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The Lady from the Sea

The Lady from the Sea

A commission by Nordland Teater in Norway.
Convoi Exceptionnel`s adaption of the classical dramatic text by Henrik Ibsen.
Premiered: October 1st, 2022.

”Beautiful and moving about mental illness, the right to take one's own life and love for those who remain”
Norsk Shakespeare og teatertidsskrift

”A modernization of Ibsen will often encounter problems when yesterday's theme is attired in a new way.
At Nordland Teater, the director Jon R. Skulberg solved this in an almost ingenious way.”
Klassekampen

“…there is an artistic totality over the performance that captivates and impresses”
Dag og Tid

All photos: Louise Herrche Serup

Text: Henrik Ibsen, Inger Christensen, Michel Houellebecq and Virginia Woolf
Script: Astrid Hansen Holm og Jon R. Skulberg
Stage direction and light design: Jon R. Skulberg
Scenography and Costumedesign: Maja Ziska
Actors: Kirsti Torhaug, Anne E. Kokkinn, Linda Brean Mathisen, Anne Wiig and Sven Johannessønn Henriksen
Dramaturgy: Astrid Hansen Holm
Composer and sound designer: Julie Østengaard
Photos: Louise Herrche Serup

Head of production: Per Rasmussen
Stage manager and tourmanager: Wenche Bakken
Costume maker: Halvard Leirvik
Props: Sissel Heien, Grete Larssen and Mariann Rostad
Make-up: Tove Solbakk
Carpenter: Magne Jøsevold
Blacksmith: Herlof Øverdal
Sound technician: Frode Fridtjofsen
Light technician and programmer: Vegar Angel N. Andreassen
Tour planner: Jim Ove Marthinussen
Marketing: Trine Rimer, Tina Ditlefsen, Hilde Karin Skreslett, Tove Hovind and Yngvild Keilen

Photo: Louise Herrche Serup

you're somehow connected  

you're somehow connected  

you're somehow connected  is an audio visual piece experienced through air, smoke, sound and light that reflects our time, culture, history and dreams about the future, and how we all are somehow connected.

you’re somehow connected is an audiovisual  multichannel piece for 30+ speakers​

The complete piece explores perception of sound and light in the meeting between dream and reality, the inner and the outer, the real and the surreal.

Inspired by August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, where Agnes, the Vedic God daughter, sinks towards the Earth in the attempt to understand humans, their agony and dreams, you’re somehow connected explores the matter of being through sound, light and air.

The multichannel piece consists of through-composed music performed by accordionist soloist Bjarke Mogensen with Århus Sinfonietta and guest musicians; Mari Kawamura (piano), Christian Martínez (percussion), Anna Jalving (viola) and Frederik Sakham (contrabass), conducted by Rei Munakata. This music has been recorded and interwoven with electronic composition and manipulated field recordings of the body, skin and breathing is incorporated – as well as interviews with five people of different generations, nationalities and places about their dreams of the future:

Student Simran Skulberg de Souza (NO) in Bergen, college student Paulina Shtanko (BY) in Sct. Petersburg, visual artist Mohau Modisakeng (ZA) in Johannesburg, composer Marcos Balter (BR) in New York and writer Suzanne Brøgger (DK) in Copenhagen.

Duration 76 minutes.

Composer:
Lil Lacy

Electronic composer:
Tobias Sejersdahl
 
Scenographers:
Jon R. Skulberg
Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh
 
Accordion soloist:
Bjarke Mogensen
 
Ensemble:
Århus Sinfonietta with special guest musicians:
Christian Martínez (perc.), Mari Kawamura (pno.), Anna Jalving (vla.), Frederik Sakham (cb.)

