Fremadstormende scenekunstner Maritea Dæhlin med forestilling i Kilden
Fremadstormende scenekunstner Maritea Dæhlin med forestilling i Kilden
Da teatersjef Valborg Frøysnes inviterte henne til å lage en forestilling i Kilden sammen med billedkunstner Kaja Haven ble det starten på et unikt prosjekt og et spennende samarbeid.
“I consider Maritea Dæhlin to be one of the truly exciting performing artists we have in Norway today. She has developed her own way of working with text and the stage space, creating unique worlds that give the audience room for their own associations,” explains Valborg Frøysnes, artistic director at Kilden.
Dæhlin’s work is characterized by playfulness, non-linearity, and absurdity. She explores the musicality of language, repetition, sound, and space. Read more about her artistic practice.
Nominert til kritikerprisen
“The non-linear aspect is exciting because that’s how life is. Things are constantly happening; situations have no clear beginning or end—they live on with us and continue to influence us,” explains Dæhlin.
In 2020, she was nominated for the Critics’ Award in the theater category for her performance “I WANT TO BE TRADITIONAL.” She has mostly developed her own solo performances in which she appears on stage and works with her own texts, but in this production she collaborates closely with visual artist Kaja Haven. Both have made a name for themselves as strong, up-and-coming artists who are leading figures in their respective fields.
“It’s always a little scary at first—you never really know what it’s like to work with someone until you’ve actually done it. But it’s turned into a truly unique and wonderful collaboration built on a lot of trust, ” says Dæhlin.
A whole new world
The project, which began over a year ago, has now evolved into the performance *In the South, They Have the Sea*, which can also be described as a space for associations.
– The idea has been to explore the concept of insisting on these things that may be important to us as human beings in the here and now, without the hierarchies of what we expect to be important. Like being one hundred percent present in an everyday action, always being aware that it’s very important to smile, to breathe, or to be so tired that everything that’s important is something you just don’t have the energy for. We wanted to create a space where all these feelings could exist, explains Dæhlin .
In the south, the sea is a visual universe filled with flowers, birds, the ocean, big questions, and deep emotions, but also everyday thoughts and actions. The performance does not follow a single story from beginning to end, but is a space where text, sound, movement, and set design can evoke associations and emotions that will be unique to each individual audience member.
“They’ve created a whole universe of their own that’s not exactly easy to define, and we shouldn’t try to either. It really has to be experienced,” Frøysnes explains.
“If you come here with as open a mind as possible and open yourself up, I think you’ll be part of a unique journey you wouldn’t experience anywhere else,”says Khalid Mahamoud.
He and Ragnhild Meling Enoksen are the ones on stage in this performance. They both agree that the audience members who come to the show with an open mind will have the best experience.
“It’s more of an atmosphere, and then it’s up to the audience to either just sit back and take it in sensually, or choose to piece it together and create a story for themselves. But there’s no right answer,” says Meling Enoksen.
She explains that what the audience takes away from the performance will depend on who they are, how they perceive things, and how they view the world.
Vibrant set design
Kaja Haven is responsible for set design, sound design, and costume design in *I sør har de sjøen*. She works primarily at the intersection of sound and installation art, often creating large-scale, comprehensive transformations. She has garnered international attention in *Hypebeast* and *Designboom* for her monumental debut installation *Laser Cat* at the 2019 Distortion Festival. Read more about her artistic practice.
Regarding the play’s soundscape, Haven explains that it’s largely a matter of gut feeling.
“I can tell when something works and when it doesn’t. It’s exciting to layer the sound over the play—how it can create more or different associations,” says Haven.
"I sør har de sjøen" opens at Kilden , October 26, and runs through November 26.