Rehearsals in Asker

We are working in the old trasformer house next to Asker Station and now the weather has turned very cold, today it was -10 outside.

We have been working on the music for the show, singing and playing some great songs from the sea.

Today we worked on the story of Sandsundvar - the island that sank into the sea.

We have also been trying out some ideas for the start of the show and finding ways to tell our own story, about the journey on the CMA-CGM Fort St Louis

We experimented with some ways to get Kieran very wet and miserable.

This is Sjon (the writer from Iceland) helping Kieran to explore the experience of an Atlantic storm...

This post was created by Alex Byrne - Artistic Director of NIE.

The Deserted Island

We picked up our work on Tales From a Sea Journey with a week of further development on a deserted island in the Oslo Fjord, it was very beautiful but very very cold...

The view was amazing and we were surrounded by water, and boats, I went to the shops in a small boat with Kienran, we bought wine and bread and milk. We also saw the Oslo to Germany car ferry.

Dafne Prize for MLWD in Kristiansand

NIE focussed on Norway after the fantastic performances of Tales from the Middle of Town in Peterborough UK. Some of the actors went from Peterborough straight into the Østfold school tour of Everything Falls Apart. Starting with a camera crew for an item on Norwegian NRK TV, followed by a radio interview the next day. It were early mornings for everyone to get to the venues on time, but the school children very much enjoy Everything Falls Apart, because they can go around the room and explore every little set and every little detail of the show from their own point of view. Also, as you can see in the previous post, some experimental ways to relax and rest were discovered. We played in Fredrikstad, Halden and Moss before driving the van with the set to the coastal town of Kristiansand for the next series of performances. After setting up and rehearsing at Agder Theatre, it was definitely time for a walk along the Fish Market, which was closed. We did get to see the makings of the new Agder Theatre though.

The Assitej Theatre Festival for Children and Youth programmed both Everything Falls Apart (3x) and My Life with the Dogs (2x). I came in on Friday 29 October, in the middle of preparations for My Life with the Dogs. The show hadn´t been played since May 2010 in Recklinghausen Germany, and this time even two of the actors hadn´t played it for almost a year. So some rehearsals were in place. It was weird setting up, warming up, do a run thru and not play on Friday evening. All the more energy for the 2 performances on Saturday.

And it paid off: we won the Assitej Festival Dafne Prize with My Life with the Dogs! NIE won the Dafne Prize before, in 2004 for Past Half Remembered. The timing was brilliant, as this was handed out to us in the festival cafe full of dressed up young people during a Halloween party. Not a coincidence.

Alex and Kjell are off to Trondheim now, for some serious workshopping on 3 and 4 November in AvantGarden.

Written by Marlou Beulens, producer at NIE.