Conductor:
Rei Munakata
 
Sound producer and head of recording in relation to recording, edit and mix of the acoustic music:
Preben Iwan
 
Production manager:
Kristine Bech Sørensen
 
Graphic design:
Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh
Frederik Plesner
 
Photo & timelapse:
Rune Svenningsen 

​Sound system realized in collaboration with Lydfabrikken ApS

Produced in collaboration between Convoi Exceptionnel and Lil Lacy Music

Presented in collaboration with PASSAGE festival, CLICK festival and Kulturværftet in Helsingør

 

Supported by Det Obelske Familiefond, Statens Kunstfond, Kodas kulturelle midler, Augustinus Fonden, Dansk Komponistforening, Dansk Musiker Forbund, The Royal Academy of Music Aarhus, Aarhus Unge Tonekunstnere, William Demant Fonden, Aarhus Kommune and Louis-Hansen Fonden

CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL

CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL

CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL is a staged choir piece with 12 singers, experienced from the edge of a swimming pool. In a physical study of water resonance, the singers float in weightless sequences while pondering on the paradoxes of a welfare state. 

CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL is a sensitivity analysis in the nature of inequality. A choreographic portrayal of the welfarestate and its many flaws. The singers become a group searching for a common voice, insurgently longing for meaning. In their polyphonic strive, they uncover the imbalance that a class-based society creates.

The work is created by Convoi Exceptionnel and Jon R. Skulberg in close collaboration with composer Lil Lacy, dramaturge Astrid Hansen Holm, conductor Mathias Skaarup Sørensen, designer Kit Wan, and the vocal ensemble ENSEMBLE EDGE.

CONVOI EXCEPTIONNEL is a performing arts company led by scenographer and stage director JON R. SKULBERG. With his bold vision, Skulberg orchestrates immersive sceneries, using saturated images, bodies, sounds and lights, which he imprints onto the audience to mark them with impressions and memories. 

LIL LACY composes the choral work for the twelve singers from ENSEMBLE EDGE. Lil Lacy challenges the vertically standing classical singer we know from churches, stages and concert halls. Lacy is a recipient of the Léonie Sonning Talent Prize.

ENSEMBLE EDGE is an Aarhus-based vocal ensemble that challenges conventions. In this work, they explore the singing body immersed in water and the architectural acoustics of the swimming pool hall. The choir conductor is MATHIAS SKAARUP SØRENSEN.

KIT WAN is a fashion and costume designer from Hong Kong. With textiles, he creates distinct silhouettes in a fictional and holistic expression, bringing contrast to the functional architecture of the swimming pool hall. 

Photos: Louise Herrche Serup

Concept, stage direction: Jon R. Skulberg
Composer: Lil Lacy
Conductor: Mathias Skaarup Sørensen
Costume designer: Kit Wan
Vocal ensemble: ENSEMBLE EDGE
Singers: Nadja Marie Schmedes Enevoldsen, Susanne Cecilie Nielsen, Frieda Funk, Kirsten Voss, Malene Rohden, Andrea Krüger Holm, Erik Buchreitz, Oliver Runge Skovbo Hansen, Troels Geil Thalling, Malthe Hvidegård Hartz, Malte Øster, Gunnar Sigfússon
Dramaturge: Astrid Hansen Holm
Libretto: Astrid Hansen Holm, Jon R. Skulberg, Lil Lacy
Production producer: Sigrid Aakvik, Art and About
Producer ENSEMBLE EDGE: Andrea Krüger Holm
International relations: Nordberg Movement
Communication: Anne Basse
Movement coach: Kenzo Kusuda
Directors assistant: Louise Hulegaard Mikkelsen 
Costumeassistent: Koh Taniguchi 
Production: Convoi Exceptionnel
Co-production/presentation: Bora Bora, Passage Festival, Dansehallerne 

SOUND RECORDING
Sound producer: Preben Iwan
Sound technician support: Stefanus Iwan & Malthe Madsen

Supported by: Danish Arts Foundation, Augustinus Foundation, William Demant Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation, Wilhelm Hansen Foundation, Danish Actors` Association, City of Aarhus , Koda Kultur


Performances 2023

COPENHAGEN
MAY 28th - 29th - 22.00
DANSEHALLERNE
LOCATION: SANKT ANNÆ GYMNASIUM
TICKETS




Trilogy for Educational Spaces
CRAWL CRAWL CRAWL is the second piece in the trilogy: trilogy for educational spaces.
A site-specific trilogy meeting the audience at eye level. Rich atmospheric experiences in the setting of everyday life, away from the usual terrains of art.
Convoi Exceptionnel investigate three different spaces – The gymnasium, a swimming pool, and a classroom. The performances challenge the cultural codes of educational spaces.


