The road between water and thirst

In Passage Nord's catalogue the following is written about The road between water and thirst:

"The cacophony of stillness, the complexity of simplicity. Movements are repeated to create a pattern which in turn becomes a background for other movements. A performance in the borderline between dance, theatre and visual art. The performance is often very close to the totally sculptural expression and allows the images to remain in place long enough to allow their effect to sink into the audience. Four people are wandering through life. The stage is bare, large and dark. Simple symbols such as water, light, stone and wood show the sort of wandering they are doing: they long for fulfilment, deliverance and purifying experiences. A sole expression for an enormous ambivalence between the longing to surrender and the fear of losing themselves. The objects have intrinsic value and are, in addition, integrated. Their possibilities are explored in a common context. The tempo alternate between paralysing slowness and feverish speed. All the actors alternate between the personal and the distant. The interpretive possibilities are boundless or non-existent. The human need for nearness and dependence is balanced against the distance and coldness that overwhelms them in their timid attempts at contact. They wind a strap around one thigh, as they sit on black coffins; this is repeated to the point of exhaustion. A man is lying inside the contours of a person who consists of equally large pieces of glass and coal. The women come carrying triangular, red stones in front of their sexual organs, they lie down with the stones over their faces."

Music: George Crumb, Benjamin Lew, Steven Brown, Rolf Wallin.

The road between water and thirst performed at Black Box Teater (Oslo), Brighton Festival (Brighton/UK), Ny Nordisk Scenekunst (Copenhagen), Oslo International Theatre Festival (Oslo), Bergen International Theatre (Bergen), Avant Garden (Trondheim).

Sources:

Buresund, Inger and Anne-Britt Gran (1996): Frie grupper og Black Box Teater. 1970-1995 (literally: Independent companies and Black Box Teater. 1970-1995), adNotam Gyldendal, Oslo

Catalogue, PASSAGE NORD 1986-1996. Kjetil Skøien, performance, installation. Donated by: Kjetil Skøien, May 2010. Translation: Ruth Waaler.

Writer and date unknown, Arbeiderbladet [Oslo]:
"The cacophony of silence, the complexity of simplicity - statements which may seem to be paradoxes. The production, performed by the newly founded company Passage Nord, seems to be a paradox, an interesting of such. The idea came from instructor Kjetil Skøien. Skøien is a very versatile artist. With a background including The National Academy of Fine Arts he has a rare and pretty exclusive eye for the visual. His form seems to be an exotic synthesis of modern European theatre, inspired by the ideas of Grotowski, among others, and Japanese theatre. The result is that sometimes the performance becomes a series of images frozen stuck to the retina. The company has labelled its expression as visual movement theatre, and why not!"