An historical outline of dance in Norway with a comment on postmodern choreography and the notion of "contemporary" dance.
Av Knut Ove Arntzen
Carte Blanche is happy to have the rights to present this article by Arntzen, associate professor in theatre studies at the University of Bergen. Please respect the copyrights.1. Historical background for dance in Norway
Norway has like the other Scandinavian countries a folklore tradition of dance going back to the middleages. However, the Norwegian ballet tradition is not so old. It goes back to the Swedish choreographer Augusta Johannesén at Christiania Theatre in the 1890es, and after the opening of the National Theatre (in Norwegian: Nationaltheatret) in Kristiania/Oslo (Kristiania was renamed Oslo in 1924). Augusta Johannesén worked with the Opera Comique boulevard theatre. Another professional choreographer of this period was Tora Hals Olsen who worked with the National Theatre as well as Centralteatret (literally: The Central Theatre) in Kristiania. However, the interest in dance goes further back.
There were already dance instructors to serve amateur interest, working in different Norwegian towns since the end of the 18th Century. One of whom was Johan Ludvig Strømberg, a Swede by whose initiative Christiania Teater (the public theatre of Kristiania) was founded in 1827. This theatre was to become dominated by Danish Actors coming to Norway from Copenhagen, a situation ending in 1863. And one eager visitor to Norway in the first half of the 19th century was the founder of Danish romantic ballet Auguste Bournonville. However it is difficult to tell whether he left traces, only that he took some inspiration for his work in Denmark. Later on there certainly were visiting productions to Norway from the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen where Bournonville had created his famous school.
A proper Norwegian ballet tradition in the strict sense was not founded until the Opera and the Opera ballet was established in 1958, catching up the heritage from the company New Norwegian Ballet (Ny Norsk Ballett) founded in 1948, based in a company founded by Gerd Kjølås and British choreographer Louise Brown in 1945. When Louise Brown left Norway in 1950, Gerd Kjølås started a co-operation with the Swedish dancer and choreographer Ivo Cramér who also made some productions for the revue theatres. After the Norwegian Touring Theatre Company (in Norwegian: Riksteatret) had been founded in 1949, productions from the New Norwegian Ballet were included in their touring network. This way professional dance could be seen outside the urban centres in Norway since shortly after the Second World War, a fact which may have contributed to a certain interest in opera and ballet in smaller Norwegian cities and towns. The Norwegian Ballet (in Norwegian: Den norske ballet) became the new name of the New Norwegian Ballet in 1954, and soon Fokine’s Les Sylphides opened to become one of its largest artistic successes.
An ongoing exchange was established first with the Stockholm Opera and then with The Birgit Cullberg Company, visiting Norway on a very regular basis. Historically there was a tradition of a shared Danish-Norwegian cultural heritage, which gradually became replaced by a very active Norwegian-Swedish relationship. But to understand some of the greatest successes of the Opera Ballet in Oslo since the 1960es, we have to examine the growth of a professional modern dance milieu in Norway, dating back to Gyda Christensen who became a professional dancer in Berlin, being periodically engaged by Max Reinhardt’s theatre in Berlin. Christensen took over the position as house choreographer at the National Theatre in 1910, establishing an in-theatre school taking inspiration from visiting pedagogues like Danish Emilie Walbom. Through her friendship with Fokine she got to know Diagilev and Les Ballets Russe in Monte Carlo, and through these connections Ivan Tarasov was engaged as a pedagogue in Gyda Christensen´s new school for modern dance.
As a pedagogue German-Norwegian Inga Jacobi contributed significantly to introducing modern dance in Oslo in the 1920es, and through her some influences form German expressionist dance seeped in. She was by the way also inspired by Jacques-Dalcroze and his rhythmic dance.
