performs a roller skating number where they throw each other round and round on a small stage.
There are no wild animals, but the man with the dogs - Edi Laforte puts on a show where the fast dogs jump high and roll, fly through rings. It's simple fun and very well-functioning.
Fun and acrobatics. A tent (heated) on the square between the Cathedral and Aarhus Theatre. Good mood and inspiration for how children and adults can use their bodies far above computer games and swiping fingers on mobile phones.
It is a real circus, in a modern version. Thanks for the show. Read more at Du kan læse mere på Cirkusshow.dk
Show review
★★★★★Review of 'Axial Figures', Bora Bora in Aarhus
Strong and functional like the sisters Bauhaus and Ikea
20. november 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of Axial Figures: The 5 young women move in silhouette on the stage's orange backlight at Bora Bora in Aarhus. Each woman has a soft rope between her hands, attached to 5 black robots high up in the ceiling. The robots run on rails in a pentagram. It is tight, it is the very symbol of both man and the beauty of the golden ratio. It's the Bauhaus art school in overdrive, and an Ikea that is taking over the world chair by chair. 5 stars. I think it's a reasonably perfect performance, created by Simone Wierød.
Architecture firm Standard Practice has had a dancing foot involved in the design of the scenography in the dance piece. But maybe more than that. The long ropes intertwine and unfold with the dancers as residents of the lianas at a height of 5-6 metres. Not tangled like in the jungle, but perfect patterns like in architecture.
The performers climb the soft ropes, precise and perfect like the construction of an Audi or the letter 'A' in the Bauhaus font. It is 'Vorsprung durch Technik', it is beautiful and inspiring. All that we can do when we are skilled and strong - and perhaps interweave the ropes in such a way that it is easy for the individual to climb upwards in the community.
I'm quite fond of the performers in 'Axial Figures' who are all Swedish, Finnish and Estonian. Totally strong women who can lift themselves high up on the ropes and avoid falling down uncontrollably. The music is created by Mercy. Scenography by Hugh Diamond from the architecture firm Standard Practice.
Thank you for a 5-star experience. It was good.
Axial Figures, produced by Wired Studio (DK)
Dans review
Photo: Emilia Therese★★★★★Review: 'Julefeber', Aarhus Teater
Kids love 'Julefeber' at Aarhus Teater
8. november 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Christmas Fever' at Aarhus Teater: Listen, I step on the toes of this relatively small - but strong - boy, when we stand in line during the break at Aarhus Teater to buy a glass of wine. An accident, stepping backwards as one of the guides goes through the queue. It's not nicely done and it's almost Christmas. Bending down and praising the boy for being strong. He stands in stocking feet. They seem to be in pretty good shape, his toes.
- I weigh 100 kilos! You're a strong guy, I tell him.
Buys him a bag of matador mix. So are we friends again? His mother says,
- You really don't need that!
But the boy looks as if hypnotized at the candy bag I hand him. He doesn't protest. Children have a sense of quality.
This year's Christmas performance at Aarhus Teater is 'Julefeber' (Christmas Fever). A licensed story from DR. The dramaturgy is spiced up by
But then, Line Paulsen has jumped out as a director, I think - she has been responsible for several performances at Aarhus Teater since 2018, but 'Christmas fever' is on a higher level, I think. The actors in this play have more depth, they get further down into the chest, abdomen and feet. That's my conclusion, it's much better. Thanks for that.
Anne Plauborg is her charactersI have for a long time been a fan of
There were an incredible number of children at the evening's performance. They're laughing. They love it. Now, I'm quite an adult myself, but it's a fun show, thinks my inner child. About becoming yourself when you are a child and hair starts to grow out of your ears. Gray tufts of hair in the ears! And your grandmother says you are a Christmas elf and she wants to knit you a magical hat. That's what it's like to be those 9-10-12-13 year old.
The main characters Bjørn and Gro have a sweet father who cannot manage his money. So in the run-up to Christmas, the two teenagers move in and live in the attic of Aarhus Theater because the father has let a criminal take over their apartment, due to a debt of DKK 11,700.
And no, it's not always tragic to be homeless at Christmas, sometimes fate is actually a nice cousin. Bjørn meets a young ballet dancer and they fall in love. Gro grows hair out of her ears and is transformed into an elf at a slightly too young age. Ballet children from Aarhus dance around (and they are good at
The snow is falling from the ceiling in Aarhus Teater!
Do you think kids find it funny? Worth gold. I make eye contact with the little guy with the very large bag of matador mix. He nods. Children have a sense of quality.
Christmas fever by Rune Schjøtt-Wieth, Natasha Arthy, Mette Eike Neerlin
Contributors
Jannie Faurschou, Peter Høgsbro,
Ballet children
Staging
Scenography & costume design
Dramatization
Choreography Ida Frost
Musik Nanna Øland Fabricius, Jesper Mechlenburg
Lighting design
Sound design
Teater review
★★★★★Review: 'The Arctic Summit', Theater Svalegangen, Aarhus
Greenland has got its freedom!
22. oktober 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'The Arctic Summit': It's action. Excitement. Multiculture with several languages on stage. It's humor and it's serious. 4 older actors are on stage, plus the young
The play is refreshing in its story about Greenland's struggle for freedom. It's a 4 star play. But because I'm an old white Dane, I have to rate it for 5 stars and add an apology. Unfair, because the play is characterized more by a fiery fight for freedom than traditional dramaturgy, but Greenland has had too little for 200 years. This is what it is like, to be Denmark's Gaza Strip, Denmark's Crimean peninsula, Denmark's cotton plantation, Denmark's colony. You get too little, while Denmark's royal family smiles lovingly, and Danish companies earn billions from running the colony of Greenland. So it is fair with the 5 stars rating.
Kim Leine with high potencyKim Leine has written the piece. He is fond of facts, and this really hurts the whites in the audience, while the Inuits in Teatret Svalegangen laugh happily. I did not know that Denmark is a rogue state which in 1953 made Greenland a county (!) in order to circumvent the UN's demand to release the colonies. There is so much I don't know, so I feel safe in Kim Leine's universe.
Locked in a TV studioAviana Steinbacher has charisma, and her belly is packed with dynamite. It is so cosy in the TV studio. The American Ambassador. The Danish Prime Minister. Oligarch Maxim from Russia. Isak, the Greenlandic chairman of the relatively few local politicians. They don't respect her. In their eyes she is just a young Greenlandic woman, "you can take my suitcase and get me a cup of coffee!" But the young woman has other plans. The TV studio is locked off, the building has already been filled with dynamite. Now she wants Russia, the US and Denmark to agree to make Greenland free again.
