Kritikerprisen 2019/2020

Speech at the awards ceremony for Norwegian Critics' Award for Dance

House of Literature in Oslo September 17, 2020

By Karen Frøsland Nystøyl

"Sometimes, we need an outside eye to be reminded of the most obvious things. Other times, an uncontrollable situation, such as a pandemic, makes us examine ourselves. That we pauses the daily routine, that we see who we are, what we need, what is important.

Of the two, I choose the first. The outside eye. And that, the gaze, whose gaze, what we see and how we see, has been - and is - an important discussion. Not just in performing arts, but also in the justice system right now, literally as we sit here.

There are many ways of seeing. The three productions nominated for Norwegian Critics' Award for Dance all challenge what and how the audience sees.

The nominated are:
Helgebostad/Johannesdottir/Lauvdal/Floen/Theisen for We come in peace, Dansens Hus in Oslo

Harald Beharie and Louis Schou-Hansen for Shine Utopians, Dansens Hus in Oslo

Th'Line for Anonymousse, Rom for dans in Oslo

It has rarely been more right to call it a star team: Norwegian Critics' Award for Dance 2019/2020 goes to the group behind the production We come in peace.

We come in peace is a remarkable production. It has been called a beautiful piece of performance art, a brave and moving project, a performance shining far into space and back. It is rare, because it is a genre of its own: We come in Peace is the first contemporary dancical in the world. We hope it's a genre come to stay.

For in this intersection, there are possibilities both dance and music can grab hold of. When the freedom and enormous repertoire of contemporary dance meet the essence of the musical - the kind that can, with the lightest of hearts, embrace the cliches and has let go of irony a long time ago - the essence of We come in peace comes to life.

Through the Matrix look, through PVC and leather and babydolls, the naked, unvarnished and unaffected shine through, what is often the most difficult of all: Sincerity. It sits in every movement, in the demanding choreographic patterns, in the intricate footwork, in the tempo, in the sweat, in the pauses, in the music - and in the address.

I said that this year's nominees challenge the gaze. We come in Peace challenges to be seen. We come in Peace is like Frida, it stands with its heart in its hand. We come in Peace invites us into ourselves. The performance is a visit from space, creatures who come - in peace - and want to show us something. It could have been a show of power. Instead, it is a show of love.

Without hesitation, they sing 'We need love / Without love / We become weak and erased / Without we lose our courage' (Norwegian: 'Vi trenger kjærlighet / Uten kjærlighet / Blir vi svake og utviska / Uten mister vi motet'). It is so that one must pinch one's own arm. It is like looking into a mirror.

This is, to my knowledge, the first time Norwegian Critics' Award for Dance goes to a cast from space. And the way the world is now, we need someone to sing, and to dance, just this. Leonard Cohen puts it like this:

'Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in'

(Sceneweb's comment: The speech uses a quote from a Norwegian version of the text, adapted by Håvard Rem: 'Dans meg gjennom kaos / dans meg dit jeg hører til'.)

Helgebostad, Johannesdottir, Lauvdal, Floen and Theisen- it is a joy to give you Norwegian Critics' Award for Dance for a marvellously strange, loving and philosophical work, that makes one feel like lying down in the grass and glance at the stars for the rest of the night. Congratulations!"

SOURCE:

Norwegian Critics' Association, kritikerlaget.no, 21.09.2020, https://kritikerlaget.no/saker/dansekritikerprisen-2019-2020

Rolf Gupta and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra with Peter Szilvay for the work Jordens sang (literally: Earth's Song), with its premiere November 14, 2019, at Kilden in Kristiansand.

Rolf Gupta and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra with Peter Szilvay for the work Jordens sang (literally: Earth's Song), with its premiere November 14, 2019, at Kilden in Kristiansand.

Speech at the awards ceremony for Norwegian Critics' Award for Theatre. The House of Literature in Oslo 17.09.2020

By Therese Bjørneboe

"This year's nominations reflect some of the range of Norwegian theatre - in growth, development and tradition. The monologue I want to be traditional was a personally grounded story in which the writer Maritea Dæhlin was the performer - and with "an unusually mature expression". The second nomination went to Preben Hodneland, and to the artistic team and the whole actors ensemble in a hallucinatory Raskolnikov, directed by Kjersti Horn in The Norwegian Theatre's janitor closets and corridors. The third went to Gjertrud Jynge in the role of Ales in Luk Perceval's adaptation of The Trilogy by Jon Fosse - also at The Norwegian Theatre.

On the list, strong actors excel, and that is why it is extra delightful that this year's Norwegian Critics' Award for Theatre goes to one who has also deserved an award for her whole artistic oeuvre: Gjertrud Jynge. Jynge has played several of the great female roles of world drama, but she has also elevated smaller roles, such as Miss Harepus, to unknown heights. She has a comical talent, or perhaps rather a comical intelligence, which I first became aware of in her unforgettable Sonja in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, in Hilda Hellwig's production from 1997. Jynge's artistic range came to its right in Robert Wilson's productions of Peer Gynt and Edda, in which she met the form's demands to musicality and precision. But also the additional extra, needed to make Wilson's theatre more than formalistic exercise. That Jynge has both a lyrical and a dramatic strain, she has shown in her interpretation of revengeful, passionate female characters, such as Christine Mannon in Eirik Stubø's intense and jazzed-up version of Mourning Becomes Electra. One of the two roles she got The Hedda Award for. The other was Maria Stauber in Time and the Room by Botho Strauss, staged by Erik Ulfsby. Jynge masters the classical format, but has an eye for the involuntarily comical or pathetic, making her interpretations modern.

Norwegian Critics' Award 2020 goes to her interpretation of Ales in Luk Perceval's production of The Trilogy at The Norwegian Theatre. In Perceval's adaptation, Jon Fosse's enigmatic narrator is merged with the character Ales from the trilogy's third volume. The perspective dissolves the divide between the external and the internal, between dramatic dialogue and internal monologue, and brings us into a room where we are otherwise alone.

Gjertrud Jynge has no real role in the dramatic scenes, but carries the weight of the large, arid stage space, in the three hour long performance - almost all alone. The threads that bind her to the story are her own thoughts, or trauma, alone. There is something moving and very human in the repetitive stream of thoughts in Ales, as the theatre critic Elin Lindberg wrote. And it is a great actor's effort to weave it all together and to give Ales a physical gestalt, without drawing the attention from the images her consciousness is filled with. The performance of text is in itself worth the award. Listening, near, and unsentimental. In Jynge's in many ways controlled stage apparition, her voice adds sensuality and warmth, and a distinct form of vulnerability. The end of The Trilogy was sublime, and Gjertrud Jynge will be remembered for an actor's effort of international format."

SOURCE:

Norwegian Critics' Association, kritikerlaget.no, 21.09.2020, https://kritikerlaget.no/saker/teaterkritikerprisen-2019-2020