Verdensteatret is a hybrid performance art company based in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. In 1986

Lisbeth Bodd Lisbeth Bodd (28 January 1958 – 28 September 2014) was a Norwegian performance artist and theatre leader. She established the performance art group Verdensteatret Verdensteatret is a hybrid performance art company based in Norway. In 198 ...

and Asle Nilsen founded Verdensteatret, a collective of artists from different fields who collaborate to stage pieces which combine performance, installation, shadow-play, sound and animation. Using mostly found and repurposed material (they use the word "

flotsam In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the rema ...

") like driftwood, wire, bicycle parts and bones, they use both computers and live actors to create audiovisual concerts. For example, their 2008 show ''Louder'' combined robotics, videography, music and shadow-play to create a dreamlike journey through the Mekong Delta. In 2006 ''Concert for

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

'' won a

Bessie Award The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...

in the category Performance, Installation, and

New Media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

"for building exquisite links between seemingly incompatible technologies and materials-robots, video, piano, driftwood, and computers; for sharing their succinctly visualized yet beautifully ambivalent relationship to hidden landscapes; and for offering a poetically and emotionally evocative soundscape of a far-off place...," according to the jury statement. ''Concert for Greenland'' was performed at P.S. 122 (Performance Space 122) in New York. Verdensteatret was awarded the

Hedda Award The Hedda Award (''Heddaprisen'') is a Norwegian theatre award, first presented in 1998. It is named after the character "Hedda" from Ibsen's play ''Hedda Gabler''. Among its categories, which have varied over the years, are: Best Theatre Producti ...

Honorary Award in 2014. They were awarded the

for Best Audiovisual Design in 2015 for their production "Broen over gjørme" ("Bridge Over Mud"). They received the 2014-2015

Norwegian Critics' Association The Norwegian Critics' Association (''Norsk litteraturkritikerlag'') is an organization for Norwegian critics in the newspaper and broadcasting professions. Former independent critic teams merged into Norwegian Critics Association in 1998. The ...

Award for "Broen over gjørme" ("Bridge Over Mud") as well.

Production History

* Hannah (2017) *Broen over Gjørme (2014) * And All the Questionmarks Started to Sing (2010) * Louder (2008) * Fortellerorkestret (2005/06) *Concert for Greenland (2003/05) *Tsalal (2001/02) *Régla (2000/01) *Faust/Massnamhe (1998) *Philoktetes (1996/97) *Orfeo (1995)

References

External links

Verdensteatret homepage
{{authority control Theatre companies in Norway Bessie Award winners