Moving a memory

Moving a memory

Photo: Louise Herrche Serup

Moving a memory is a performance and an exhibition created for a gymnasium. Convoi Exceptionnel explores experiences and memories connected to this space which most of us have a relationship with. The smell of lacquered floor, thick rope, and wooden rib walls. Scheduled exercise activating a wide range of emotions. The gymnasium is charged with fear and joy. A place in the past and present. Stage director and set designer Jon R. Skulberg says: ‘You walk into the gymnasium, sense your feet on the floor. The marked floor lines reveal a regime of movement. Now it’s your chance redefine the hierarchy and explore a new kind of poetry.’

The Nordic gymnasium is a symbol of the fit body, disciplined and trained to obtain a good health. An architectural manifestation of public health. We challenge the space’s authority and give it another language. It’s an invitation to move your memory. 

The arc of the work is drawn up Convoi Exceptionnel, visual artist Maiken Bent, choreographer and dancer Wayson Poon, and composer and musician Paul Yip. Dancers involved in the project are Linette Stamp Christensen, Kingsan Lo and Paul Pui Wo Lee.

Convoi Exceptionnel is a Nordic production platform made by Jon R. Skulberg in 2016. Jon is a Norwegian stage director and set designer living in Copenhagen. Convoi Exceptionnel creates evocative images with bodies, sound, and light as components. Immersive landscapes inducing impressions and demanding impact.

Wayson Poon’s choreographic practice is rooted in Qi and Taoism. He works from the mantra: “Reality is empty, emptiness is real,” which inspires a clear minimalism in his choreographic language. 

Maiken Bent’s sculptures and installations are characterized by composition of strong colours, craftsmanship and a rough mix of chains, ropes, and soft materials. Her work exists somewhere between Gucci and The Home Depot, creating an interesting play of hierarchies. Longing and remembering cross paths through her transformations of recognizable objects. 

Paul Yip’s Japanese and Tibetan inspired soundscapes has stable frequencies and vibrations inducing physical resonance in the bodies of everyone present. 

Photo: Louise Herrche Serup

Trilogy for Educational Spaces
Moving a memory is the first piece in a trilogy by Convoi Exceptionnel. A site-specific trilogy meeting the audience at eye level. Rich atmospheric experiences in the setting of everyday life, away from the usual terrains of art. Convoi Exceptionnel investigate three different spaces – The gymnasium, a swimming pool, and a classroom. The performances challenge the cultural codes of educational spaces.

Concept, space, stage direction: Jon R. Skulberg
Choreography: Wayson Poon
Installations: Maiken Bent
Composition and live music: Paul Yip
Dancers: Wayson Poon, Paul Pui Wo Lee, Linette Stamp Christensen
Additional dancer for Hong Kong Performances: Kingsan Lo
Dramaturg: Astrid Hansen Holm
International relations: Nordberg Movement
Creative producer: Lene Bang
Hongkong producer: Carrol Ho
Tour manager: Sigrid Aakvik
Scenography and production assistant: Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh
Production: Convoi Exceptionnel and Onthewayson

Co-production:

Supported by:






MELATONIN CITY - Wa(l)king Copenhagen

MELATONIN CITY - Wa(l)king Copenhagen

MELATONIN CITY

June 15th 19.00 - June 16th 07.00

Melatonin is a natural hormone made by your body’s pineal gland. This is a pea-sized gland located just above the middle of the brain. During the day, the pineal is inactive. When the sun goes down and darkness occurs, the pineal is “turned on” and begins to actively produce melatonin, which is released into the blood. As a result, melatonin levels in the blood rise sharply and you begin to feel less alert. Sleep becomes more inviting. Melatonin levels in the blood stay elevated for about 12 hours – all through the night – before the light of a new day, when they fall back to low.

