ONOMATOPOETIKON / GRØNNE SANDPAPIRKYSS

Writers: Martina Gaux, Marie Hafting 
Performers: Tora Nilsen, Karl FLyman, Erik K. Ebert
Scenographer/director: Susanne Irene Fjørtoft

Performed 2. October 2007 at Det Åpne Teater in Oslo, Norway.

This project was a collaboration between three of the scenography students at Norwegian Theatre Academy and a writers-workshop at Det Åpne Teater (now Dramatikkens Hus) in Oslo where they investigated new methods for writing theatre for children. The idea was to let the space be the initial seed from which the text would grow. It was done in the way that the scenographers each built a model of a space in three stages in time. Then the authors wrote a text inspired from one of these models, and the scenographers created new spaces from the texts they received. Finally acting students were brought into the process and the pieces were directed by the scenographers and performed at Det Åpne Teater in Oslo.

The first model I presented for the authors was a red room with a blended window where a strong, yellow light streamed through. By the next meeting some of the authors had written short texts for my installation and I ended up collaborating with two of the authors, Martina Gaux and Marie Hafting. From their texts I built a new model with lines, layers and green lizards.

This new model inspired a new text from each of the authors. Martina Gaux produced a story about a princess and two princes called ‘Grønne Sandpapirkyss’ (Green Sandpaperkisses) and Marie Hafting made a more surreal story where three characters talked with each other in a more abstract universe called ‘Onomatopoetikon’. These texts formed the foundation for the piece ‘Onomatopoetikon’ which I finally also directed. It was an attempt to fuse the two texts by developing the characters from 'Grønne Sandpapirkyss' and let them do the actions from the text 'Onomatopoetikon'.


Here is a short VIDEO EXCERPT from the final performance at Det Åpne Teater.