Mass for Bad Weather

Mass for Bad Weather by Teater NOR is anchored in life along the coast and springs out from myths, legends and daily life in the Northern Norwegian tradition. The people of Lofoten experience a rapidly changing culture; a powerful break between tradition and modernity. What is and has been is about to crumble and disappear to open for something new. Something is about to die, something is about to be born. This is a painful and difficult process, because we do not quite know what the new is, and what kind of consequences and possibilities are ahead of us.

Mass for Bad Weather is loosely structured around the Christian High Mass, of which one can recognise the different elements in almost the same chronology as in church. The high mass gives a ritual resonance to the performance, reflected in every image, providing a dramaturgic foundation upon which to build.

Mass for Bad Weather examines the strength and creativity in the moment of death and the rebirth of poetry and love once all hope is in vain. The production dwells with the moment of death, the transition and the resurrection. By travelling through these different stages and fields of energy, Teater NOR hopes to reveal, in short moments, some of the poetic magic of human existence, and the sensuality of the creative force.

During the midnight hour the ruin opens, and out of it, our ancestors step. From the ruin they build a mythical room, a monument over coastal life. They create an altar for the ocean and for the humans working and living by the ocean. In this room they share their songs, music and innermost thoughts and emotions. They present fragments of their lives and take us into the daily work and the holiday celebration. They tell their stories about live on sea, the shipwreck, and the cold wet grave.

The stage design is taken directly out of the local fishing industry. The crane is build by wood having carried stockfish for years, the water casks are old liver tanks from J. M. Johansen’s fish flour factory and the church organs come from the churches in Valberg and Buksnes. The drift wood comes from Siberia in Russia; it has been cut inland and floated on the rivers. For some reason the large logs avoided the saw mills and floated along the coast for years for so to end in Lofoten during winter storms. Teater NOR bought the logs from a peasant in Undstad who planned to use them to build a boat landing. Now they travel in bus around the world with Teater NOR.

Living in Lofoten is like living in a myth, a dream, a vision in which time is an open space through which one can move. In Mass for Bad Weather consist of images of the islanders of Lofoten, rhythmically flickering images showing something that has been, and something to come.

Mass for Bad Weather has been performed in Norway, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Rumania, Croatia, Poland, Serbia and Montenegro. The production was remade thrice. In 2003 it got the award Pioneer in New Ways of Expression. Theatrical Sky - The Wind during PUF International Theatre Festival in Pula, Croatia.

Source: E-mail from Thorbjørn Gabrielsen, 10.11.2010