Underskog

herStay in Asia, Hong Kong, November 19 – 21 2008

Past is simulation – The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society

herSta y i n Hong Kong November 19th – 23d 2008

herStay presents Monica Emilie Herstads performance Past is simulation – The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society at On&On Theatre in Hong Kong. With gratitude to Royal Norwegian Embassy Beijing, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc.

Schedule: 19th of November at 5 pm and 8 pm at On&On Theatre

Past is simulation – The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society:

M o n i c a E m i l i e H e r s t a d

Choreography, Dance, Concept, Manuscript, Thesis

Monica Emilie Herstad presents a lecture on “Ibsen and the modern self Conference” in HK 21st of November 2008 at Hong Kong Open University on the topic “Cross cultural Stagings of Ibsen and the Modern Self”, location Baptist University Hong Kong at 11am

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herStay Asia Tour 2008 cast & crew is the exact premiere group version (2006):

Monica Emilie Herstad (Norway)
Concept, Choreography, Stage, Manuscript, Dance

Maria Ryther Hoem (Norway)
Dance

Andrea Csaszni Rygh (Norway)
Dance

Beata Kretovicova Idén (Slovakia)
Dance

Hicham Bouddén (Norway)
Music, sound, indoor plane

Minna Heikkilä (Finland)
Lights

Hair: Adam & Eva (Norway)

Stagedesign, Costumes and visual expression, performers casting, looks and scenography:

Monica Emilie Herstad

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Past is simulation, 1st official performance version February 2006

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RECENT REVIEWS ON herStay in Asia January 2008:

2008, January 7th – 15th, herStay i New Delhi and Mumbai;
herStay in New Delhi at LTG Auditorium the 11th of January at 2.30 and 6 pm, and in Mumbai, at Nehru Centre, the 14th at 6.30 pm, all at Bharat Rang Mahaotsav Festival, NSD, with the herStay performance Past is simulation:

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“Monica Emilie Herstad is bringing a new discourse to stage”
- Ajit Rai, Jansatta/ Indian Express January 12th, 2008

“A study of the postmodern woman on the stage:

To escape the feeling of unease a woman flees to the seashore over and over again. For hours she gazes at a flying bird. Another woman seems to search for something in dance gestures in the darkness. While walking a third is suddenly startled. The fourth attempts a suicide. The fifth shudders abruptly with fear. The sixth, the seventh, the eight, and, in a similar manner, innumerable women appear to do something since times immemorial. For example: doing housework, loving someone, rearing children, quarrel with husband, being beaten up, weeping and shedding tears.

These women who had emerged out of the dramas of Norway’s famous dramatist Henrik Ibsen, came together on the stage in the presentation directed by Monica Emilie Herstad Past is Simulation: The Ladies of the Sea vs. Nora and other Stories. The staging took place at the ninth day of the India Theatre Festival at the LTG Auditorium.

Enacted in India through the generosity of the Norwegian Embassy, this play is important from several points of view. The woman director searched for a new stage language by ways of acting, and the light and music of the dance performance.

Acting happens way beyond words. This is not just Physical Theatre, where, through the agency of body language and the language of gestures a script assumes shape in a formless manner. This is a total experience of dramatic art beyond words.

The audience sees a new kind of dance performance in a new space. It comprises the full potential for a transformation of the imaginativeness of the audience.

The performance is so attracting that time passed by without getting aware of it at all. This is a postmodern global text on stage.

Monica Emilie Herstad has – instead of promoting a rather acerb image of the women or of showing protest – done a deep examination through ingress into the innermost core. She has created an ironic disguise of the texts of Ibsen’s dramas. It is exactly this ironic disguise which develops into a comment on the images of women in the present milieu.

Her actresses appear on the stage with high heeled shoes, contemporary hair-do, and hyper-modern dresses. They show in ironic disguise different matters of concern of the women, and their emotional expressions and body movements in deep white faint light together with mystical music. These matters of concern have been selected from the lives of Ibsen’s women.

The performance has as its background mainly the lives of the chief character Ellida and her two coeval stepdaughters Ellida-Hilda and Bolette from the drama The Lady of the Sea, and of the heroine Nora from A Doll’s House.

An evaluation of Ibsen’s texts has been done by the German feminist writer Elfriede Jelinek in her book What happened after Nora had left her Husband, including the text Pillars of Society. In one scene it is the aura of the unforgettable world famous author Susan Sontag, in which she presented the character of the heroine Ellida of The Lady from the Sea.

The performance with its latent meanings raises, however, several questions at the level of script and style. On the one hand she destroys the acerb images of the biographies of the women of the dramas, but on the other she attempts to overcome the acerb images on the stage by employing the medium of artistic explanation. Words are not presented here. And the music appears slightly segregated.

