| THERE ARE PLACES IN OUR HEADS ONE CAN TRAVEL TO (2011) | |||||||||||||||
| upcoming CD release / LIVE: opera and symphonic version | |||||||||||||||
| Since 2008 the Berlin-based artist duo SpringerParker have been traveling around the Norwegian Finnmark county (European Arctic) in a motor caravan. During several artistic explorations they’ve been observing the region, while collecting images, sounds and stories for their archives – memories that are now transformed into contemporary music about the landscape, the environment and the people.
The first version of "There Are Places In Our Heads One Can Travel To" was produced as a contemporary dance opera, choreographed by London-based Adrienne Hart and premiered in February 2011 at the Barents Spektakel in Kirkenes/ Norway.
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| THERE ARE PLACES IN OUR HEADS ONE CAN TRAVEL TO (Opera) | |||||||||||||||
| A contemporary dance opera | |||||||||||||||
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“The longer we travelled in Finnmark and got to know the people, the more this northern part of Norway appeared to us like an island with its own rules and principles. Based on and inspired by what we have learnt and experienced, this music is meant as a symphony to Finnmark, dedicated to the people with the will to stand their ground and face the future in a region of vast social, climatic and industrial changes and developments.“
Premiere: BARENTS SPEKTAKEL KIRKENES February 5, 17.00: Bjørnevatn Sentralhallen entrance fee: 100 Kr. Free entrance for those under 18 Festival website: http://2011.barentsspektakel.no/eng/articles/6
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The four-sided custom-build stage for the premiere at the Barents Spektakel Kirkenes – Photo © Stefan Daub |
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Concept/images/music: SpringerParker (Germany) – Opera singer: Lilly Jørstad (Norway) – Musicians: Bram Stadhouders (Holland), Bob Hevelmans (Holland) – Choreographer: Adrienne Hart (Great Britain) – String quartet: Viktor Orri Árnason, Bjarni Frímann Bjarnason, Louis Bona, Karl Jóhann Bjarnason (Iceland) – Ballet dancers from the State Musical Theatre of Karelia (Russia): Semen Ruban, Vladimir Varnava, Eduard Demidov and Anatolii Skuratov. |
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| You will find more photos of the opera production at | |||||||||||||||
| our music facebook page | |||||||||||||||
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| THERE ARE PLACES IN OUR HEADS ONE CAN TRAVEL TO (Live collage) | ||
| A live collage by means of the artistic transformation | ||
| of sounds and images into a poetic equivalent of memories | ||
| During their explorations, SpringerParker collect fragments of sound and image and they will create collages of these in the live performances, so that they put together their own definition of the emergence, perception, and memory of a geographical region – the landscape of the Finnmark in North Norway.
Audio/visual motifs are used playfully, they come to the surface and disappear again, they cross over and pass through each other, creating a permanent flow. The chains of associations that are triggered on various levels float like lose ends in space and time, and the intermingling of optical and acoustic signals provokes a never-ending series of shifts in the frames of reference. With their permanent balancing act between activated and virtual segments of reality, SpringerParker‘s live performances pursue their own inner logic, which is most akin to musical improvisation. The viewer experiences a medial structure, within which an experimental linking of the disparate parts leads to new sections of space and time, instead of reproducing the old familiar patterns, and thus also a new perspective on landscape. The seemingly familiar turns surprisingly into something strange, into which then something we think we know suddenly interjects, only itself to transform quickly into something unknown, into a poetic and pictorial equivalent of memory.
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VIDEO The starting point is image material on transparent film, which has been recorded on location as photographs and frottages. Like playing a musical instrument, these are then collaged live on a glass table illuminated from above, while a camera records the images from below. The artists visually manipulate and project live the image signals that are produced, using custom-developed software. SOUND The artists record natural sounds in the landscapes of the Finnmark using special microphones. For the sound, the artists have developed an omnidirectional sound system that works like the soundbox of a musical instrument, so that the notes will be transmitted into space from various points, while the audience wanders around. |
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LIVE PERFORMANCES: Stabbursdalen Resort, Stabbursdalen | Norway • March 13, 2010, 18:00 Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University College, Kautokeino | Norway • March 03, 2010, 20:00 Videregående skole, Alta | Norway • March 01, 2010, 12:00 Videregående skole, Tana | Norway • February 25, 2010, 10:30 SKANSEN, Båtsfjord | Norway • February 24, 2010, 14:00 Videregående skole, Vadsø | Norway • February 23, 2010, 12:15 Murmansk Art Museum, Murmansk | Russia • February 17, 2010, 18:30 Barents Spektakel, Kirkenes | Norway • February 5, 2010, 14:00 MARTa, Herford | Germany, Finnisage of “Pittoresk – Neue Perspektiven auf das Landschaftsbild” • January 10, 2010, 17:00 Preview Performance – Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum (Haugar Art Museum), Tønsberg | Norway • November 04, 2009, 17:00 |
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