Foto: Mattias Edwall
Underart
An ode to what happens after a crash landing. Premiere: 2014.
Underart is based on director Olle Strandberg's own story about a crash. A shattering bang that could have been the end. Instead, it is a restart and a way forward. Underart is a lustful celebration of what happens after a crash landing. To what happens thanks to a crash landing.
Olle Strandberg has a background in acrobatics and juggling. In December 2005 he broke his neck doing a triple somersault and was paralyzed from the neck down. Olle's latest production, Underart, is based on his own story, but is not an exact staging of any precise course of events. Underart is about the events that are set in motion by a crash, and about the forces that move you forward afterward. Underart is nothing less than an earnest ode to crash landings. And to the glorious feeling of making your way back.
Seven artists, all with their own relation to the crash, combine balancing acts, acrobatics and intense coffee breaks to the soundtrack of specially composed live music. Each inspired by their own and one another's crash landings, the performers discover new, unexpected and joyful ways of exploring failure.
The story of my crash is not entirely unique, but it remains my most important story. It has shaped me and been my tinnitus when I have tried to create anything else. To base a performance on it has been like throwing yourself into a cliché where you are completely exposed in the middle of an era when there are so many important issues to talk about. At the same time this has nothing to do with selffulfillment, it is about candidly sharing imperfections and laying bare the part of me that needed help.
Olle Strandberg
Wonderful to behold. /.../ hailed by the audience as one of the worlds nine wonders.
Dagens Nyheter
... charm, heart and warmth /.../With humour and poetry they talk about the things we all think about – love, loneliness, joy and sorrow . /
SVT (Swedish Television)
The result is a beautiful piece of contemporary circus poetry at its best: wistful and comical at the same time. A full body-experience that reaches deep into the heart ...
SVD
Ensemble & Crew
UnderArt på Polo Circo
Ensemble
Methinee Wongtrakoon
Alexander Dam
Iris Pelz
Christopher Schlunk
Matias Salmenaho
Anna Ahnlund och Andreas Tengblad (Ripple & Murmur)Creative Team
Directed and conceived by – Olle Strandberg
Composers – Andreas Tengblad and Anna Ahnlund / Ripple & Murmur
Set and costume design – Katarina Wiklund and Susanna Wiklund
Lighting design – Jenny André
Lighting design in Berlin – Antti Helminen