The Problem Has No Name

The frame for the dance theatre production The problem has no name by Henriette Pedersen was the undefined relationship between a man and a woman meeting in a hotel room in an unknown location. The interior and the behaviour of the couple indicate that something dramatic has happened in the room, but only fragments of the story are acted out by dancer Siri Jøntvedt and actor Gisle Hass.

The Problem Has No Name balances between the uneasy, disturbing, the pathetic and the comical. The visual landscape of the performance led the associations to David Lynch and the text was inspired by Nobel winner Harold Pinter’s play Ashes to Ashes.

The Problem Has No Name can be said to exist within an absurd universe. With imagination and humour Pedersen likes to turn gender identities upside down, examining the power balance of social relations. But underneath the comedy Pedersen protects the weird and different, understood as the secrets we humans rarely reveal.

Henriette Pedersen has previously made her mark with a burlesque and humoristic brand of performances contemplating the absurdity of the world of art and the madness of the everyday people.

Pedersen also formerly has worked with site-specific performance plus video, and her work has been presented in cities such as Ljubljana, Belgrade, Leipzig, Brussels, Stockholm, Malmö and New York, as well as in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim.

The regular collaboration partner of Pedersen’s is the contemporary composer Lars Petter Hagen. Hagen has written instrumental music, electro-acoustic works, sound installations plus film scores, dance and theatre music, and his music has been performed in Asia, USA and all over Europe, including at Donaueschinger Tage für Neue Musik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Gaudeamus, ISCM World Music Days in Switzerland, Warzaw Autumn, Ultima and Oslo Chamber Music Festival.

Dancer Siri Jøntvedt has repeatedly taken part in the productions by Henriette Pedersen, but she has also worked with a number of other well-known Norwegian choreographer, as well as working as a choreographer herself. She is among other things known for the collaboration with Snelle Hall under the name of Siri & Snelle.

Gisle Hass is originally an actor, but he has taken part in several dance productions and has toured extensively in different productions by The Norwegian Touring Theatre (Riksteatret). Hass has performed in productions by Jo Strømgren, Sølvi Edvardsen and Otto Homlung among others.

The Problem Has No Name had its world wide premiere during the Meteor Festival in 2007, becoming the third production Pedersen had presented in Black Box Teater and BIT Teatergarasjen.

The problem has no name by Henriette Pedersen was supported by Arts Council Norway and The Fund for Performing Artists.

Source: BIT Teatergarasjen, Meteor 2007. 22.11.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no -arkiv

Moa Beskow, date unknown, www.skriveromdans.blogspot.com:
"Pedersen’s strength is that she dares to stop in an image, a mood or a movement theme long enough for the spectator’s own imaginations to blossom. She is a master at hiding the corporal expression for the benefit of something absurd, comical and in a strange way universal."

Sidsel Pape, 23.11.2007, www.scenekunst.no:
"I wipe my eyes and can barely believe what is playing out: We are in a vulgar hen farm of a hotel room with a burgundy wall-to-wall carpet. Only a corner is left of the walls. There is butchering going on; the woodwork is meticulously covered with spurts of blood."

Melanie Fieldseth, 18.10.2007, Bergens Tidende [Bergen, Norway]:
"The Problem Has No Name is some of the best Pedersen has made in a while. She has created a world which is recognizable, but still turned upside-down."