They haven't been for hundreds of years. The Norwegians, the Swedes, the Vikings and the Danes have run around on 'the world's largest island' (You would never call Europe the world's largest island, would you?). Ran around and made Greenlandic women pregnant, so nobody in Greenland really knows how much Greenlandic blood they have in their veins. (This is also how it is to be Dane. 1800 years ago we chased the original Danes north of the Limfjord, where they still live, the Cimbri. The rest of us are an orgy of Swedes, Germans and Mongols. Such is the blood of a real Dane.)
Can you change my blood, can you electro-shock my inner Dane, can you give him a blue pill so he disappears?Not everything has to be about Aviana Steinbacher, but she delivers a captivating and sensitive portrait on stage of this dilemma: 'Who am I? I have both Greenlandic and Danish blood in my veins! It tingles under my skin. Burns in me. I want to throw my Danish blood away'.
You can't do that, but with a little luck you can throw the Danish colonial masters into Nuuk's harbour. Or make them slaves on one of the shrimp boats from Royal Greenland which help raise money for the island. Maybe hire the Danes as school teachers, doctors at the hospital, police officers and home security personnel?
It's a complicated relationshipThe forced marriage between Denmark and Greenland is cracking at the seams. The young will be free. There are so few people in Greenland that they are fewer than the original inhabitants of Kuwait. Maybe they can become just as rich if they are ready to risk the pure nature with uranium mines and oil drilling?
It is complicated. The young say, "no, it's easy! We will be free." On stage, Greenland will be free again. The play 'The Arctic Summit' is thus inspiring for the freedom struggle in Greenland. It has not been seen before (I think), and in that way Greenland is already free again after the premiere at Teatret Svalegangen. Fight for freedom unfolds through art.
Thank you for that experience.
The Arctic Summit by
Direction
Starring
Scenography Signe Krog
Sound design Hans-Ole Amossen, Tuomas Rounakari
Lighting design Morten Ladefoged
Video design Michael Lindskov Jacobsen
Costume Design Marianne Meyer
Produced by Teater FreezeProductions.
Teater review
'The Arctic Summit' at Teatret Svalegangen
They play chess over Greenland
17. oktober 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
In 'The Arctic Summit', the great powers play chess over Greenland's future. The story is written by
What do you think, Aviana Steinbacher. Should Trump buy Greenland? Or should we keep it? Or should you have it yourself?
- I think we should have it ourselves, answers Aviana. She plays the young rebellious person who live, think and feel as a Greenlander.
Klaus Geisler plays a middle-aged man who is more conservative and avoids conflict.
Geisler, are there most conservative or rebellious people in Greenland?
- The more rebellious people, they gain more and more tracktion. More and more of those who want independence here and now.
You sometimes hear, that it is the younger people who are the most rebellious. Is that so?
- My parents' generation, they were very rebellious too. And then there are us at my age, we wre something in between. Then it subsided. And then came the generation that is here today, who are really trying to make a rebellion for us to be independent. Everything must be Greenlandic - in a somewhat harsh way, says Klaus Geisler.
The role you play, what do you think of her?
- She has an attitude that she stands by, says Aviana Steinbacher.
- She has grown tired of no one doing anything. So she feels she has had to take responsibility. It is very much about Greenland's independence. So she is just someone who fights for her people. At least she thinks so herself.
The play 'Det Arktiske Topmøde' has premiere in Aarhus at the Teatret Svalegangen.
The Arctic Summit by Kim Leine
Direction Hanne Trap Friis.
Contributors Klaus Geisler, Helene Kvint , Aviana Steinbacher, Mette Kolding, Mikhail Belinson.
Produced by Teater FreezeProductions.
Teater review
New commercial manager at Bora Bora in Aarhus
It's not me you'll ask about the artistic perspectives
5. oktober 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
The city's international dance scene, Bora Bora, continues its significant development at the office. Now a new position has been created, and a commercial manager is being brought into the house.
Karin Buhl Slæggerup, what do you have to do as commercial manager?
- I am employed to look at sales development. Where can Bora Bora make more money? Because, if we have more money, we can do more performances and more expensive productions. Which will then lead to more guests and a larger audience, says Karin Buhl Slæggerup from Bora Bora.
How do you make your art more commercial?
- By setting some goals. Measurable goals. We look into our user groups, the existing ones and the potential ones. Where are we now? And where do we want to go?
Do you have to be artistic inside your head to be the commercial manager of an artistic stage?
- No, quite the opposite. I think Bora Bora hired me because it's important that I don't look like them. I have to be the one who can ask the stupid questions. I wonder questions.
- I am not the one to ask about the artistic perspectives. I can relate to what I experience and see, like everyone else. But it is not me who curates and knits it together.
- My task is to see the commercial opportunities. For example, the many foreign guests who come to Aarhus. Dance can do a lot, you don't have to translate it. So we can look at how we can tell the Schmidt family from Hamburg that here in Aarhus there is a fine dance stage. I find that exciting, says Karin.
Bora Bora's new commercial manager, Karin Buhl Slæggerup, will start work in November. She is part of Bora Bora's new strategy, which the Bikubenfonden and the Nordic Culture Foundation provide financial support for.
Dans review
Josephine Baker★★★★★★'Oh, Josephine', at Teatret Svalegangen in Aarhus
The devil's cloak is a free spirit, isn't it?
26. september 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Oh, Josephine': The first casualty of any war is the free arts. That is the theme of 'Oh, Josephine', a fantastic 6-stars performance written by
On the outer level, the story is about 'Oh, Josephine'. A charismatic woman 100 years ago. She was beautiful. She knew that men want bare breasts and bananas. She made her money dancing and making movies, mainly wearing that costume.
Of course, Josephine Baker had a miserable childhood, and an early sexual debut. At that time in the 1920s, who else would be running around in a banana skirt? But Thomas Markmann wants much more than to talk about sex and social inheritance. The performance is about politics, power and rebellion. And sex. A perfect combination ever since Shakespeare.
The magical woman who was black and nakedJosephine Baker was not only an attractive woman, she was also a rebellious woman who is an inspiration to you today. Every rebellion starts somewhere in your sexuality, but doesn't end until people stop looking at breasts and instead look at how the more powerful people oppress the more powerless people.