 Wandering the city from the evening, through the sunset, during the night and ending after sunrise, I will let the melatonin levels in my body inform my tempo, pace, rhythm and atmosphere.

 How can the electrified city affect the production of melatonin?

Where to search for darkness?

What is darkness in an urban context?

How can darkness become visible?

Guided by contexts of light and darkness, the wandering will produce a variation of images, tableaux vivants and movement sequences.

Concept: Jon R Skulberg
Walking partner: Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh
Produced by: Metropolis Festival

WATCH THE VIDEOS HERE

Wa(l)king Copenhagen 

100 ARTISTS, 100 WALKS, 100 DAYS

Metropolis has invited 100 artists living in Copenhagen to create 100 curated walks through the city over the next 100 days starting 1 May, a day of collective walking. This can be seen as a performative diary from a city where the corona virus sets the agenda and has radically changed our daily life. Each artist walks for 12 hours and starts at home. Every hour he/she gives a “sign of life” via live-streaming.

FOR EVER FOUR SEASONS

FOR EVER FOUR SEASONS

FOR EVER FOUR SEASONS

“(...) a disharmonious and provocative performance.”
“In two pictures, the audience is led into a self-examination of humanity's self-destructive behavior.
We are roared to without words, we are screamed to without expression, we are thrown into reality”
“I was frightened by this painful encounter with the downfall of humanity”
KulturNyt.net

“It's beautiful and grim.”
Iscene.dk

Concept, choreography, scenography, light: Jon R. Skulberg                               

Creative producer, agent: Lene Bang    

Dancers: Marianna Kavallieratos, Kenzo Kusuda  

Composers, musicians: Soma & Lil  

Composer, sound design: Kristian Hverring                                                                                 

Dramaturg: Astrid Hansen Holm                                                                   

Costumes: Mads Dinesen        

Light technician : Irene Lehtonen

Sound assistant : Johan August Dyrløv Høegh 

Communication: Kirstine Bauning

International relations: Nordberg Movement

Premiere: Bora-Bora, Aarhus, September 4th, 2019

– The ability of man is the enigma of man, this for good and evil!

For Ever Four Seasons" is a musical, choreographic and existentialist work which insists on slowness, as an act of resistance against our rapidly accelerating world.
At one and the same time, Jon R. Skulberg and Convoi Exceptionnel want to give the audience a sensuous experience, which both pleases and disturbs while posing the fundamental question: What is the role of mankind in the Anthropocene era?

The first dancer, Kenzo Kusuda, has freed himself of the patterns of human motion to create the basic form of "nature". The second dancer, Marianna Kavallieratos, is a figure wandering in a probable and violent vision of the future - in an impossible attempt to build a relationship with the outside world and a "nature" which no longer bears any resemblance to itself.

The two dancer's conditions and emotional states are anchored to the newly composed works by the cello duo Soma & Lil and composer and sound artist Kristian Hverring. Jon R. Skulberg's staging, scenography and light invite the audience to a series of images of presence in slow but constant change.

Human beings have developed, and survived as a species due to the ability to cooperate and develop mental structures and systems. For instance, technology, philosophy, and art. At the same time they have created: concentration camps, weapons, and nuclear power.

In recent years, both art and philosophy have reflected on the fact that the man has become a similar geological force to volcanoes, rivers, and displacement of tectonic plates. For the first time in history, a majority of us lives in urban man-made landscapes rather than rural areas. Mankind has detached itself from nature. Is it because we no longer regard ourselves as part of it? The work For Ever Four Seasons investigates what value the term “nature” has today. Perhaps the idea of separation between the man and nature should be reconsidered?

The development of this work is influenced by a Nobel Prize winning writer Svetlana Aleksijevitj’s reflections and interviews with survivors of Chernobyl. Aleksijevitj uses the Chernobyl disaster as a potential picture of the future, and let the witnesses remember in a world that will forget. Her analysis is a hyper-concrete example that poses ethical, moral and metaphysical questions to the modern human. With nuclear technology, we have also gained an instrument so that we can act on the same scale as nature. A man-made natural power.

