Remember when Mimi from RENT held a large performance protest and it was brilliant because we could all see the sense of irony and sarcasm behind it? High North Movement is this without the irony or sarcasm. It is essentially Liv Hanne Haugen performing expressive dance for a political purpose.
But what this purpose was is a question I am still asking myself. It was apparently a protest against the oil companies taking over most of northern Norway, but this was lost over long anecdotes of stories with friends and an excessive description of her Russian sister-in-law.
There is a weird use of entrances and exits and no one turns down the microphone during costume changes so we can here the entire thing through muffles and rumbles.
The first ten minutes of this presentation are given stood behind a lectern and we feel like it is a well-read dissertation on contemporary dance (complete with the degree phrase ‘and I quote’) before Haugen finally emerges from behind her stand and starts to perform movements that lead us to wonder if she’s serious.
She is.
As the accompanying PowerPoint shows us, Haugen is no stranger to dance protests like these and has performed them to bewildered looking politicians and executive directors around the globe. As the power point finally starts to recite a peculiar translation of a poem, it says ‘O Lord’, and by that point I think, ‘you said it sweetheart.’
Eventually she has some interesting experimentation with language and pitch that are worth regaining interest for.
Finally, we are all encouraged to join in as an audience and move together before settling down to some dried fish and in my mind I thought, ‘we are doing the hippy version of the hokey cokey at the most awkward birthday party in the world.’