During Josephine's time - the roaring twenties - there was freedom throughout the western world. It was only a moment before the Hays Code in 1930 removed Hollywood's artistic freedom and paved the way for him the little German, him with the very great need to 'protect' Austria, Poland, Denmark and so on.
Before closing time, Josephine Baker comes to Adlon in Copenhagen, 1928, to dance naked with bananas around her waist. This is the basic scene of the play. A Danish nightclub.
Super work from the actorsMalou Takibo plays Josephine Baker. A woman with guts, and she sings fantastically. The performance has music by Marie Louise von Bülow. Melodic and swinging, love it. Rolf Hansen does a great job as the nightclub's emcee, great character work. You will also love Hans Find Møller. He can be Leo Mathiesen right down to the tip of the cigar while playing with his piano. Luise Kirsten Skov is steadfast in the many roles she has in the play.
The scenography is by Nikolaj Heiselberg Trap. The audience sits on both sides of a long structure that looks like a nightclub 100 years ago, and it is a fine stage for a host of historical figures.
Only the dead deserve a street sign with their name onDead artists increase in value. That's the way it is. Only the past can tell the truth. That's how it is, and it's the freedom of the show to say something significant about today's people in power. You'll meet Leo Mathiesen. PH. Lulu Ziegler. Gerda Wegener. Agnes Henningsen. Powerful Danish artists who could not artistically survive when the first shots were fired in World War II.
Only Josephine Baker survived as an artist. She had become a French citizen, and she was a woman of resistance during times of war. She set up an orphanage and became very rich. Her money bought a lot of children out of poverty, and she never really understood the basic principles of upbringing. Love had not yet been invented in her childhood home, but sex and violence against women and ethnic minorities had.
You will love the music, the story and the actingIt is rare to see a Danish theater performance with good music on a high artistic level. It is rare to see a truly good story in a Danish play. Both at the same time, with humor and high acting, that's rarer than rare. Don't know what it's called in English?
There are 5 stars for scenography, music, the actors, direction and topicality (despite the fact that the story takes place 100 years ago). The 6th star is for daring to criticize the current coalition government. Last time the 'protective' forces were named Germany. Today, no one knows who 'looks after us'. But we know that we have a coalition government, we know that there is a waiting period of up to 12 years to get free treatment at the hospital. As Thomas Markmann puts it in the play: 'We know we live in a time when welfare for the majority is exchanged for prosperity for the few'.
That's rude, Thomas. Hope you have a good pension scheme. I'm not sure that remark will trigger a lifetime of art support for you. But then you have to live with the fact that the audience loves your art. Teatret Svalegangen is completely sold out in the coming days.
Oh, Josephine, by
Cast Rolf Hansen, Louise Kirsten Skov, Marie Louise von Bülow, Hans Find Møller, Malou Takibo
Direction
Scenography Nikolaj Heiselberg Trap
Composer Marie Louise von Bülow
Lighting Design Flora Pelle Brandt
Choreography Gunilla Lind
Creative Producer Christine Worre Kann
Produced by Teatergrad.
Teater review
Theater director: We are very proud!
A new beginning is always a good one
26. september 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
The Danish theater Katapult will live 4 more years. The city council of Aarhus has decided that. The theater had been pushed out of the municipality's cultural budget, thrown into the sea and left to its own fate. The employees at the theater had to realize that it was curtain fall after more than 20 years. This autumn's own production has been shut down. Discouragement and sadness were on queue.
But then Katapult had success in Scotland with the performance 'The Insider' at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A performance originally developed and performed in Aarhus with the title 'Insideren'. Katapult won one of the world's most prestigious theater awards at the world's largest festival for the performing arts, and it resonated in the city of Aarhus.
Was that why, Torben? Have you survived because of the international recognition?
- I don't know, but our success - which was mentioned in both The New York Times and the Financial Times - may have pushed us on, so it's nice, says theater manager Torben Dahl from Katapult.
The Conservative Party have promoted your case in the city council. Why?
- Well, I really just think that the conservatives are also in favor of culture and cultivation. We are grateful for that. They have fought fiercely for us, says Torben Dahl.
What is it with you and the conservatives? Do you have the same political views?
- I hope not, Torben says with a warm tone in his voice. - After all, we are not party political, we are a theater that creates culture, where you illuminate the world from several angles. But then again, we do collaborate with the business world in Aarhus, we do, and that may also be a part of the fact that people from the political side have gotten to know us better.
How has it been for you? To go to work every day for 6 months and know that you have to dismiss the employees and close the theater?
- Not just half a year... 11 months it has lasted. It has been hard. We have had to cancel the performance 'Madonna is an old whore', or slash postpone it until later. It should have premiered in October, but at the end there was not enough resources on the human level nor financial resources, says Torben Dahl.
- It has been hard. After all, employees have been sitting with notices of layoffs, and... I have to say, it might be a sparse program, the first half of 2024. We just have to find ourselves and get started again, he says.
So all in all, how is it for you now?
- Well, we are just so damn proud that we have come back on the municipality's budget. It happens only rarely. We had been ripped off from the budget and now we are back. We are proud of that, says Torben Dahl, from Teater Katapult.
Instead of 1.5 million DKK in grants annually, theater Katapult will receive a total of just under DKK 5 million over the next 4 years. A smaller grant than usual, but much more than nothing - as had otherwise been decided.
Aarhus municipality will finance the subsidy for Teater Katapult by small reductions elsewhere in the support of the city's cultural life.
A sensible decision for theater life in Aarhus and in Denmark as such. Katapult has been pulled up from the sea and now sits more safely together with the other performing artists in Aarhus.
Teater review
Photo: Emilie Therese★★★★★Review: 'Stamina', by Don Gnu at Bora Bora in Aarhus
Life is a good laugh and some stunts
30. august 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review af 'Stamina': What is life? All work and no fun? It might be, but not according to 'Stamina', the five-star action and dance performance from Don Gnu youth department, The Ung Gnu. Life is a good laugh, two people in love and some incredible stunts. We all laughed in sheer relief. We the audience, we who see so much and maybe laugh too seldom.