Together with an examination of the relevance of Henrik Ibsen for the present times, the performance investigates in addition the question whether our world has really changed for women during the one hundred years after Ibsen. The decision rests with the audience."
- Ajit Rai, Jansatta/ Indian Express, January 12th, 2008

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“The play opens with a complete surprise, with a mechanical bird winging its way over the proscenium, and hovering the dancer on the large stage.

The tantalising conjectures are woven around the splendid solists, who seem to express the ambivalent emotions of Ibsen´s women when their bodies move, fall, strech, and bend.

Dancing as mirror-images, or the captivating trio moving in unison, they bring out rich associations with Nora, or the steph-daughters Hilde and Bolette, of Lady of the sea, or the eponymous heroine of Hedda Gabler, or even the youthful Hedvig of The Wild Duck."
- Dr. Utpal K Banerjee, Pioneer, New Delhi, January 15th 2008

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“From the European segment of the festival, two were dance theatre performances — Pina Bausch’s “Bamboo Blues” and Monica Emilie Herstad’s unwieldily titled “Past is Simulation: The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora and Other Stories”.

Dance theatre works around themes rather than stories. The immediate impact is sensory. One movement follows another working to an unwritten script that the audience must grasp as best they can.

The Norwegian performance piece was dense with references which became significant only if, besides Ibsen, you also knew the work of the director Elfriede Jelinek and the late Susan Sontag’s reading of “Lady of the Sea”.

Otherwise what you saw [in Past is simulation] were incredibly flexible female bodies that posed, contorted, writhed and grew slack to express a whole spectrum of emotions, dark to bright, between male-constructed women and women as they are and want to be.
- Shanta Gokhale, The Hindu Magazine, February 10th 2008

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“Regarding your performance in New Delhi of Past is Simulation – The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora and other stories]
Hello There, Greetings from India.
I’m a software professional based in New Delhi. Today I happened to view your performance ‘Past is simulation – The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories’ at LTG theatre.
I have been watching theatre for almost 10 years now and I must admit that I have never before seen such a unique poetic artistic creation. A performance that keeps on coming back and striking one’s mind again and again.
Right from the start, from the airplane movements, one is gripped by the slow meaningful expressions of the performers, their perfect synchronization and subtle motions. So much is conveyed in so simple terms with minimal sets, costumes and very appropriate light design.
The simultaneous movements of the twins, the picturization and lighting of the echo scene, the whip aspect all express the message they are intended to convey. Finally the coming together of the three performers, the sea and tranquility give an pertinent climax to the excellent performance. The use of the airplane, the chairs and the small duck convey a deep message with minimum effort. The captivating music matches the equally powerful performance. The best part is that the universal message of the play gets conveyed without any language barriers.
My congratulations to herStay, the director, all the performers, the music compiler, the light designer and the makeup and styling artists.
It was indeed an unforgettable presentation. I hope and wish that you people soon come back again to India with more of your artistic productions.
With warm regards and thanks again,
God Bless You all.
Rajan.”

2008, January 17th – 18th
at Patravadi Theatre, Garden Theatre, opening the Bangkok Fringe Festival, in Thailand:

“PHANTOM PERSONA OR MONICA EMILIE HERSTAD:
-Last Friday I went to Patravadi Theater to see some performances, including PAST IS SIMULATION - THE LADIES OF THE SEA VS. NORA, AND OTHER STORIES OF THE SOCIETY, directed by Monica Emilie Herstad from Norway. The performance is inspired by the writings of Henrik Ibsen, Susan Sontag, and Elfriede Jelinek. I like it a lot. It is now one of my most favorite stage performances of all time. I don’t know how to describe it. I think I can say that its power is like the power of PHANTOM LOVE (2007, Nina Menkes) mixing with the power of PERSONA (1966, Ingmar Bergman).
This is a clip from PAST IS SIMULATION:
”http://vids.myspace.com/herStay" href=“http://vids.myspace.com/herStay”>vids.myspace.com/herStay
This is a short film called THE LITTLE CHAOS (1966, Rainer Werner Fassbinder).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjD…
- Celine Julie, Thailand, January 21st, 2008

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E.mail [email protected] fofr nærmere informasjon om tid og sted.

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Tilleggsinfo: Monica Emilie Herstad emphasizes the energy of anticipation, as a comprehensive device for directing and choreography of a performance, also in her project PAST IS SIMULATION – The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society. An approach to her work, is through the understanding of Elfriede Jelinek´s anarchistic way of relating to Ibsen´s female characters, in her text Was geschah nachdem Nora ihren Mann verlassen hatte oder Stützen der Gesellschaften, in comparition to the physical patterns of actions, that Susan Sontag were accomodating, rewriting The lady of the sea, suitable for visual performance.

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kunstkritikk.no/article/11415

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www.kultureltmangfold.no/ar…

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herStay in Asia er del-støttet av UD Scenekunst, Den Kongelige Norske Ambassade etc.

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