Title File type Publiseringsdato Download
Season program catalog Black Box Theater the autumn of 2010. pdf August 2010 Download

No Reference Land

No Reference Land by KarmaConsult/Ellen Johannesen is a dance performance based on Ellen Johannesen's impressions from several longer stays in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India.

Throughout two years Johannesen has spent large parts of the year in a monastery in Southern India. Johannesen describes her life as one of just two Western students in a cloister of 4000 monks and nuns as a unique opportunity to live in another culture, and to acquire a new language and mindset. Based in this experience No Reference Land was created.

Information

(Objekt ID 5986)
Object type Production
Premiere September 23, 2010
Produced by Ellen Johannesen/KarmaConsult
Coproducers SEANSE – centre for art production , Black Box Teater, Dansearena Nord
Audience Adults
Number of events 4
Language Norwegian and Tibetan Standard
Keywords Dance, Performance
Running period September 23, 2010  —  September 26, 2010
Website Black Box Teater, SEANSE - senter for kunstproduksjon

Requirements to venue

Blackout No
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Ellen Johannesen writes the following about No Reference Land on her webpage:

"The lack of references to my own culture made it an interesting as well as lonely experience: Perhaps I could compare it to awakening with a loss of memory in the regard that everything felt right and very meaningful. I loved this place and these people. They felt so wondrously familiar and easy to interact with, as if we had known each other for a long time. At the same time everything was unknown: There was nothing in the visual culture I could recognise. I found myself in a most ritually oriented culture, in which correct behaviour and respect were incredibly important – and I didn’t know the rules. No one could, in an understandable manner, explain me how the language worked, and I soon discovered that the language did not follow rules the way I wanted it to. If I asked what was right, I always got different answers!

In addition the language was physically difficult to pronounce, and the sounds were hard to separate. I was illiterate; I had to learn letter for letter, to repeat sounds over and over, write the alphabet in my prettiest handwriting again and again, until my teacher was satisfied. I stopped looking for the recognisable and for non-existing rules. I had to get on the inside of this; had to find out how they thought, regarded time, and estimated a situation, to understand how they expressed themselves."

Ellen Johannesen has documented her process, in taking notes and writing poems underway, among other things. Ellen Johannesen was inspired by Allen Ginsberg's Indian travel journal, Indian Journals March 1962–May 1963 (1970), and in this process she has been concerned with direct perception and experiences in the moment, without emphasising logic connections.

Sources:

Home - karmaconsult, http://www.karmaconsult.org/, 04.10.2010, http://www.karmaconsult.org/projects.htm

Store norske leksikon, http://snl.no/, 04.10.2010, http://snl.no/Allen_Ginsberg

Contributors (9)
Name Role
Ellen Johannesen – Idea
Svante Grogarn – Direction
Ellen Johannesen – Choreography
Annti Heikki Antero Bjørn – Stage design
Annti Heikki Antero Bjørn – Costume
Trond Winterkjær – Video/Film
Svante Grogarn – Lighting design
Ellen Johannesen – Dancer
Cathe Sjøblom – Producer
Performance dates
September 26, 2010Lille scene (Marstrandgata), Black box teater Show
September 25, 2010Lille scene (Marstrandgata), Black box teater Show
September 24, 2010Lille scene (Marstrandgata), Black box teater Show
September 23, 2010Lille scene (Marstrandgata), Black box teater Worldwide premiere