There is no real fourth wall in 'Stamina'Kasper Buus knows how to tickle his audience, when he welcomes us with a vacuum cleaner in hand. Dressed in fur and youthful sweat pants, he and Astrid Pauline Schmidt immediately bonds with the rain-wrapped people gathering in Bora Bora, Dance and Visual Theatre, in Aarhus. The two of them never roll up the window in order to keep a distance to our rain wet hair and climate dampened shooes. They both have twinkles in their eyes and heads up, the Don Gnu dancers have arrived for a reason: Let's celebrate life all together.
Don't be sad, let's have some funIn a world of modestly depressing news, being it the wars to come or the rain to wash us all up on the climatical beach, it is rather refreshing to experience Don Gnu's 'Stamina' performance.
Two people - a man and a woman of unknown provenance - are meeting each other. They find love. Love is a balloon with helium and a long string attached. Somehow they let go of it, so it flew up under the roof. It's so high hanging, their fruit of true love, that they cannot get hold of it again.
How many ways is it possible to have bodily intimacy?Ever had sex with multiple positions, like kamasutra? Forget about it. In 'Stamina' the two performers are breaking every record when it comes to positions. They clash every unbelivable part of their feet, knees, cheeks, backs, thighs to meet each other intimately.
After sex they lose contact. They quarrel. Fight each other in a way I never saw before on a dance floor. It's like every action movie ever made, be it Asian style or Hollywood, was really just an exploration of stunts needed in Don Gnu's 'Stamina'. It's so beautiful. The stunts we do in a fight look exactly like our stunts when we express love. I think.
How to fetch that first love and reconnect again?'Stamina' is a performance with great acrobatics, slapstick, gags, stunts, dance, and our longing for true love. The two performers will succeed in getting the helium balloon down to earth, but we shall not spoil how.
You wonder now - looking at your partner sleeping in the moonlight - accompanied by the sound of seconds ticking away in the bedroom alarm clock - how to fetch that first love once again? How to refind the spark of life?
Go and look. 'Stamina' just might tell you. Enjoy.
Stamina, by
Performance and choreographic material: Astrid Pauline Schmidt & Kasper Buus
Direction & choreography:
Artistic sparring:
Assistant choreographer and rehearsal director: Jeppe Kaas Vad
Sound design: Markus Artved
Producer team: Kathrine Kihm & Malene Cathrine Pedersen
Co-produced by: Aveny-T &
Supported by: Aarhus Municipality & Statens Kunstfond
Photographer: Emilie Theresa and Mikkel Suppras.
Dans review
★★★★★review: 'Cirkus Arena 2023'
Circus Arena has world-class body art
22. april 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of Cirkus Arena, 2023: It's a world-class circus, 5 stars. Michael Ferreri juggles 10 balls. Leo Costache holds his Vita Costache (and her motorcycle) in his teeth, while the circus people pull the couple higher and higher. 6 meters above the arena's sawdust floor only supported by the teeth of Leo. David Hammarberg climbs curtains up to 8 meters high, and lets himself roll down like a curler, stopping just before he hits the floor. The boys from Los Ortiz risk their lives in the wheel of death. At a height of 10 meters, they jump up from the wheel of death, do a somersault, and are skilled enought to come back down alive.
World class body actIt is the first season after the global cold and the elephants at Cirkus Arena: Lara, Djungla and Jenny they traveled to Knuthenborg Safariparki to retire. Cirkus Arena focuses more on the artists, e.g. Steven Ferreri dancing on a tightrope, as easily as when the rest of us walk on the ridge of a roof. If we are chimney sweepers.
I am fascinated by people who have the ability and will to control their balance on a sublime level that I myself have never been close to. It is fundamentally beautiful to see people using the body's art of movement on a high level.
But I don't think that's enough. Circus Arena is running on the last fumes, the cash register has been periodically quiet for some time, and the cirkus have lost their original attraction: The wild animals and the ladies with beards.
Can the circus find new ways?It's amazing how talented the artists are in this year's show in Cirkus Arena. Over the past 50 years, all the exotic animals in the circus have become plank steak in Denmark. The lions. The seals. The elephants. The dromedaries. They drew the audience into the tent, they were spectacular, fantastic. The wild animals sold tickets, it's over. Even further back, it was the bearded lady and the Siamese twins that people came to see.
Today, Cirkus Arena has raw manpower with great artistic competence that creates world-class body art. The circus has the children's clown Jimmy Folco, who has some of the nicest and most human-friendly body language - both children and adults understand him immediately. But it's not enough, and a former TV host from the 90s who runs around missing his bathtub doesn't make matters any better.
Highlights of this year's show
David Hammarberg from Sweden does elegant and poetic aerial acrobatics. Julie Berthelsen sings while he climbs high up, stands in split at a height of 8 meters, and curls back down. He has just been on Sweden got talent.
Jimmy Folco is a clown with a long Italian history in the profession. His father was a clown. His grandfather was a clown, etc. Good, skilled clowns. Folco has great body language and he's funny - even if he longs for the old days when the artist family traveled together and lived together. He misses the wild animals, he says, and the sound of 3,000 children laughing. At the premiere in Aarhus, there were maybe a few hundred people in the tent, maybe 50 children. There will be more in the coming days, I guess, where the time of the performances are more family-friendly than Friday at 17. But there is a long way up to those 3,000 children.
Los Ortiz - the wheel of death is a scary act. There are no safety lines, safety nets or airbags on the floor. If the boy from Colombia falls down, as has previously happened with the wheel of death in Cirkus Arena, he is going to get hurt badly. But it's a nice act where the circus artist plays with centrifugal force and gravity. Great, but can it continue in a reality where the Danish Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires 5 wheels on your desk chair so that you don't fall over and hit yourself? Don't think so.
Los Ortiz - 7 person balance on the line - whoa, then the airbag came on the floor. Nice, but circus also loses some of its attraction when the artists neither risk being bitten by a lion nor breaking their bones like Tetiana Korenieva in Cirkus Arena 2018. Great act otherwise. Six men balance on a steel wire with a woman at the top of the human pyramid. And she was secured with a fall line too, thank you for that. I have such bad nerves, I like airbags and fall lines.
Steven Ferreri on a tight line. He dances. He does somersaults. He exudes so much masculine power through his feminine movements. Very beautiful.
Duo Costache has strong teeth. Strong neck muscles and back. Strong wills. They lift each other up in a way that the Danish Labor Inspection Authority simply cannot imagine. But the Costaches also have a graphic poetry. They are both strong and impress with their choreography.
