Performance Art Bergen

-Where were you born? In Kolding, Denmark, and I grew up in Sandnes, Norway

-Where do you live? I live between Copenhagen and Bergen

-What pronouns do you use? She /Her

– What makes you work with performance?

Performance offers the presence and transformation of the moment. It offers live exchange with people and environments. In the space between planning and chance – something very magical can happen.

– Do you have any rituals before performing?

I calm myself and connect with the body. I often talk when I perform, so warming up the voice is helpful. Also, fostering an open, friendly, humorous attunement.

– What was the best performance you have done so far? Why?

It is hard to rank the performances like that. I love them all, even the clumsy ones, haha! I think I perform well when I manage to embody and properly channel the subject of the performance. This is done through movement and monologue storytelling within an installation. I am proud of when I embodied the historic painters and partners Sofie Ribbing and Christiane Schreiber, and their unborn child – at the Art Museum in Stavanger in 2014.

I am also very proud of how I gave body and voice to my artistic research in the performative lecture installation “Where are We Now? Where are We Now? Where are We Now?” at Gallery Entrée in 2022. (Presented inside of the “Open Studio” exhibition of Magnhild Øen Nordahl) In this work, I embodied Marie Sikveland, a woman from Bergen who perceives white lines on her retina—a form of visual tinnitus. The audience was invited into this experience through my movements and storytelling. I embodied how the white lines profoundly affected Sikveland, both structuring and destabilising her reality. During the performance, the audience and I collectively dismantled a white rope structure that had been set up around us, and in this way used our bodies to enact the disorientation and transformation of Sikveland.

– Are you currently working on any performance?

Yes. I have just finished a PhD in artistic research at the Art Academy in Bergen. You are all welcome to the performance, oh sorry, I mean public defence the 29th - on site or on zoom. (Search KMD invite)

Now it’s great to open new directions in the work. Currently I’m developing a performative installation inspired by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas’ archeomythological research on goddess worship from Neolithic Europe. Visualise the voluptuous Venus of Willendorf sculpture, that stuff!! I somehow hope to “time-travel” mythology and ritual actions of goddess worship from our foremothers and activate it today. I think it is about finding an imaginary, a way to respond to an inner inertia, a shock reaction to the environmental/geopolitical situation now. Big words, but - I feel it is how I can respond right now, contribute, by attempting to reinvigorate insanely old practises of connection, imagination and meaning/love.

– What advice would you give to someone who is interested in working with performance?

Find a community to explore it with. Friends, people you resonate with, a LARPing community, music community, art community, a school - or Performance Art Bergen!! Experiment a lot. Fail a lot.

– Can you give us a few names of performance artists who inspire you?

Laurie Anderson, Mark Leckey, Tori Wrånes, Rita Marhaug, Monster Chetwynd, Sara Gebran, Nicola Gunn, Donna Haraways’ talks are wonderfully performative!