HIGHWAY HYPNOSIS #1

​

Reviews:

«Highway Hypnosis» mixes art forms and creates a theatre where digital forms of communication has replaced traditional acting» BA, Olav Gorseth

«In a time were we increasingly relate to each other using so called social media it makes sense to use the same means on stage. A singer/actor present via Skype, two of the actors projected on big canvas. Only one of them physically present among the audience sitting on the floor. » BA Olav Gorseth

«Tore Vagn Lid presents in Highway Hypnosis a theatre where light, sound an video-recordings steps up from being mere scenography to become lead “actors”. » Ba Olav Gorseth

«It is experimental, but at the same time recognizable. Diverse and unexpected as life itself» BA Olav Gorseth

​

Between Rooms (introduction)

Through the walls of a hotel room: 

Faint voices, sudden thumping, screams, silence, more silence, laughter. Are they making love in there? Do they hit each other, who are they and what are they?  

​

Through the walls of another hotel room (the room next door?): 

A pianist is practicing. Over and over again; Puccinis unfinished opera, Turandot. The adventurous, many would say his unsuccessful opera. Why is he practicing just this one tonight? And who is he talking to? Is he really alone in there? What is he preparing? And for how long will he be bothering his neighbour? 

​

Whoever stayed at a hotel, and especially at the les luxurious, knows what could lie between the rooms: Voices mixed together, cries from one room meets the moaning from another; a loud party penetrates the plaster wall and meets the quiet seriousness – where it was never invited; the loneliness mutually acknowledged by intense intimacy. Someone's redemption meets the excitement of others. Laughter and scream merge in to each other. Some mourns while others enjoy themselves. Montages in sex and sorrow, involuntarily, they accompany each other, and involuntarily they create new stories.

For in between a room and another room one will all ways find the place where the hotel tells its`s story as fragments. And whoever has lied down and listened for a while, knows that these stories all ways will be our own stories; for the hotel never speaks directly to us, and it doesn`t give us well-formed sentences or rounded plots. From bits and fragments, signs and rhythms, it is up to the guest alone to puzzle together the whole. And as each guest checks in, and as she starts interpreting, new meanings will emerge. For the sounds between the rooms, in themselves, has nothing to do with each other, right? Or is that exactly what they have?

"To try to understand how you usually think or relate to things that are new or ambiguous, I will now show you some pictures. They are all made from ink, folded and opened up again so it has become a pattern. Now, I want you to tell me what you think they could look like, remind you of, or make you think of. And there is no such thing as a right or a wrong answer. Just tell me what you think they could look like, resemble or make you think of. This is card number one."

In 1921, the same year as Puccini starts the work on his unfinished opera, a young Swiss psychiatrist holds up ten small cards for his patients. Ten cards, put in a strict order, following a carefully crafted out procedure. They are all made of ink, folded and opened up again for strange patterns and colour combinations to appear. An obscure test that thorough the years has been loved and hated – and loved and hated again. But has it anything to do with theatre? And what about the Highway Hypnosis syndrome, first described in 1921, where the driver – with eyes fixated on a single spot – enters a trance like stat of awake sleep?

The answers might be there

Between the people

Between the rooms

Larvatus prodeo

Tore Vagn Lid

Audio-visual concept, text, director: Tore Vagn Lid

Scenography: Mari Lothrington Light- and video installations: Birk Nygaard Costumes: Matilda Søderling Film / Video: Kyrre Bjørkaas, Thore Lindhardt Garberg, Tor Christian Bleikli, Tore Vagn Lid. Sound design: Mathias Grønsdal, Jan Nedbal, Morten Skage, Tore Vagn Lid. Technician: Mathias Grønsdal. 

Cast, Episode #1:

Piano: Thorleif Julius Torgersen Song: Hanne Korsbrekke Askeland Actors: Kjersti Aas Stenby, Tor Chrsitian F. Bleikli, Sarah Mc Donald (voice), Tarjei Westby (Voice)

Material:

Giacomo Puccini, Turandot

Toyota Rav 4 (2003)

Statens Vegvesen

Rorschach Ink Blot Test

Research-team:

Per Vidar Gornitzka Anfinnsen, Lina Hindrum, Karin Margrethe Klouman, Arturo Tovar, Tora Troe Gudmundsen, Signe Gerda Landfald, Karl Flymann, Fredrik Staum Floen, Jan Nedbal.

Co-producers and partners:

Produced by Transiteatret-Bergen and developed in collaboration with Artistic research program (KhiO) and Dramatikkens Hus. Supported by: Norsk Kulturråd, Bergen Kommune, Hordaland Fylkeskommune og Artistic reserach program(PUK), Dramatikkens Hus.