Dear Berdino, bathtubs are out of fashion, you should find something new, I thinkThank you for a great experience, I love your circus. May I suggest for 2024: Let go the bathtub pilot and replace him with nouveau cirque and with sports circus as a supplement to the high-flying artists. And stick with Folco if he wants to continue. I am happy for the clown, he gives heart to your circus.
Performance review
★★★★★Review: 'The Bench', performed by Teater Refleksion
The bench of magical moments
20. marts 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'The Bench': Danish puppetry in world class, that's 'The Bench' - the new performance from Teater Reflektion in Aarhus, Denmark. It is an aesthetic and poetic - it is a comical and loving - performance. And it is a major export product. Reflektion's puppet theater is performed between 70 and 100 times a year worldwide. Well done.
There is 5 stars to 'The Bench' for being fun and human-loving. The puppet theater is about being human, and at the beginning of life that happens to us as a child. You are not very tall, and you are constantly experiencing joys and sorrows, things you can do and also sometimes getting into conflicts with others. As children we learn to be social, but only after we have thrown sand at each other's heads or taken each other's toys.
'The Bench' is about learning to be humanThere is a bench in a park. A dog comes sniffing. It rummages through an overturned trash can and pees on it. The audience laughs because it moves its head and body so lifelike. A lovely thief, that dog is, overwhelming happy to all people it bumps into.
The body language of the puppets is impressive, thanks to the design and the puppeteers. There are no spoken words in the play, but you can see what the characters are thinking and feeling when they wave something away with the gesture of a hand or sadly bend down and look under a bench. There are birds around the bench. A grandmother with knitting and an old man with a newspaper. A young boy with a skateboard. There is life around that bench, and everyone wants to sit on that bench.
And that's how it is to be human. One of the first things we learn is to occypy the necessary space around us and take a seat.
- I was here first!
- It's my bench!
And the next thing we learn:
- It's my toy!
- It's mine!
The third thing we learn is to become good friends, so there is room for everyone. 'The Bench' tells the story of becoming social through developing compassion, - and that it's okay to tease each other.
A good laugh for you as an adult tooThe story was written by
- Hey, this is my parking spot!
- Stop, it's my bike!
What we learned as children is still valid as an adult.
Many thanks to Teater Refleksion for the experience.
The bench
Cast Rebekah Caputo, Neasa Ní Chuanaigh
Manuscript Sven Ørnø
Instruction Bjarne Sandborg
Music/sound design Andreas Sandborg, Jacob Venndt
Lighting design Morten Ladefoged
Scenography/puppets Amanda Axelsen Sigaard
Workshop/technique Morten Meilvang Laursen, William Højberg Nielsen.
Teater review
★★★★★Review: 'Your story is mine too' / Oqaluttuaatigut
We thought they would like to be Danish
3. marts 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review: Your story is also mine / Oqaluttuaatigut. Shame and guilt, that's what I feel watching the play on a Friday night in Aarhus, but in the row behind me a group of Greenlanders laugh liberated. Yes, 'Your story is also mine' is a good play with humor and compassion. Maybe I take it too seriously, the shame that we Danes are among the most racist people on planet Earth, and we have been that for a long time. 300 years ago we sent the violent priest, Hans Egede, to Greenland and made the Inuit Danish. We thought. Today, young Greenlanders throw red paint on the statue of the priest, and Greenland's angry rapper, Josef Tarrak, is trying to raise awareness about the reality in Greenland. (On the theater stage in Aarhus, he is not that angry, in fact very pleasant.) Josef Tarrak and Else Danielsen - he is young, she is old - are telling the story on stage in Teaterhuset Filuren. It works really well. The scenography is as simple as the facade of Brugseni Paamiut. But it works, effectively. The two actors share stories from Greenland. He is the young and rebellious, the disaffected man who wants the Internet and a girlfriend. She is the old and abused woman who seeks peace and forgiveness. You are the Dane who must survive having the inflamed wound torn open. A syphilis wound created by the royal house and the church. Why do we need to hear about it? I can hardly stand it! On one side are the old Greenlanders who were brought up to be obedient to the Danes. The people who were forcibly removed and forcibly treated to not having children. The old who were sexually abused. They lost their culture and were crammed into ghettos. On the other side are the young Greenlanders. They speak Danish, they have knowledge of freedom and oppression, they are taller and stronger. They want better and cheaper internet. They speak Greenlandic, they riot. They sing rap (listen to Tarrak here on youtube). On both sides of the divide are people who have something in common, and that's the fine thing about the show. We can recognize each other across the generations. Greenland is Denmark's oppressed Indian, and if we had decency, we would end it now. But we don't, we stick to their land. The UN determined the other day that Denmark still - 2023 - exposes Greenlanders to structural racism. It's bad of us. Life in Greenland is hard and unpleasant for many people, thanks to Denmark. Greenland has a world record for suicides. 80 out of 100,000. Number 2 is Lesotho in Africa with 70. In Denmark the suicide rate is 7, and we think that is a problem. There is something wrong with Danish colonialism. We are racists, and it's hard to realize on a random Friday in Aarhus. Thanks to Teater Freeze Productions for giving space to the voice of the oppressed that speaks to us. 'Your story is also mine' is a super interesting performance about finding out who you are? Across generations and across cultures. Relevant and authentic story from Greenland. Your story is also mine / Oqaluttuaatigut
Actors & Singers Josef Tarrak & Else Danielsen
Director Hanne Trap Friis
Lighting design Naleraq Eugenius
Sound design Hans-Ole Amossen
Rap lyrics Josef Tarrak
Scenography Paarma Brandt
Production Theater Freeze Productions & Naleraq Lights
Teater review
★★★★★Review: 'Resonance', at Bora Bora in Aarhus
An AIG fruit basket of a huge distance between us
28. februar 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review: 'Genlyd' ('Resonance') at BoraBora in Aarhus. The show is a 5 star performance with a different experience. Because, everything has been said before. You know. All wisdom, all love. Life itself is only an echo. A sound that echoes through the mind, over and over. The sound of how to live! The norms surrounds you like a gang of miserable people. The norms say you must be normal! But who is that? The performers on stage are not, to say the least.
The music dances tango with Petter and AnnikaI love 'Genlyd'/'Resonance'. Maybe a little too much? Maybe I empathize a little too deeply, so we'll take a step back and show you the scene. The technique is present in big scale. AIG burns out a lot of electricity.
