PresentENDing

PresenteNDing was the fifth production by the company Fiksdal/Lie. The company consists of choreographer Ingri Midgard Fiksdal and writer/director Miriam Prestøy Lie. With productions such as Pravda (BIT Teatergarasjen 2008) and Krasnoyarsk (The Norwegian Theatre 2008) they have made their mark with a distinct, humorous dance theatre expression aiming to challenge its audience sensuously and intellectually.

IN PresentENDing the fundament is real self-scrutiny. In the program one could read the following:

"Like most people they don’t want much more than be just who they are, exploring what they really want, and then just do it. Put it all at stake. Sell the house. Sell the kids. Rip up every flower with its roots. See some of the world. Stage a musical. Something that is supposed to be both smart and good. Clench their teeth, sit up at nights. Never give up. But what if they can’t? What does it make them? Jean Paul Sartre said that hell is other people. Fiksdal/Lie wants to claim that the enemy is more advanced than that. In PresenteNDing they invite the father of existentialism into the girls’ locker room. With him as the lead in an ensemble of actors and dancers who are totally dependent of the look/glance of the others, PresenteNDing becomes a break-neck journey into the dark girly heart of show business and behind the shut curtains there is panic among the stage designs, when everything, absolutely everything, is to be spotlighted. PresenteNDing is a learning play on how it can all go bad if all are to just be who they are."

SOURCES:

BIT Teatergarasjen, Meteor 2009. 07.08.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no

IdaLou Larsen, http://www.idalou.no/#idalou, 21.10.2010, http://www.idalou.no/pub/idalou/kritikker/?aid=952

IdaLou Larsen, Sartre i eget helvete (literally: Sartre in his own hell), 27.10.2009,idelou.no, http://www.idalou.no/pub/idalou/kritikker/?aid=952:
"Now they are back, and this time they have not used a ready-written text as their basis, the successful concept of the production is fully their own. On the main stage of Black Box’ a young man stands, dressed only in underpants. He is an actor, he says, and the character he is to play must be built from inside. Today he is to be the French writer and playwright Jean Paul Sartre, and from the black stockings to the grey suit, every garment is eclectically chosen. (...) The opening is a brilliant solo stunt by Karl Flyman, who is educated at The Norwegian Theatre Academy in Fredrikstad. When the existentialist philosopher reawakens, he is in the hell he personally created in the play No Exit. (...) Parallel to the funny feminist musical version of No Exit, Fiksdal/Lie also stand behind, still based on the philosophy of Sartre, spot-on societal criticism, which may in particular affect the contemporary female world. Sartre emphasised that we to a great degree just exist through the glance/look of the other, and that being seen is an increasingly large condition for living a successful life. More and more choose to educate as dancers and actors, and if they’re unable to make it as such, there are always the many reality series of the TV universe. The musical concept of Fiksdal/Lie efficiently illustrates the interesting double theme of PresenteNDing."