Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Über Tiere
Text: Elfride Jelinek
Passacaglia
Text: Tore Vagn Lid
Direction and audio-visual concept: Tore Vagn Lid

A Bergen International Festival co-production with Transiteatret-Bergen, in cooperation with the Norwegian National Theatre World premiere

A relentless confrontation with our ideals.

Is consciousness merely electrical impulses to the brain? Do women become invisible at the age of 50? What is the relationship between biomedicine, the lifestyle industry and freedom of choice?

In Elephant Stories our modern view of ourselves is put to the test. The project is presented as a scenic musical dialogue – an exchange – between two theatrical sources: Elfride Jelinek’s piece Über Tiere and Tore Vagn Lid’s Passacaglia. The term passacaglia refers to a musical and dramaturgical principle in which a repeated basic theme is challenged by a stream of complementary themes. The Elephant Story turns out as a relay of dialogue passing between actors, instrumentalists, choral singers and loudspeakers.

Elfride Jelinek, a Nobel literature laureate, is recognised for her opposition to established contemporary thinking. With her acute analytical viewpoint and her unconventional treatment of language she opens for new insights. Referred to as an ‘antidramatist’, she puts stage directors to the test throughout Europe.

Tore Vagn Lid was one of four young directors invited to the 2008 Salzburg festival. His ticket was his critically acclaimed version of Brecht’s Die Massnahme (The Measures Taken), one of the new productions at the 2007 Bergen International Festival. In 2008 MANN=MANN, directed by Tore Vagn Lid and performed by his own Transiteatret Company in collaboration with Rogaland Theatre, received the Hedda Award for the theatre project of the year. The jury emphasised the director’s skill in combining the classical professionalism of an institutional theatre with the modernity and innovativeness of a free theatrical group.

The performance is supported by Arts Council Norway.

‘What we see here is not the work of a young man, but of a young master’
Die Welt