In the background, Mika Forsling stands at his music desk. He loves to perform with a mix of techno, trance and lounge. Or in Mika's own words: "Music in between lush landscapes, cinematic harmonies and rhythmic structures." (MikaForsling.com). His music encloses the show. It's a friend who dances tango with the two performers: Anika Barkan and Petter Wadsten, (they don't follow the norms).
Anika is a little too tall and a little on the lush side. Therefore, she finds it difficult to date Petter. She says, she is a small feather and 52-54 kilos light (perfect). Petter is a little too short and thin. Therefore, he answers over the phone that he is a wellbuilt fireman, 1 meter and 90 tall, (perfect).
'Genlyd'/'Resonance' is about this problem. We lie to ourselves and to each other because (according to the norms) we are not perfect. We have filters on our selfies. We have filters on our facephone, so that we get smoother skin and better-looking hair, and fuller lips and wider cheekbones. It's crazy, but it's the reality of the norms.
There is no room for me or you! Everyone is trying to look like something else. We cannot afford to be. Nobody likes us if we are just ourselves. Or what?
There are a thousand miles between you and meA good portion of the show explores the AIG's possibilities live on stage, where the performers' conversations on the phones are magnified on large screens. It's fascinating for an old fart like me. It's amazing how much you can change your face! You can become a fairy-tale horse, a tiny human baby of 8 months, an old man of 104, a clumsy dummy with messy hair - or a child who looks at the world and asks: "What's the point of all this! What is life about, how do I become myself?”
100 years ago, Nokia said: "Connecting People". But today? The show 'Genlyd'/'Resonance' focuses sharply on the great distance that is pushed in between us when we communicate online with all the AIG filters engaged. The distance between us is getting wider and wider, thanks to the technical development. We show versions of ourselves, but none of us dares to just be ourselves. The norms forbid it. Because the norms are perfect. The normes are a feminist, loves animals, always holds onto the handlebars of the bike, loves excel sheets, checks her bank account 3 times a day. The norms are the perfect person that you will never be. (I hope).
Great performance. Thanks to director Cille Lansade and MØR Collective at Bora Bora in Aarhus.
Genlyd / Resonance
Production MØR collective
Director Cille Lansade
Performing artists Anika Barkan og Petter Wadsten
Music Mika Forsling
Lights Clementine AM Waldelius
Costumes Camilla Lind
Performance review
★★★★Review: 'Every Body Electric', Doris Uhlich at Bora Bora in Denmark
We all love our extensions, I think
28. januar 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'Every Body Electric', dance performance by Doris Uhlich. So we had to take the long walk, outside in the freezing january frosty night. Because many buildings are not made for people in wheelchairs. But on this night, the building has lost its resistance to a woman from Vienna, Doris Uhlich. She is in town with the dance performance 'Every Body Electric'.
The performance is about our handicaps, including people in wheelchairs. In fact the two performers this night, Adil Embaby and Vera Rosner-Nógel, are both using wheelchairs to swiftly get around. Even some in the audience are using the bodily extension named 'wheelchair'. So we go outside and walk the long road on the freezing interimistic wheelchair ramp into the huge dance hall of Bora Bora.
I want that wheelchairI really like the dance performance, and I hate to admit, I'm in love with the Sopur Wheelchairs that the dancers use. Wow. If I lost my legs, I would go for that. 3.300 Euros, it's a bargain. I mean, look at the quality. The chair is easy to stow in a car, the wheels snap-off real easy. And the ball bearings! Don't get me started, the wheels just spin and spin. It's a beautiful machine, the wheelchairs from Sopur, Sunrise Medical.
And we all got that. A handicap and some bodily extensions. The wheelchairs on stage are extensions just like my 3 Euro glasses from Normal, and my old car from Renault, my brand new phone from Apple. All humans have extensions in order to live more comfortably, and we like our extensions. Make us feel proud and able to live a better life.
I want that body rhythmThe performance explores our relationship to the extensions. Sometimes we identify ourselves with the extension. "Hi, I am mr. BMW, nice to meet you!" Or "Hi, I just bought this latest model from Sopur! And how are you?" I love this exploration in 'Every Body Electric'. In one scene Adil hangs his extension in the ceiling. It hangs there like a dead horse. He don't need no fucking wheelchair from Sopur. This is true. Adil has so strong muscles when he dances, he can in fact levitate just in the pure energy from his movements. His body rhytm is like techno. Completely repetitive muscles and the bright mind, clear as the sunny day.
But then Vera lost one wheel and lay naked on the ground. Vulnerable. In comes the hero, Adil, and fixes her wheelchair.
We need those extensions. It's okay, don't worry. But the dance performance has a higher level.
I want that life energyThe movements in the performance. The nakedness. The exploration of our selves and our extensions. I think this show is for everyone to see and to explore. What is life energy? We know, that life energy is the only thing worthy of our attention. And we know, that every time we loose our attention, we loose life energy.
We should be present to be alive. Adil Embaby and Vera Rosner-Nógel are just that. Present. Rhytmic. Dancing. I liked the performance very much, and after the show the choreographer, Doris Uhlich said in an artist talk with Cath Borch Jensen on the stage:
"I am a political woman, but this is art happening." I like her view. Politics are spoken words, art is really happening. Thanks for the experience, brougt to Aarhus by 'Det Frie Felts Festival".
Every Body Electric
Choreography Doris Uhlich
Dramaturgy Elisabeth Schack
Performers Adil Embaby, and Vera Rosner-Nógel
Light, space Gerald Pappenberger
DJ Boris Kopeinig
Costume Zarah Brandl
Feedback Yoshie Maruoka, Theresa Rauter
Production Margot Wehinger
Photo Theresa Rauter
International Distribution Something Great.
Dans review
Ableism is an invalid basket for no one to stay in
Unapologetic bodies on stage and off stage
27. januar 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
You think it can be sometimes difficult to be special in a normal society which is hyper regulated by architects, politicians, lawyers, teachers, and the people. For example, if I have that bodily extension called an electric wheelchair, I might enjoy the pace riding down the pedestrian street here in Aarhus, but eventually, traditions and ableism will throw a wrench into my machinery.
The ability to see the abilitiesDenmark, being the Europe first nation to establish formal laws for racial purity in 1929, still has got a problem in seeing behind the wheelchair and just connect to the person driving it. Mostly, we focus on the disabilities and don't notice much of the abilities. Something about our mood, I think - too much dusky rain and darkness - and almost 100 years after 1929, our country is still governed by those same parties giving Hitler the inspiration to the atrocities coming from putting people into baskets of being able or being invalid.
