A great day in total darkness

Iva phoned me yesterday to discuss some future things, and while we were talking she said that the culture contact for the school we were going to today said we could have as much darkness as we wanted.
I said I'd have all of it.

For those of you who are not familiar with the kind of touring we are doing right now: we play in schools. Usually in gyms. And gyms usually have a strip of windows just below the ceiling. They are usually impossible to reach and sometimes there are no blinds.
Since it's harder to create the magic and illusion of theatre in broad daylight, we always ask schools to come up with something. Sometimes they stick black binliners along the windows, sometimes they attach an enormous tarpaulin to the roof.
But Norwegian sunlight is very bright, and it is never easy to make it pitchblack.

But some schools have gyms without windows. That's where we were today. The main thing the darkness does is make it easier for the children to focus. And to imagine they're not in their gym.


In the meanwhile Kjell is looking for a new van. If all goes well, I'll be driving a new van to Germany on Saturday, and from there I will take it to Graz in February. We will be bringing a lot of stuff to Graz, and all that stuff doesn't fit in our current van (which died a few months ago anyway, so that was no option).

The other recurring issue is the chairs for Everything Falls Apart. Due to lack of van-space, we've been buying them all over Europe.
Until....
Ikea stopped producing them. Iva then sourced a different type of chair for the shows we did in Czech Republic. They were quite similar, but not the same.
Today I found out that our trusted Oddvars are back in stock. So I'll pick up a few extra on the way to Graz.

The sweet smell of paper

This weekend we went to the top of the mountain overlooking Oslo's fjord. It was absolutely stunning.

Anna and Lenka went sledging. I passed, as I didn't have waterproof trousers and I had images of getting soaking wet from the snow and then freezing to death (it was still -20°).

This week we are playing in 5 different schools in Moss. Moss stinks.
You might think this is a very offensive thing to say, but it's true. Moss has a big paper factory, and it smells of... something like sulfur mixed with something else.
I love books and paper, but that smell sort of puts me off a bit. I had no idea producing paper caused this type of sensory assault.

It is getting warmer now. Today it was only -4°. The snow is melting and turning into black slush.
But we don't let that get to us. It's still great fun playing to smaller kids.

Norwegian wildlife

This morning we saw a herd of...

I say reindeer, Anna says moose.
There is no evidence. No pictures.

I was driving, that's my excuse.