Title File type Publiseringsdato Download
Catalogue of the projects of Passage Nord Project in the period 1986-1996 pdf 1996 Download

The man who found a horseshoe

The man who found a horseshoe (1989) was a production by Passage Nord.

Information

(Objekt ID 11430)
Object type Production
Premiere January 12, 1989
Produced by Passage Nord Project
Audience Adults
Keywords Performance
Running period January 12, 1989  

Requirements to venue

Minimum stage width 10m
Minimum stage depth 8m
Blackout Yes
Rigging time 600 minutes
More

In Passage Nord's catalogue the following is written about The man who found a horseshoe:

"The visual setting is naked and white, a Russian birch forest, a winter landscape. The light creates 'negative' shadows, i.e. white lines running from the birch trunks which can be shoved around the stage, they are mounted on office-chair wheels. The performance contains texts by the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938), who died in one of Stalin's concentration camps. Three dancers, three actors and one boy soprano are the performers. The room is filled with distant sounds from a Russia of times past, and imparts the feeling that everything is creaking and rocking. Drops run out of icy books and become words that kiss the poet's lips. Women dance with plaster ornaments fastened to their shoes, they drag the past with them, while voices emerge from the radiators. The mood is melancholy: 'What shall I do with myself now that it is January?'"

Excerpts from the performance text:

"I have no handwriting because I never write. On the other hand, I have many pencils and they have all been stolen and in different colours. You can sharpen them with a Gillette blade, one of the noblest products of the steel industry."

"I have laid my ear beneath the bark of drifting logs to hear the growth rings marching outwards."

"But I tell you: Yesterday is not yet born."

Nils Christian Hamsund Boberg produced a forest on wheels, and designed the shell of the boat. His assistant was Gerhard Aldorf.

The man who found a horseshoe was performed at Black Box Teater (Oslo, Norway).

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

E-mail from Nils Christian Hamsund Bober, 02.02.2012

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

Contributors (17)
Name Role
Osip Emiljevitisj Mandelstam – Text
Kjetil Skøien – Adapted by
Kjetil Skøien – Idea
Kjetil Skøien – Direction
Rolf Wallin – Music
Nils Christian Boberg – Stage design
Kjetil Skøien – Stage design
Inger Johanne Byhring – Lighting design
Casper Evensen – Lighting design
Ole Johannes Dahlen – Performer
Karen Foss – Performer
Hege Gabrielsen – Performer
Edvin Haugan – Performer
Anneke von der Lippe – Performer
Rob Salden – Performer
Kjetil Skøien – Performer
Gerhard Aldorf – Assistant Stage Designer
Performance dates
January 22, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 21, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 20, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 19, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 18, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 17, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 16, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 15, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 14, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 13, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Show
January 12, 1989Store scene (Vika), Black Box teater Worldwide premiere
Press coverage

Morgenbladet (writer and date unknown):
"A production with sculptural bodies and stage design elements as an installation in the room: Six people in a birch forest, plaster ornaments from the past in Petersburg, the large open plains where people stand beneath a sparkling starry sky in a white landscape. - I am convinced this artist (Skøien), Norwegian as any, eventually has harvested what he through his curiosity has planted, and that in his very own way. He has found his own expression in his beautiful combination of artistically improved materials, from birchwood to plaster figures, and humans moving to music. The production is a warming dream, an independent artistic work with great promise for the future."