It might be true that Hitler lost his battle for purity, but being unwanted in Danish schools, museums, buses, airplanes, or buildings of any kind, that basket did actually survive and is praised today in an almost religious chant:
"Oh poor guy, I feel so much with him, I am so sorry, so hard is his life! Poor guy, why don't he just kill himself, oh poor guy, it were better he was never born."
I'm at the ableism-seminar in Godsbanen, Aarhus. "Unapologetic bodies on stage", created by The Performing Arts Platform in Aarhus, and the Det Frie Felts Festival, Copenhagen. 100 people, or so, are listening and sharing inspirational thoughts about ableism and disableism. The first being: "I prefer blonds, sorry", and the second being "Red-haired people has no access, sorry".
A woman from Austria is on stage. Doris Uhlich. I forget the color of her hair, but she is relaxed and joyful when talking about ableism, and the way she lives with creating both terapeutic and inspirationel performances. One of the performances, you can witness on Bora Bora here in Aarhus - check it out, it has bodily extentions and shameless nudity, like you never seen before. Hopefully.
"I like to be naked," she says. "In fact I want to be buried naked. If that's even allowed," she asks. The audience listens. "I like the naked space, and I always try to motivate people to be naked. But first, I wanted to be a dancer. When I was 11, I said to my piano teacher, 'I want to become a dancer.' She laughed. 'You are too thick!' Then I went for it, for many years, and finally got to an audition in Vienna as a young woman. They wouldn't let me in. 'You are too corpulent to be a dancer,' they said. Then I lost 20 kilos, went for another audition, I got admitted to the school, and took all those kilos back."
Doris Uhlich smiles and the audience laughs. Apparently, there are ways to get around ableism. I like that.
The power of moving your body"One of the reasons to be naked, is the power there is in undressing. All people came into this world from a womb, naked. That is the sacred space we all share," she says. "Nakedness."
She puts on a video of an artistic performance with houndreds of people being naked or dressed. Dancing like babies, wobling, up and down. Moving the body in repeat. Like trembling, shaking, experiencing the muscles and the gravity and the coastal line between them, the space of movement.
"When you move and you are happy, it gives you energy," Doris says. I believe her, she seems unstoppable.
Victor Vejle, Artist. Photo: Happy Ambiorn.com
The art of ableism
Another artist at the seminar, is Victor Vejle. He says that other countries, like England, are years ahead of us, when it comes to having cities and schools and minds that are open for people who want to get out of the old invalid basket. He is attending the very fine art school in Copenhagen, and one day he noticed: 'Hey, there is a wheelchair ramp in the school yard. It was delivered months ago by the freight man, but nobody has cared to assemble it, so it can be used...'
Victor was puzzled. Why would the school invest in the ramp, but not finding any motivation to use it, so that the bodily extended would be able to be part of the school's education. In fact he was so puzzled, that he chose to use the ramp as an art project in the school. He wrote a letter to the school administration and asked, if he could borrow the pallet of unassembled metal parts.
"I promise to put it back in the school yard, after my art project has been evaluated. I won't even assemble it, I promise."
The school didn't answer his request, and it was too heavy to carry inside the building single-handedly. So, Victor Vejle took pictures and made an art installation of that: 'The wheelchair ramp in the school yard.' A symbol of the structural ableism in our Danish educational system.
Or what do you think?Till now, I've only met one man who had to climb the stairs at our workplace, after he lost his legs in a dispute with a combine harvester and he was just a small boy. The machine won, as we can all imagine. Stairs and no legs, he had to climb every morning and on every break. How is it in your experience? Did we ever abolish that invalid bag, or did we just stuff it under the bed. Do we pretend to being able to see the abilities, or are we in fact able to connect, move our body and just enjoy living with bodily extentions and fairytale rare additions under the skin, and what not.
And then we had coffee, - or I didn'tTime for a short coffee break, but I could not consume one single drop more than I already had been given. Thereby missing the words from Cath Borch Jensen, performer, after the break.
Instead I hurried home and changed my life. Kissed my woman and let go of my shoulders. Have a nice one.
Kultur review
★★★★Review 'True Story', Det Frie Felt at Bora Bora in Aarhus
Two young men tell stories in the middle of the audience's circle
25. januar 2023.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
In the performance 'True Story' we (the audience) sit on chairs in a circle on the dance floor, Bora Bora in Aarhus. It is half past seven in the evening. The mood is good. 28 people in a circle. Two young men, Jonathan and Satya, tell stories live - 100% true stories - but before they start, they write down the name on a piece of paper which is stuck on the floor in front of each chair. Names. "Cirkeline", "Rikke", "Naja", "Roberto" and so on all around the circle.
Without asking for it, all the spectators have become part of the story. Elegant, I think. There are 4 stars for 'True Story'.
Det Frie Felt is in AarhusThe Free Felt Festival has arrived in Aarhus. Jonathan and Satya are part of that caravan of independent performing artists from Africa, USA, England, Finland, Germany + more countries. The festival has been hit hard in the last years by the global cold, but now it's here. You can read more about this week's performances and buy tickets (they are cheap and there are not many left) at Bora Bora in Aarhus.
Sterile theater in a safe deposit boxMost established theater is commercially based and therefore as dangerous as a Mars bar in a freezer. The theater is dipped in boiling water and then beaten with a stick to get it completely dry so it can be stored in a safe. Mainstream theater is conservative, the intention of the performance is to confirm our prejudices about the world, and the actors put a finger in our side to make us laugh and spend the money for a ticket.
Det Frie Felts Festival is something elseDet Frie Felts Festival is a celebration of independent stage artists - 'Project Fonded Independent Stage Artists'. Those people are always coming up with new ideas because they don't have a permanent job. They must seek money for each new performance. A cooperation between the nations. A new angle. New concept. More developing than winding down. More dancing and joie de vivre, - less conservative, we think.
'True Story' is such a less conservative performance.
The original art of storytellingAnd yet, Jonathan and Satya - in the middle of our circle - practice the original art of storytelling, and that can be called conservative in a way. It's old school and it works. The two guys tell stories live, rehearsed and improvised. The way we humans have always told stories. We listen as the two young men disembark. We are aboard a Chinese ship in the year 1405 approaching new shores. The captain...