Another school of modern dance opened in 1937 in Oslo under the direction of Rita Tori, and all together this contributed to a rich beginning of a modern tradition combining classical ballet and modern dance, as we also know it from the narrative dance choreographies by Birgit Cullberg, who as I have already mentioned visited Norway regularly; Oslo but also and not least the Bergen Festival, until the 1970es. All these tendencies would be included in the Norwegian Opera Ballet (Den Norske Opera og Ballett) under the direction of Joan Harris from 1961 to 1965, significantly increasing the technical level of the dancers. Hence the company led by Ane Borg in the periods of 1971-77 and 1983-88 became a company of high esteem, domestically and internationally. A very original and highly regarded production at the Norwegian Opera Ballet was Glen Tetley´s The Tempest after Shakespeare in 1979, with new music by electronic composer Arne Nordheim, produced during the period of Brenda Last as an artistic director 1977-80. Her successor was Jens Graff, 1980-83, and from 1990 Danish Dinna Bjørn led the company after a period with Viveka Ljung. From 1992-93 The Norwegian Opera Ballet changed it´s name to The National Ballet (Nasjonalballetten). The present day the artistic director is Espen Giljane, whose artistic background is from New York’s vital dance community.
Since the 1970es there is a new generation of free dance companies having established themselves, like with choreographers
Kari Blakstad, Lise Nordal, Merete Engebretsen, Sølvi Edvardsen and Kjersti Alveberg. Aditionnaly to making important institutional work, they were running dance companies as Collage (since 1974, with Lise Nordal and Inger Buresund) and Oslo Dance Ensemble (since 1994, with Merete Lingjærde and Toni Ferraz).
By the 1980es and early 1990es, a new generation of independent dance companies had come about, profiting even more from the possibility of governmental support at least for some years at the time, like the case with Ingun Bjørnsgaard, Ina Christel Johannessen and Jo Strømgren of the late 1990es and early 2000s.
Very significant was the foundation of a fixed company for modern dance, fully state supported, established in Bergen in 1988/89, in a City that already had one strong free dance company named Riss Dansekompani (1982-99, founded by Merete Blinkenberg og Mona Økland).
The new fixed company was the former Carte Blanche, a company based in jazz dance established in Bærum in 1984. Jennifer Day was a co-founder of the company with Toni Ferraz, and the first artistic director after the company moved to Bergen in 1989, and in 1990 it was re-organised as company of modern dance situated in the old Bergen Gymnastic Hall under the name of New Carte Blanche (Nye Carte Blanche), until it was yet again renamed Carte Blanche. Artistic directors of Nye Carte Blanche/Carte Blanche since Jennifer Day were Anne Borg, 1990-91, Jessica Iwanson, 1991-1992, Fredrik Rütter, 1992-95, Jens Graff, 1995-97/98, Karen Foss, 1997/98-2001, Arne Fagerholt, 2001-08, and since 2008, Belgian Bruno Heynderickx. The company would profit from a generation of postmodern young choreographers, of which some have originated from the independent dance scene in Norway. Some of them had in the 1980es been studying at the Martha Graham School in New York, like for instance Ingun Bjørnsgaard who slightly grew into a neo-classical style.
Some choreographers, like Jo Strømgren and Ina Christel Johannessen, were educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, formerly The National Academy of Ballet School. Many of them have toured abroad with success, upon which they have been invited to create original choreographies for Carte Blanche in Bergen.
The Bergen milieu also profited from having an audience whose level of orientation is high from having been exposed to international visiting dance productions presented by the Bergen Festival since the 1950es, and especially during the late 1970es and early 1980es. At the time German Ausdrucktanz by Susanne Linke alongside with American postmodern dance by Trisha Brown were presented. Since 1983 a significant source of inspiration for young dance in Norway has been Bergen International Theatre, with an extensive international network. BIT, also referred to as BIT Teatergarasjen, went into all-year programming in the famed venue Teatergarasjen (literally: The Theatre Garage) in Bergen, a venue place unfortunately recently pulled down. The BIT organisation has had to use different rental venues, including sharing the rehearsal site and performance venue of Carte Blanche, Studio Bergen, with Carte Blanche, which abandoned the The Gymnastic Hall in 2008. BIT organises an October biennial, The October Dance Festival.
In Oslo a more mainstream Dance Festival has been established in the Coda festival and recently, in 2009, Dansens Hus (literally: The House of Dance) opened as a major venue for modern and postmodern dance. Independent dance also is presented in Black Box Teater in Oslo, run by The Norwegian Association of Performing Arts, the association of independent theatre and dance companies.
