Territorium Nepal is a cross-disciplinary performance. It is composed as an intermedial work, at the intersection of concert, installation, performance and physical theater by the artists Øystein Elle and Janne Hoem. It was premiered in Norway in 2016 and has since then been performed in several theatres and venues in Norway Japan and Indonesia.
«Territorium» invites to a collage, a room where “sense” and “non-sense” is equated, and the different elements possess equal roles in a musical polyphonic whole.
The Nepal edition Territorium Nepal is the second version of a nomadic edition of Territorium. Elle and Hoem want to “open up the territory” for artistic meetings. A re-teritolization where encounters between different cultural expressions and traditions, both on stage and between performers and listeners can create new experiences and artistic expressions.
For Territorium Nepal, Elle and Hoem is collaborating with the Nepalese performance artist Durga Bishwokarma. She has a background within Nepalese theatre and performing art, and later been situated in Europa, attending a long-time theatre education in Denmark and Norway. Mixed with Elle/Homes avant-garde and abstract music and theatrical expressions she may be seen as a bridge between traditions.
The musical score of this performance is informed by Elles ruthless quest for sonic treasures, regardless of time and tradition. He collects, compose, and re-assembles textures, timbres, lingual peculiarities, and melodic surplus, from a world of sounds. Durga is exploring the female body and expressing the stories of boundaries, fears, control and freedom. Her expression will be a bodily manifestation of the shared dream-scenario the performance paints out. The Sarangi player Kiran Nepali is a Nepali musician who will be performing traditional Nepali music alongside with improvisations created in the meeting between the performers, the space and the audience. As the sarangi and the sarangi-performer is invited guests in the «Territorium», it will as guests always do, make an imprint, alter what is there from beforehand, and change and challenge the order.
Despite of its foothold in contemporary art music and drone-based improvisations, the musical score of territorium will include Re-interpretations of Norwegian traditional melodies, mediaeval melodies from the Northern countries, traditional Nepali melodic material as well as imprints from musical encounters across traditions, continents and epochs.
When the audience enters the performance space in Territorium they enter directly into something that could be perceived as a plotted territory. A space, a mandala constructed of goose feathers, pinecones, twigs, sticks and needles from pine trees. These materials are personal symbols for Elle’s restlessness and rootlessness, along with tracks from a geographical and emotional attachment to his home ground, the landscape of the deep pine forests from where he grew up.
The material that appears on the screens is recorded and developed in parallel with the musical and conceptual material. It has been the desire to let the visuals, the film and space be integrated, to become part of the musical and physical material, thus the filmed material has been treated musically throughout the process. The film does not have a linear narrative; it appears rather as fragmentary memories, actions and dream visions. We have been searching for a rhythm, and an energy, which may put the performer – as well as listening audience members – in a state of presence, where mental images are allowed to arise. We have a desire to meditatively expand time and fill the spaces. – Listen, observe and recreate. By revealing the layers and letting them appear in all its formations, the material of the film – as in the material of Territorium as such, serves a personal acceptance of a fluctuating soul. Through awareness, presence and sincerity we aim for relevance for the listeners, beyond the purely personal as such for the performers.
The Czech New Media artist Jan Hustak is participating in Territorium. He is mixing the original footage from Territorium with material created through the visit in Kathmandu, and on site, real time in the performance. As a VJ he will be working with projected visuals in interactions with the film and the musical and physical elements, in improvisational sequences.
Over the years I have done several art projects where I have collaborated with local artists in the countries/cultures I visit. I am interested in artistic dialogue both for the sake of art and the unknown that may happen in such collaborations, and the political aspect of communication through artistic encounters. Lately Janne Hoem and I have reworked the performance Territorium to become a frame for cultural interventions. -Ever changing according to the space, the collaborators and the cultures we visit. Last performance we did took place in Bali, collaborating with Balinise dancers
and singers/performers. Intertwining contemporary and Avant Garde music, western baroque, Norwegian traditional music with Balinese dance, music and actions. Now we are creating a similar and yet different artistic expansion in Kathmandu. I will express my gratitude to Mandala Theatre Nepal for inviting us, and to Durga for connecting us to Mandala Theatre and the theatre scene in Kathmandu. I am excited about meeting Nepali audience and curious how they will experience Territorium. -An artistic and cultural exploration where audience and performers share the same space.
It is a music, sound and visual based performance that I hope will communicate and create unexpected experiences for audience as well as for performers.
– Øystein Elle
Artists Info
Øystein Elle holds a PhD cross-disciplinary composition. His work as a performer, composer and theatre creator is regularly touring in Europa, Asia, USA and South America. He is a classically trained countertenor singer who works in the span between baroque aesthetics, noisy extended vocals, 20th century avant-garde mixed with post punk references.
Janne Hoem is a visual artist and theater director. With a background from living and directing with Judith Malina/The Living Theatre NYC, and trained butoh with Maureen Fleming and Yoshito Ohno, she has created her own physical image language on stage. Hoem is treading the myths and hunts for a universal vibrant language in her works. She collaborates with shamans, musicians and poets in search of her alchemy.
Gunhild Mathea Olaussen Gunhild Mathea Husvik – Olaussen is an interdisciplinary artist, specialized in scenography and sound art. Her recent work explores somatic perception through soundscapes, where space, material, body and time are treated as equal parts of the composition
Jan H. Husták – educated new media artist, animator, illustrator and graphic designer, focused on interactivity, using site specificity as primary inspiration, projector as a favorite tool and activism as an engine. Currently living and working in Norway. Born 1983 in Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic.
Kiran Nepali– Kiran Nepali is a third-generation musician and plays sarangi with folk acts Kutumba. He is a founder of project Sarangi. Project Sarangi is a Nepali foundation that is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of indigenous Nepali folk music craftsmanship. It provides tutorials in the playing of Nepali Sarangi and other Nepali folk instruments. Project Sarangi is based in Kathmandu Nepal.
Durga Bishwokarma is from Nepal, living and working in Norway. Currently she is studying MA in performance art at Norwegian Theatre Academy Norway, as a performing and physical movement artist. She is working and researching on crossing cultures, borders, and storytelling work. Her major focused and working areas are social taboos, the human body and the stories of people.
