Biomechanics

In BiomechanicsTeater NOR recycled old machines from the fishing industry, building a large stage machine during the production, doubling as a musical instrument and a venue.

Stamsund has been and still is the most important centre for the Lofoten fishing industry. At the beginning of the last century large factory buildings were constructed to receive and process fish. Parts of the factory areas are now left, but they still stand filled with machines and other equipment from this era. Heavy machinery, conveyor belts and steel constructions stand where they were left or lay rusting in nature.

With foundation in this particular phenomena from its own near surroundings, Teater NOR studied art history from the early 20th Century, emphasising the futurism of Europe between 1909 and 1920, and the constructivist tradition of the Soviet Union the way it was expressed in Meyerhold’s works from the 1920es, including other things. The similarities between Popova’s constructions for Earth in Turmoil and The Magnanimous Cuckold, from 1922 and 1923 respectively, plus the stage design made by Stepanova for The Death of Harlequin in 1922, and the steel constructions left after the different industrial epochs in Stamsund are striking.

The Soviet artists constructions represented hope for the future and a belief in industrial growth and welfare through technique and machines, while the constructions left in Stamsund represents the past; being redundant. The idea is tested, completed and forgotten. The machines symbolise being over with and left.

That the construction which during the 1920es symbolised hope for the future today mainly expresses disillusion opens a room in which the human and the machinery and the dialectics between the two become sizes it is interesting to work with. In this field of tension Teater NOR developed the production Biomechanics.

Biomechanics is about the love humans hold to machines and the faith that they improve our stay on Earth, making it more fruitful and happier. Teater NOR wishes in a poetic way to let optimism and the hope for the future in the futurist, constructivist stage machinery meet the twisted, left-behind steel constructions from the fall of heavy industry hundred years later. This can only be done through the human being’s meeting with the process. The iron constructions are the same, our interpretation is what has changed. Teater NOR dwells with the force driving people forward. The constant fascination for more speed, better control, higher quality, new understanding and quantifiable results.

In the 21th Century it is no longer about gears and belts, it is about DNA technology and microchips and virtual reality. The fascination over a faster conveyor belt or a larger capacity PC processor, or the fact that human ears can be developed on the back of mice, is clearly related. This is what Biomechanics is about, the joy, the enthusiasm, the fuel itself. The poetry in the naïve longing for moving on...

Like their colleagues from the 1920es, Teater NOR builds its own stage machinery by iron and steel onstage. The material is found in authentic machinery from the local fishing industry. Naturally Teater NOR is as proud of its machinery and all its effects as the theatre’s colleagues from almost a century before were.

Teater NOR throws itself into the processes of construction and production in search of spirituality and fruitfulness of technologic solution, in hope of experiencing the creative energy kick and being reminded of the humans’ familiarity with Gods.

Biomechanics was performed in Austria and Italy. The spring of 2002 the production was developed further in Carloforte in Sardinia and in Stamsund.

Source: E-mail from Thorbjørn Gabrielsen, 10.11.2010