Catastrophe

ArtLab #12

2. September 2022

It sails up into the horizon. Approaching. Suddenly it falls in. Sometimes out of the blue. Or it comes imperceptibly telling. Afterwards, everything is different. Broken up. Something is missing. Something has happened. A new context.

Set designer Milja Salovaara, composer Anna Aardalen and actress Ida Løken Valkeapää share a fondness for Tove Jansson and strong ties to Finland. They met in Oslo in March 2020 and decided to do a project based on the short story "Filifjonkan som trodde på katastrofer”. The following day, the authorities implemented measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, "the strongest and most invasive measures we have had in Norway in peacetime."

The project was granted pre-project support by the Arts Council, and has since jumped and danced on the waves. The pre-project now ends with this ArtLab in Tromsø.

The working material is Tove Jansson's short story, which is about the neurotic Filifjonka. She cleans and dusts while she waits for the big disaster. She invites her friend Gafsa to tea. Gafsa believes that she is imagining things and has lost her mind. Then comes the night. And disaster strikes.

The lab is an investigation of "the catastrophic" as form, connected to space.

Where does the catastrophic occur and how can it be expressed? The disastrous in the small and in the big. Crisis as an opportunity for a new beginning. Anxiety as a productive force. We immerse ourselves in broken pieces of the narrative and work with repetitions and tempos, play with different proportions and imbalances, in search of expressions of unease and fear - the essence of horror. A play with an expression where the space, the text and the music have independent voices, and where everything is threatened with disintegration. The whole time with Tove Janssons depended on "catastrophe joy" as a companion.

Catastrophe (from Greek κατά (kata), about, against, at + στροφή (strophe), turning)

Ida Løken Valkeapää is an actress and stage artist based in Tromsø.

Anna Aardalen is a musician and composer, from Finland, based in Oslo.

Milja Salovaara is a scenographer from Finland, based in Oslo.

Maria Oiva is a director and performance artist, and lives in Helsinki.

Jenny Svensson, is a playwright and stage artist from Stockholm, living in Tromsø.

Anna Karoline Bjelvin is an actress and producer from Tromsø. In this context, she is a production assistant and Milja Salovaara's extended arm.

THE CATASTROPHE PROJECT has received support from the Norwegian Arts Council, the Finnish-Norwegian Culture Fund in addition to ArtLab.

Screening Friday 2 September at 9pm, at Small Projects, Grønnegata 23.

The screening takes about 45 minutes, and is followed by a discussion with the public.