Olsens Ballettinstitutt* (The Ballet Institute of Olsen’s)

Olsens Ballettinstitutt* (The Ballet Institute of Olsen’s) is produced by Elin Danielsen Productions. The production is a game with the absurd. Not everybody is allowed to see everything. Where are we? What are we searching for? Who is Olsen? What does the person in question do in a ballet institute?

The frame of the production is a timeless place; it is called the nursery home. This place, with its function as a waiting room, carries along its routines and patterns, a character of a choreographed reality with minimal options for improvisation. The project Olsens Ballettinstitutt consists of 12 participants who in addition to performing their artistic and/or administrative work double as the performers in the production. Two of the performers are children actors aged eight years.

The production Olsens Ballettinstitutt is developed through a series of workshops in which the performers have been assigned different exercises to solve within the venue as well as in public. Every developed action/work stands independently in the room making up a whole with the other events/works.

All the ensemble members have two functions:

1. As helpers or guides to the events in the room.

2. As human installations or time stoppers in the production.

These two functions are related to the superstructure of Olsens Ballettinstitutts and the two main motives: The dement existence during which events and objects aren’t always logically related and the function as a nurse or an assistant in a specific room.

Source: The Norwegian Association of Performing Arts/NAPA, 3.1.2011, http://www.danseogteatersentrum.no/sck/members.shtml?lang=nor&sam=&cat=3&gen=&cou=&cri=&aid=1799&prid=2&act=prod

*Not yet translated into English. The title within parentheses is the Norwegian title's literal meaning.