Small Stick Big Bird

Small Stick Big Bird by Henriette Pedersen is contemporary dance bordering theatre with slapstick elements and a strong connection to contemporary music through the sound image/music by Lars Petter Hagen. The singer Carin Granath sings in the performance.

After making use of the gallery context and other contexts as a frame for her work, Henriette Pedersen is lured back into the very conventional stage room. Another kind of contract between the choreographer and her audience is made. The illusion waits onstage in the shape of a for Pedersen typical, colourful and luscious world, to the sounds from a jazz singer.

In the production Small Stick Big Bird four women meet in a seemingly idyllic pastoral landscape. With an internal pecking order, in rococo inspired costumes and hairdos instead of feathers the four dancers are similar to birds as they move around each other onstage.

The choreographic universe of Henriette Pedersen’s has often been characterised as understated, absurd and fun. The women she deals with are no innocent skylarks. The inner dreams of the characters, their particularities and internal power conditions are in the centre of the action. An element repeating itself is the jazz singer who enters the stage to sing dream-like covers to the sound of a scratching radio. What kind of relationship does she have to the others? Is the one who eventually decide over the rest? What happens if she chooses to realise her dream?

Small Stick Big Bird was produced as a production for adults, but is also appropriate for teenagers.

Small Stick Big Bird by Henriette Pedersen was supported by Arts Council Norway, The Audio Visual Fund, The Fund for Performing Artists and The Norwegian Composers’ Fund.

Sources: Henriette Pedersen. 03.12.2010: http://henriettepedersen.no/small-stick-big-bird-2004/.

BIT Teatergarasjen, Oktoberdans 2004. 03.12.2010: http://www.bit-teatergarasjen.no -arkiv

Spring program 2006, Teaterhuset Avant Garden.