What is the role of humanity in the geological period we are in now, the Anthropocene age? Convoi Exceptionnel gives space and form for an artistic explanation to the questions above.

We – an unknown opera by Bach?

We – an unknown opera by Bach?

"Devastatingly beautiful"

Folkbladet

"An absolutely fantastic performance ... this is nothing like anything else"

Swedish Radio, P4.

"A genuine, professional teamwork with high artistic ambitions."

"Norrlandsoperan really dared to experiment!"

Västerbottens-Kuriren

"Bach's wonderful music gets a mysterious framing"

Expressen


Commissioned from: Norrlandsoperan

Music: Johann Sebastian Bach

Concept/choreography/direction: Jon R Skulberg

Conductor/musical arrangements: Olof Boman

Composition new music: Siri Jennefelt and Thomas Jennefelt

Set design: Maja Ziska

Lighting design: Kerstin Weimers                                                                

Costume design: Bente Rolandsdotter

Dramaturgy: Birgit Berndt

Scenography assistant: Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh

Vocals & dancers: Melis Jaatinen, Yared Tilahun Cederlund, Klara Ek, Kenzo Kusuda, Arash Azarbad, Linda Blomqvist, Joanna Holewa Chrona, Risa Kojima

Norrlandsoperan  choir                                                               

Norrlandsoperan Symphony orchestra

‘We - an unknown opera of Bach?’ is about the human dimension of a collective and how to reject the hierarchy between individual and collective - a choir and a soloist. How the individual is only legitimized by the collective. The project is a universal investigation and a democratic interpretation of ‘the sacred’ in Bach's music.

In ´We - an unknown opera of Bach?´ we will search for a movement language where different bodies can co-exist and be cohesive. Not by performing, or repeating gestures in unison, but by creating  collective awareness around the potential of each body – in their abilities and limitations. The choir, dancers, and soloists, will create a holistic image in motion in unison with the music and light – an image that will oscillate between the known and the unknown. The everyday and the transcendent.

THE 4TH MORNING

THE 4TH MORNING

Concept and staging: Jon R. Skulberg & Signe Klejs

Videoart: Signe Klejs

Scenography and light: Jon R. Skulberg

Text: Anne Helene Guddal

Costume design: Mads Dinesen 

Composer: Andreas Busk

Dramaturg: Astrid Hansen Holm 

Co-lightdesign: Kerstin Weimers 

Performers: Lisbeth Sonne Andersen, Anne Mette Gravgaard, Malene Andreasen, Finn Adrian Jorkjen,
Irmelin Rønsholdt/Alma Stent 

Creative producer, agent: Lene Bang

Producer: Louise Kirkegaard/1:1 Produktion

Technical production: Lumen

Co-production: Bora-Bora

Premiere: Bora-Bora, January 2017


- a performance about formation and reformation.

The 4th morning is a merge of video art and a performance piece. A possible image of us – the late modern man.

Creation stories explain how the known world began and how man entered into it. These stories are challenged at the intersection of religion and science. Is it  possible to refer to them in our time, where secular thoughts and rational sciences dominate? Can a society exist without? Regardless
 of how the creation of man happened, we are, irrefutably, its consequence. Our awakening in the morning and rising from a bed is an extension of that very same gesture which started billions of years ago.

In the piece we meet, playing themselves: a priest Anne Mette Gravgaard, who once lost her left arm and right leg to a traffic accident, transgendered Malene Andreasen, and a young artist Finn Adrian Jorkjen. We also encounter a performer  Lisbeth Sonne Andersen who embodies the enigmatic. The narrator is a child.

Technology, surgery, and globalization phenomena have created  endless possibilities for human formation and reformation. What importance does this premise have to our live?

In a visual and choreographic composition, a variation of embodied experiences, physical memories, and mythical blends within a sensing space of constant change. The 4th morning is a performance by Signe Klejs and Jon R. Skulberg.