OEROL Festival, Trschelling /Netherlands

(created as UDflugt network)

 

The show was set on the beautiful Dutch Island of Terschelling.We were invited to work in a 4 week residency at the OEROL annual festival for site specific theatre. We made this first performative travel, stretching across an open sand-dune landscape, through a small forest, a bicycle ride through the nearby small town, to end on the broad proud beach of the island. In the performance, audience followed one by one, a two hour long path that worked with the landscapes different sensations and turned it into 'theater'. Main actors were birds, sheep and ants, plants, sand, stones, sky and each audience member, as they embarked one by one to their journey. Sometimes they would meet people. Like a woman with an old typewriter, asking you to note down anything that is changing. Or a sleeping man in the sand, headphones were placed 5 meters away from him, you would take them on an hear his breath. We found an enormous joy in working under the open sky every day. Close to and in dialog with the nature surrounding us.

We listened to the landscape and it told us what to do and walked a lots of miles every day.

 

Comment by Neil Thomas, dramaturge and advisor at OEROL, festival for site specific theatre NL 2005.

'The Oerol UDflugt experience"Set outdoors, they used the whole of nature as their landscape, as their canvas... the sound and feel of the wind, the sun brushing faces and bodies, the smell of the land. And conversely they travelled into the interior worlds of the spectators, travelling into uncharted territories, into a world without windows, wind or vistas. Taking the fragile inner worlds of the spectator into their trust worthy hands and leading them on a journey no one can define and no one has travelled before. An individual journey for each participant. A powerful but gentle catharsis of mind and heart in a landscape. The work is: Poetic. Investigative. Stimulating. Delicate. Vital. Real.For me their work is amongst some of the most interesting that I have experienced in several years, and sits at the forefront of modern performance practice. Working with the team was easy, and great pleasure. They are well-organized, hard working, conscientious, lovely, deep thinking people"

Neil ThomasPerformance, installations and various arts.surreal@alphalink.com.auThe Urban Dream CapsuleMuseum of Modern Oddities

 

Artistic development/performers:

Jacob Langaa-Sennek

Cindy Rudel

Mette Aakjaer

Saskia Habermann

Vera Maeder

Performers:Nadine Milzner

Sarah Kane

Marianne Langenegger

Hanne Pedersen