Lin Hixson & Matthew Goulish | 15.12.2020
At 7PM on Friday, February 22nd, 2019, we attended the performance of Nature Theatre of Oblivia at Link’s Hall in Chicago. Of all the things we could say about this performance, we will say only two.
First, the performance began with the softest imaginable light. It rose to illuminate …
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Saara Moisio | 15.12.2020
Tiedättekö sen tunteen, joka tulee, kun istuu katsomossa ja odottaa esiintyjiä saapuvaksi? Tai katsoo esiintyjiä ja odottaa mitä he alkavat tehdä? Sitä yrittää pitää itsensä mahdollisimman avoimena kohtaamaan sen mitä tulee. Sitä haluaa kohdata jotain uutta ja tuntematonta luottaen, että on itse turvassa. Kun esitys alkaa, ensimmäiset minuutit …
>>>Annika Tudeer | 15.12.2020
Oh these Christmas times. There is so much to do, all these things to prepare. This year I will make an even bigger gingerbread house.
Gretel Johansson took another sip of her morning coffee, wrinkled her forehead and started to plan. Her oven was a regular sized oven, which meant that the house that …
>>>Saga Korkeamäki ja Marie Bergholm tekivät yhdessä podcastin aiheesta tuntemattoman kohtaaminen. Podcastissa he …
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Christmas is soon here! It comes every year and it’s always pretty much the same; spending time together with the family, eating (too)well, decorating the house and the christmas tree, kids waiting for Santa to come, you name it. Christmas is repetitive and we love that repetition, we love to do the same things from year to year and that’s good.
>>> Mark Harvey | 15.11.2020
Dear Oblivia,
It’s three years to the day since our time together.
I enter the big old industrial building, hang my coat up, take my shoes off and walk into the studio with Oblivia. Tracksuit on, ready for action. Ready for our experiments. Ready for the next two weeks. Who knows what will happen.
‘Ready, go!’
I …
>>>Bryan Saner | 15.11.2020
ALL IS MATERIAL
The material world begins with my body.
I am matter. I am material. It is a substance that perceives itself.
This body is how I experience the material world. It’s a magnet for connecting to otherness – other bodies, thoughts, viruses, experiences, places, and times.
This body is material for making and grasping …
>>>Heidi Backström | 15.11.2020
– 46 things I’ve learnt by watching Oblivia’s performances, talking with the group and working with them
Lesson 1: You are allowed to laugh as much as you want to (as a spectator in a performance).
Lesson 2: (As a spectator) you don’t need to understand or rationalize everything that happens on stage.
Lesson …
>>>Tua Helve | 15.11.2020
February
We celebrate at Theater Rampe in Stuttgart, Germany. We celebrate my birthday and we celebrate our magnificent new work, the music theatre performance Verdrängen Verdrängen Verdrängen that has been created in collaboration with Yiran Zhao, our new partner. We celebrate the premiere at the ECLAT Festival on 7 February from wherever …
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Just like everyone else, Oblivia too is thinking hard about its off stage presence. Color coordination is one important means to achieve this and it is not unimportant how the backstage snack buffet looks. These high visual standards are of course applied in all digital material Oblivia is producing. Besides on stage performances Oblivia has been broadening its presence through symposiums, workshops, photo exhibitions, AR experiences, not to forget all the rest more or less realistic side projects waiting to be launched!
>>> Oblivia in conversation with N. Andrew Walsh | 17.10.2020
This last February, Oblivia performed “Verdrängen, Verdrängen, Verdrängen,” a collaboration between the theater group and composer Yiran Zhao, at the Stuttgart ECLAT festival for new music. This was the first time the group had worked with a composer to produce one of their performance events—it’s misleading to call them “theater pieces,” as …
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[for an english version, see below]
Janne Saarakkala | 20.09.2020
Tiedän, että olet ryhmä, koostut useista taiteilijoista, pysyvistä ja vierailevista, mutta tässä fanikirjeessä otan vapauden puhutella sinua yksikön ensimmäisessä persoonassa.
”Oblivia toteutti 5.-10.3. live-installaation Oblivia’s Room, josta oli esityksiä päivittäin klo 18 ja 20. Teemana huoneet ja mitä niissä tehdään. Esitys oli jatkoa viimesyksyiseen You Can Call Me Art …
>>>Annika Tudeer | 20.9.2020
I understand the need to shy away from the word collective as in the article of Bojana Cvejic from 2004. Some curators had perhaps lived in a collective, and felt the smell of lentil soup and the sight of chore lists passing by like a not all together pleasant memory of something …
>>>Meri Ekola | 20.9.2020
The black box setting has been the context where the work has been created during my time in Oblivia. I have heard about the early adventures in hangars and other alternative spaces to create performances in the group’s history but never participated in them. “There you get so much for free”, as Annika would …
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What if Oblivia’s next performance would be created in a bouncy castle? These are some of the wonderful locations for the future we have scouted on our trips. Quite the opposite from where we usually picture our performances. After all these years there are times when one feels that some colour and softness is greatly needed to counterbalance the work in a black box!
>>> Anna-Maija Terävä | 15.8.2020
Introduction
In this text I will try and describe some elements of improvisation in Oblivia. I don’t try to grab on improvisation as an art form or sort out different performance practices related to for example dance or theater improvisation. I will rather try and illuminate some perspectives on improvisation that have become important for me when …
>>>Timo Fredriksson | 15.8.2020
Bem, Bam, Bim and Bom have decided to try out Oblivias Do What You Saw method (from now on referred to as DWYS) using Oblivias DWYS manual as reference (currently out of print). Let’s see how they are going to go about it!
Getting ready
The purely material requirements for DWYS are not that many. First of all they need …
>>>In this about 7 minute video Oblivia members demonstrate how to do Do What You Saw, in a nutshell. Do What You Saw (DWYS) is Oblivia’s group practise for creating material for performances.
>>>Anna-Maija Terävä Obliviasta ja tanssitaiteilija Pia Lindy keskustelevat improvisaatiosta osana teosten tekoprosessia ja improvisaation esittämisestä.
>>>After a hot and sunny summer it’s time to enter the cool and dark black box and start warming up the new season. Recollecting the work happens gradually. Sometimes memory does tricks to us as it did to Annika while working on SuperB in august 2013 at Avantgarden in Trondheim.
>>>Song and lyrics by Alice Ferl, sound design by Yiran Zhao. Trust Song is part of Trust Play by Oblivia.
>>>Text by Anna-Maija Terävä. Performed by Timo Fredriksson and Anna-Maija Terävä, narrator Annika Tudeer. On Trust, Tiger and Turtle is part of Trust Play by Oblivia.
>>>by Oblivia
PROLOGUE
Beaver & Bear
text by Meri Ekola and Tua Helve
performed by Alice Ferl and Stine Hertel, narrator Marty Berowski
…
>>>Felizitas Stilleke | 19.6.2020
Thinking is there to push!
This works best when I trust my opponent or my fellow thinker and when I know where the bruises are lurking and and when the offence is deliberate and asked for.
When in a shared, open situation that allows thinking to happen, I extend the limits of my trust to infinity.
Trust becomes …
>>>Ilia Papatheodorou from She She Pop (D) in conversation with Annika Tudeer in a podcast about trust, age, economy, collectivity, success, fathers, mothers and much more. Recorded in June, 2020.
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