2. New influences in modern and postmodern dance
Japanese Butoh Dance was also introduced in Norway in the 1980es, due to productions visiting Scandinavia, including Carlotta Ikeda and workshops by the Butoh dancer Min Tanaka, inspiring the Nordic milieu of young dancers, such as Norwegians Monica Emilie Herstad, Runa Rebne and Øyvind Jørgensen. A distinct element of Butoh can be seen in the work of Herstad in which she has applied Butoh technique related to monodramatic dance portraits of female Ibsen drama figures.
An exile community of young Norwegian dance artists and choreographers exists, among them the punk-inspired Eva Cecilie Richardsen, who has been invited to make choreographic works for the Bergen Festival at several occasions (including 2003 and 2006), and Heine Avdal, who for many years lived and worked in Brussels, working conceptually in his choreographies.
To deal with contemporary dance in Norway on a more analytical level requires knowledge to some aesthetic terms, like visual kind of dramaturgy which has been incorporated into new dance and theatre since the 1980es and 1990es, and one could also add ambient or more atmospheric ways of working, including the audience in some kind of shared space, which is very much the particular quality of the quite famous young and very conceptual choreographer Hooman Sharifi who came to Norway from Iran as a teenager. He was accepted by The National Academy of Ballet in Oslo. He also has been aiming towards strictly formalised conceptual art, as has Mia Habib.
Visual performance had its outspring in the performance art wave beginning in the late 1960es, anticipating a visual kind of dramaturgy connected to what was called a "Theatre of Images". It indicated a development in dramaturgy in which the expression in the aesthetic sense of the word was drawn towards visuality while the visual and textual elements were put on equal footing. This development stood close to conceptual art, minimalism and multimedia and the workshop way of organising work. This was not least the case in the work of American Robert Wilson in the 1970es and 1980es.
I would say that a visual kind of dramaturgy could be described as if means of expressions such as space, frontality, textuality and frontality no longer were organised in hierarchic systems but have been, as indicated above, put on an equal footing. In Scandinavia project groups like Billedstofteater, Remote Control Productions, Hotel Pro Forma and Baktruppen have worked on different aspects of visual performance and a visual kind of dramaturgy, also using features from dance. It is astonishing how many examples can be found in the Nordic countries. This can to some extent be explained by the fact of governmental funding of independent groups made possible through Arts Council Norway.
The fact that new international impulsesfound their way, was very much due to Bergen International Theatre, The Bergen Festival and later on Black Box Teater and the Coda Festival. A visual kind of dramaturgy with the means of expression put on an equal footing can be seen alongside postmodern deconstructionist theories, pulling down the hierarchies of traditional narration. These were replaced by dance marked by theatrical expressions of new images and energies, breaking ground for dance in recycling different styles and in finding new ways of telling the world. In reflecting upon arbitrariness, it is interesting to remark that the non-hierarchic working process has been corresponding fully to what has been observed in recent postmodern Norwegian dance, like in already mentioned work by Ingun Bjørnsgaard and Jo Strømgren, as well as Ina Christel Johannessen. In her company the dancers often have worked in a playful way, being given the opportunity to develop their parts according to personal material.
It also corresponds to a general search for ways to develop energies of individual and cultural identities characterised by the drive towards emancipation and breaking away from hierarchical dominance, comparable to getting away from the supremacy of linear dramaturgy or the traditional narratives.
I would now like to draw attention to image and memory as allegorical as well as metaphorical concepts, which can be valuable in describing dramaturgical processes in new dance work, like kan also be seen in the recent choreographic work of Allan Øyen. Imagery is formal, referring to frontal versus spatial organisation of tableaux effects to be seen in the mix of spatial and frontal images. Memory can be understood as something individual and collective at the same time. If we put together image and memory, we have a possible analytical tool to approach some of the choreographic work of Bjørnsgaard, Johannessen as well as Strømgren. The latter is especially famous for his special use of language referred to as “gibberish”, a nonsense language based on the tonality of existing languages.
3. Memory to neurotic experiences: IBP to Jo Strømgren
Ingun Bjørnsgaard Project (IBP) was founded in 1992, and has played an active part in putting Norwegian and Scandinavian postmodern dance on the map. After choreographer Ingun Bjørnsgaard won the Nordic Choreography prize in 1992 her artistic work has been increasing. Together with her company she established a new way of delineating dance. Ingun Bjørnsgaard has been operating within a neo-epic ironic dramaturgy, instead of the classical narrative or epic structure used by modern dance. In this rearranged dramaturgy, narrative structures are commented and paraphrased through clichés from classical and romantic representation. These have been transformed into, as well as used in, what could be called a characteristic artistic landscape, a world of references closely related to mythological Nordic landscapes. Virgins in Norwegian Landscapes from 1992 was a clear example of these strategies.