- Satya reaches out for one of the spectators, grabs his attention and moves the figure onto the stage which is the circle between us
...he lies down asleep in his cabin, completely naked with...
- Jonathan grabs another person in our circle,
...along with a bald man, the writer, dressed in an old jacket and big black boots.
The audience laughs - and so the wild story continues, in which the audience itself becomes a part.
Jonathan and Satya switch virtuosically from one scene to the next. We are in a spaceship. We are fishermen around a lake throwing stones into the water and waiting to catch the big blue whale. We are druids around a fire and it is a full moon and we throw euphoric herbs on the flames. We are... The images change faster and faster. In the end, we realize that we are spectators to a story, we are right now part of that story, we have arrived at the end of the performance. Poof, done.
Great experience, thanks! From the USA and England, Jonathan Bonnici and Satya Bhabha. There are more performances in the coming days. Check them out at Bora Bora in Aarhus.
True Story by Jonathan Bonnici and Satya Bhabha.
Created in collaboration with Bojan Jablanovec.
Produced by Satya Bhabha, Jonathan Bonnici and Via Negativa.
Administrator Gry Raaby.
Consultant Klavs Tarp.
Translation Morten Dalhoff.
Photo Matjaž Rušt.
Performance review
★★★★★Review of 'Mermaid Show', at Aarhus Theater
A mermaid with flaming red hair and naked breasts with smooth skin
1. juni 2022.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
I guess it's quite delicate to write a review of 'Mermaid Show' at Aarhus Theater. Because, you try to imagine that actually you will meet a living mermaid down in the theater's intimate Studio stage. And the mermaid, she's pretty emotional. The hair is fiery red. The breasts are bare and smooth like a human woman, but her legs end up in a fishtail. She is clear and distinct in her claim to the world. She wants yet another sailor with her down into the sea so they can swim together. (She already has 3.) Maybe it's you who swims with the mermaid in the inflatable bathtub in the middle of the stage surrounded by the audience? Test it out for yourself.
She had wrestling matches with sharks as a childThe audience can not sit still while we wait for the performance show to start. There have been rumors of wild escapades. The stage floor is covered with a rubber sheet and some people are sitting in raincoats. I dont do that. Water has never harmed anyone, unless you are a sailor and are lured into the water by a mermaid.
Then we set sails. The mermaid is surrounded by three white-clad sailors who she enjoys. The sailors sing and try to satisfy Ann Liv Young's demands on them. She has both created the show and controls the stage like a seductive and awful and really enjoyable mermaid. Ann Liv Young had wrestling matches with sharks as a child, they say, and I'm sure she taught the sharks to love her.
'Mermaid Show' is high level performance. The show was created in 2011 and has been triumphant ever since from New York and around the US and Europe.
Hard to say no to a mermaid, but I will not reveal anythingThere are so many cool surprises in the 'Mermaid Show'. I want to reveal them all, but it does not work, it would spoil your experience. The show is horrible, it's funny, it's crazy in a good way, it's performance art. Love it.
The only thing I want to reveal is that the show is about emotions, love, sexuality and gender. What gender does a mermaid actually have? I do not know, but Ann Liv Young is pretty what ever gender she prefere. I mean, right up to the point where she jumps up on the chair in front of me and sings to her chosen sailor, "come with me, I want you to swim with me, come." It's hard to say no to a mermaid. And be warned, if you're going to despise her, damn she has temperament. Beware :)
Scary and fun show. Thank you for that experience.
(Oh boy, there's a lot you have not been told. It's so wild like a splashing fish fresh out of the water.)
Mermaid Show by Ann Liv Young
Performers Marissa Blair, Sarah Manya, Kyla Kegler, Ann Liv Young
Videography Nicholas Strini
Performance review
Great show on Katapult in Aarhus★★★★Anmeldelse: 'Enter Mr. Citrus Man', on Katapult in Aarhus
When London champagne meets the probably best beer in the world
14. september 2021.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
I just watched a play on Katapult in Aarhus. Wow, you're not gonna like this, if you're fond of a good Danish beer. (Like Grimbergen). I'll pour you a glass of the best theatrical upcoming London champagne, and let you sip it gently.
This play - Enter Mr. Citrus Man - is theater on a complete other level. Witty, resourceful, authentic, ingenious, punctilious and yet whole hearted. We love Carlsberg (Grimbergen actually), but this play is like champagne. It's unfair to compare Danish Theater with this, totally, and I will.
To be an actor, or to act, that's the answerThe good cast are a breed of talented actors we seldom see on Danish Theaters. Normally we prefer people with an appearance that looks like Hollywood. These people, led on by Molly Rolfe, are better than look-alikes, they are in fact capable actors. All the witty dialogues are precision made vocabulary sounds of mass entertainment.
Like Monty Python. Fast and fierceful and lovingly naive absurd. Never cruel. Every joke is on me. I look funny, I am fun, and I have a heart of a living and feeling person, which you can see. I am human.
That's what I mean. Only well bred humans can be actors, while others can act.
To have a theme, or just make a jokeThe theme in the play is about choice. You want to be happy with your spouse, or do you want to make an impact on the world? Can't do both. What will you choose? A most relevant theme in a post-covid-fear-world. Keep your distance, or grab life? Now, what will it be?
The scenography is simple like the sun and the strawberryA rock is kind of simple, but this scenography beats it to the finish line. The main characters live in a bathroom. So cosy, cute. In comes Mr. Citrus. The well-renowned guru, picks the strawberry, the lovely Molly Rolfe. Takes her out into the world to save it. She can sing. I mean, Molly Rolfe actually is a wonderful singer, and she completely falls for the temptation, to fulfill her life with something bigger than the space of a bathroom. I like the simplicity, because the scenography is like a flower.
Great play, I can say no moreSince this play is like a lion on a Danish pasture - so different and kind of scary in it's beauty - I personally would give it all the stars in the world. But let's settle with these four stars: Good actors, good theme, good scenography and a better tasting than Danish beer (even Grimbergen), more like champagne from London.
But you go and have a peep on your own. Maybe you'll get inspired, and the English is not that hard to understand. We bred them ourselves, when we were Vikings and ruled their country. Kind of. Cheers.
Enter Mr. Citrus Man af Alien Jefferson
Medvirkende Molly Rolfe, Neil Staveley, Adam Biggs og Tyler Hoyland.
Instruktør Mia Juhl.
Teater review
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