ads Berg’s Skulesongbok* (The School Songbook of Mads Berg

The autumn of 2006 Mads Berg’s Skulesongbok* (The School Songbook by Mads Berg) by AKT5 was performed with Ghosts, also a graduation performance. The venue was Black Box Teater and both performances took place under management of the newly established company AKT 5, consisting of graduated acting students from the class of 2006.

In the program from Black Box Teater the following could be read about Mads Bergs Skulesongbok:

"With pointed slapstick humour and intended naivism they make fun of growing Norwegian nationalism in a very charming way. (...) The young performing artists have taken a look at the open and closed Norway and meant to find a country in which rules rule the vacuum between the grandioso and the ugly. The Norwegian school – or, more specific, the class room, with the teacher’s desk, the grey pupils’ desks and the European map – has been chosen as the location for the performance.

The text material is mainly found in the songbook by Mads Berg, Norsk Skulesongbok (literally: Norwegian School Songbook), but also in the catechism of Luther, the law of Jante, rules for how to behave on ice, rules for how to behave on the internet, grammar rules and a number of other rules Norwegians like to surround themselves with. The production goes from 1905 and hundred years forward – or from the first to the last day of school. Or perhaps from the first lesson to the last.

The songs of Mads Berg work as signposts and partners to the activity of the school day for a people loving its fiords and mountains. About this universe of song, which has had us sing together in the rhythm of a march the company says it has been an endless source of inspiration. And that the production could just as well have been called Fagert er landet (literally: Beautiful is the country), Å, du som metter liten fugl (literally: Oh, you who feed the little bird), or Stål i ben og armer (literally: Steel in legs and arms)."

The alternative titles in the text above are all song titles or text lines from songs from the songbook in question.

Source: Vallat, Marianne Dyrnes, Tom Klev and Kristian Selthun (2006). Black Box Teater Oslo. The autumn of 2006. Black Box Teater Oslo [Oslo], 10-11

*Not yet translated into English. The title within parentheses is the Norwegian title's literal meaning.