Oslo Kommune presents herStay E-W-I-G at Earth Day 28th of March. Time: 20 – 20.25. Place: Borggården, Oslo Rådhus

herStay E-W-I-G- * Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan.

herStay EWIG is initiated and developed since 2007, and supported financially by Kulturrådet in November 2007, and again in 2008. The project was invited by Oslo Open, in July 2008. herStay EWIG is now on international touring. All rights belongs to herStay.

Monica Emilie Herstad´s performance EWIG. 1st Edition: 6 performances with herStay for 7 performers.

Recent herStay performance EWIG: September 26th and October 2nd, both evenings at 8, 9 and 10 pm in Oslo, at Grev Wedelspl 1, Myntgt./ Glacisgt./ Kirkegt., beside Losjen, special event on Kulturnatt Oslo/ Oslo Open 2008.

An expert comment on Monica Emilie Herstad´s work EWIG recently: ”- I was first very interested by the use of the space. In a parc of the popular part of the city, which is usually a place of transition and of transaction, a place of dealing and prostitution as well of wandering, (which remind me somehow on the dramaturgy of B. M Koltès theater plays, like the “Dans la solitude des champs de coton”) there were placed some figures of dancers. I use the term figure on purpose: they were very hieratics and almost abstracts because of the quality of their concentration, the purity of the body and the sharp relation they had together. Through the figures of the dancers, the urban space was saying something else. “I” was not seeing something new, but the Thing, the urban space was watching me differently. As Bergson says “quand les artistes regardent une chose, ils la voient pour elle, et non pour eux.” (When the artists look at one thing, they see it for itself, and not for themselves.” It can apply to what you have done. To say it shortly and in other words, in that “corrupted” urban space, this dance provide a certain “transcendance”, not in a mystic way, but like a body before the body and a landscape before the landscape. Somehow, an idea of “Ewig”. – In the same order of idea, what was very sharp was the relation between reality and fiction created by the performance, which allow a very original “friction” of those two elements. The border of the stage were structured by the architectural space, and eventhough the performance occured for the main part in an “allée” of the parc, under trees, its narrative power spreads out. The public, the people passing by, the light of the street lamps and windows, the different type of stones used for the building around, the sounds (very particular hybridation between the “music” of the performance and the everyday life sounds : cars, wind, muffling voices) were as if engulfed by the artistic performance. Here, a soldier walking by in his costume, going out of the military barrack close by, suddenly slow down his step, his body became more “here”, present, he was interpreted somehow by what was happening. At every external event the spectator was lead to new range of associations, of interpretations. – What was finally very beautiful was the ending, when those figures went out of the “imaginary circle” and continue their walk for two hundred meters until they turn at the angle of a building. I was focusing my attention on something which was now in a distance, changing my position, changing the perception. So, the vanishing of those figures takes some time, eventhough the performance was short it already triggers some remembering of them, of who they were when standing in front of me, and I felt that mixed feeling of loss when they disappeared. I know that a performance is good when analysing its effect on me. After seing a (good) film, reading a book, watching dance or theater, the reality has a new density, new order and “correspondances” (to quote the title of the poem of Baudelaire) thanks to this esthetic experiment. That was the case of “Ewig” – Jonathan Chatel, Sorbonne, 2008.

Monica Emilie Herstad: Project, Choreography, Stage, Manuscript, Dance.

Hicham Bouddén: Composition, and dj mix, compilation.

Performers including: Monica Emilie Herstad Maria Ryther Hoem Anne Kathrine Fallmyhr, Beata Kretovicova Idén (Slovakia/ Iceland) Et al. Assistance from Birger Løkeng for hair-styling, and make-up.

All rights reserved herStay.

Financial contributions in part from Norwegian Arts Council, 2007 and Foundation for Performing Artists, Oslo Munincipality 2008, 2009, Oslo Open and Norwegian Arts Council, 2008.

The herStay performance EWIG was related to a special collaboration with fine artists El Parche, in September and October 2008 exclusively, further collaborations TBA.

herStay performance EWIG is performed between trees, in an allés, and sub-relating to architectonic landscapes, everywhere.

herStay E-W-I-G- * Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan.

All rights herStay

• Mer informasjon: http://www.herStay.net
• Billetter: Åpent arrangement