In later work she has developed her visual dramaturgy in a direction deconstructing or fragmenting formal and processual elements in her choreographic language. The transformed dramaturgy creates additional choreographic clichés transgressing the consummate and perfect postmodern expression, while responding to improvisation and personal private material with its ostensibly floating quality. This is established through the use of deconstructed fragments put together in new and unexpected modes within the choreographic composition. The dramaturgy is constructed from the personal anecdotes generally related to a larger theme, or macro-dramaturgy. Consequently personal experiences and expressions from within the dancers become part of the composition. The dancers are enacting themselves in a kind of freewheeling game with postmodernity. A recycling effect emerges when a game of circulated elements from the modern and the postmodern is given a new and imperfect, or even arbitrary, expression.
The formal language developing from these strategies requires multi-layered personal input from the dancers, who have to provide parts of a personal realm to stabilise an insecure and floating performance field. The choreographer is letting the dancers loose in an unfamiliar landscape. In this sense the development which has taken place within the aesthetics is closely connected to accomplishments in theatre, fine arts and music. The setting also plays a part in creating the scenic context, actively involving personal assignments. Accordingly the choreographer´s vocation includes compositional processing of the impulsive realm of a contemporary artistic landscape, a landscape created from a mutual liaison between identity, geography and recycling of aesthetic elements. This awareness signifies change of atmosphere, which is magic. It necessitates personal commitment and requires the curious eye of a choreographer such as Ingun Bjørnsgaard, as in her The Solitary Shame Announced by a Piano (1997). The work contained many ironic layers presented by dancers recycling classical ballet as well as mime gestures.
In her choreographic work Ina Christel Johannessen and her company Zero Visibility has had an approach to dance more like performance art than Ingun Bjørnsgaard has had. Johannessen has mixed elements from performance art and installation work with strong elements of house music, as seen in the production by the name Except That I Would Like to Get Rid of It (1997). The dancers were to some extent moving in the real time of performance art. This production was based upon mixed or recycled styles form the 1980es and 1990es in direction of the ambient expression of sharing the atmosphere with the audience. The hybrid character of mixed dance and performance art with theatrical effects is strikingly present in her work. This way she has been corresponding to the image and memory-reflections. In the more recent work White Wall/Black Hole Johannessen emphasised faces and expressions - white skin and black eyes with a very ironic effect.
Jo Strømgren originally worked mostly as a solo dancer, before starting a company more of the theatrical kind. Before that, however, on a personal level he would develop stand up techniques and approaches oriented towards entertainment, as when he and his company did a production on football. In Schizzo Stories (1995) while dealing with neurotic experiences he was standing exactly midway between dance and theatre, even using textual elements. In this late monodramatic performance he kept up a dialogue with the bathroom sink and doing situationist gags in a standup comedian manner. He used his body in a theatrical deconstructed manner, in place of the more floating energetic movements of dance choreography. Norwegian postmoderndance of the 1990es and onwards was researching new marginal areas, related to genre but also in regard of the identity question. Who is the dancing body? Hence Norwegian dance developed from catching up internationally in the 1950es to the 1960es, stabilising itself and getting more independent from the 1970es to the 1980es, becoming real innovative since the 1990es.
Another aspect of Norwegian contemporary dance is, as mentioned, the site-specific or dance connected to landscape in open air settings, the way the company Dansdesign (established 1978), under the direction of Anne Grete Eriksen and Leif Hernes, has been producing it at many occasions. One of the most watched productions of Norwegian dance may have been the opening ceremony for the Olympic Winter Games at Lillehammer in 1994, broadcasted on TV all over the world. Dansdesign produced their open air or landscape-based production by connecting different artists from project to project. Another company sometimes also working under open air is Stellaris Dance Theatre (in Norwegian: Stellaris Dans Teater, est. 1980), probably the northernmost dance company in the world, based in Hammerfest, which is labelled the northernmost city in the world. There also are dance productions made by choreographers from the Norwegian minority population The Sami, in different parts of Northern Norway. But it remains yet to be seen a distinct company being established, except for the fact that there is a Sami dance group connected to Sydsamisk Teater (literally: The Southern Sami Theatre) in the county of Nordland.
