"In this camp it does not help to have blue eyes."
(Newspaper Aftenposten about the internment camp for Norwegian women who had love affairs with German soldiers, 1945.)
The documentary theatre installation Tyskerjenter premiered in 2008 on the Island Hovedøya in the Oslo fjord, where an internment camp for so-called ‘tyskertøs’ was situated after the 2nd World War. 'Tyskertøs' ("German sluts) were women who had intimate relations with German soldiers during the occupation. In the camp the inmates were tested for venereal disease, intelligence and mental disorders. “Could she inherit severe psychological defects to her offspring?” is one the archived questions of a doctors’ questionnaire of the camp. The place itself keeps silent. Grass has grown over the place where the barracks used to be. Tyskerjenter explores the void in the archive, and the interplay between archive and bodies, memory and site.
In TYSKERJENTER the visitor walks through the installation room like through a brain. Like memories, traces of the past are fragmented in the space. The audience member himself becomes the ‘memorizer’ connecting the information. She is physically confronted with a disturbing incoherence that manifests itself in the space. Performance setting is Lindøysundmagasinet on Hovedøya, a building used as storage for explosives and later for files of the 2nd world war. Texts stored in archives is used as text material: statistics of the camp, police reports, intelligence tests and a Norwegian language guide of a Wehrmacht-soldier.
Concept, realization, dramaturgy: VOLUMEN EXPRESS and friends, Veronika Bökelmann, Séverine Urwyler. Concept consulting: Anett Vietzke. Dramaturgical consulting: Demian Marco Vitanza, Camilla Eeg. Performer: Elisabet Hagi Aars, Zoé Alibert, Veronika Bökelmann, Fernanda Branco, Anders Høgli, Christina Nikolaisen, Anne Synnøve Skogstad, Anne Storberget, Séverine Urwyler, Demian Marco Vitanza. Choreografy: Zoé Alibert. Voice: Huy le Vo. Sounddesign: Per Platou. Lightdesign: Susanne Irene Fjørtoft. Stage design assistance: Morten Haugmo, Daniel Schütz. Video documentation: Anett Vietzke. Foto documentation: John Hugh. Videoanimation: Ignas Krunglevicius. Fotos for Karaoke-video: Dieter Bökelmann. Flyer / Poster: Dominik Huber, Tobias Spichtig. Vol Ex in Co-Production with: Stefan Stave, Last Ink Company. The project was kindly supported by Norsk Kulturråd, Goethe Institut, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK and Fritt Ord.
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| Tyskerjenter - Field Markings designates the ground floor of the former barracks of the interment camp for war-brides on Hovedøya Island. |
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Performance setting: Lindøysundmagasinet, Hovedøya. |
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"It has been a disturbing experience to be confronted with a body in this way: anonymously and stored away. She is a number in the statistic and yet a living, breathing body."
(Kristian Skylstad in Kunstkritikk.no)
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| Audience in Tyskerjenter |