4. Commenting on the most present situation
In an article in the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten (April 29th 2010), Ine Therese Berg and Randi Urdal, consultant and administrative director for Dance Information Norway respectively, jointly commented on the celebration of the International Day of Dance in Norway on April 29th. In this article they stated that in 1997 there were 30 dance companies in Norway presenting 62 productions in a total of 503 performances. By 2008 the numbers had grown significantly: There were 123 companies performing 197 productions in a total of 1324 performances. At the same time the number of Norwegian productions performed abroad has multiplied more than tenfold, from 26 productions performed abroad 1997 to 276 being the same in 2008. Berg and Urdal explain the international result by referring to the networking the Bergen International Theatre has been at the pinnacle of. Both of them underline names of choreographers touring extensively, emphasizing choreographers like Jo Strømgren, Ina Christel Johannessen, Ingun Bjørnsgaard and Hooman Sharifi. The paradox lies in the fact that they perform more abroad than domestically. All the mentioned choreographers receive their basic financial founding from Arts Council Norway, meaning that they are artistically recognised on the highest artistic level. This may be referred to as production for exportation. Not much is being done to reach a larger Norwegian audience, caused by there being few venues for dance in Norway. This is partly due to the young tradition in Norway, quite different from the case of theatre. Dansens Hus (literally: House of Dance) in Oslo opened not until 2009, after being formally established as a project in 2003 with support from The Norwegian Ministry of Culture. The intention was to increase the focus on dance in Norway.
Postmodern Norwegian dance has continued into the new millennium, and many of the mentioned names from the 1990es stay centrally positioned in the making of dance in Norway today. Of course there are also new people entering, perhaps after graduating from the Faculty of Performing Arts in The National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, into which the National Academy of Ballet established in 1979 was merged. It was an education established by Henny Mürer (1925 – 1997), a most famous Norwegian choreographer and dancer of her time. Since the 1990es the classical and contemporary dance study has contained four directions, for becoming a professional dancer in classical ballet or modern/contemporary dance, for becoming a professional choreographer and for becoming a dance pedagogue. The notion of contemporary dance is much debated, since one could say that any time has its contemporaneity.
However, modern dance is in the tradition of Isadora Duncan, and since then postmodern dance has changed into merging with new directions like folk and ethnic elements. This is an ongoing process, not least marked by the widespread impressions created by the folklore dance company Frikar, known to all of Europe after the performance accompanying Alexander Rybak in the Eurovison Song Context in Moscow in 2009. I started this presentation by mentioning long folk traditions and now folk traditions are merging into the concept of contemporary dance. I will conclude by stating that a short history of dance sometimes can create new energy. This is clearly the case with Norwegian postmodern dance, which I hope this article has managed to show some highlights of, in addition to the general historical outline.
References:
Arntzen, K. O., “New Norwegian Dance in the Even Newer Mimetic Mirror”, in ballet international/tanz aktuell, ed. A. Wesemann, Nr 12/1997, Berlin: Friedrich Verlag.
Arntzen, K. O., “A Visual kind of Dramaturgy: Project Theatre in Scandinavia”, Small is Beautiful, Small Countries Theatre Conference in Glasgow 1990, ed. C. Schumacher and D. Fogg, Theatre Studies Publications, Department of Theatre Studies, Glasgow, Scotland, 1991.
Hansteen, V. d.y., Historien om norsk ballett, Oslo 1989 (The History of Norwegian Ballett).
Historical outlines and smaller biographies about Norwegian dance are also to be found in the Norwegian National Encyclopaedia; Store Norske leksikon, which can be searched on the net: <www.snl.no>.
Eeg, C. (ed.), Dans i samtiden (Contemporary Dance), Oslo 2006:
Spartacus Publishing Company.
Knut Ove Arntzen is an associate professor in theatre studies at the University of Bergen, and he is a member of the Norwegian Critics Association. He has participated widely in international conferences, published books and many articles internationally, and he gives workshops in postmodern theatre.
Last Updated on 17 May 2012
