Blood Club #2

About Blood Club #2

Research shows that to create a WE, a THEM is needed, and since Blodklubb is the club for everyone who has blood, it is difficult to find anyone who is outside. The audience was divided into four groups based on height and hair color, and then an attempt was made, with moderate success, to shake these four groups together at the end of the club meeting. The hardcore band ONDT BLOD performed the club song Vara Valvi for the first time.

Reviews

A meeting has been called at “Blodklubb – The Club for Everyone Who Has Blood” on the second floor of the City Bar and Diner in Harstad. The place is crowded when we, the research group, arrive. We end up sitting in different places in the place – on the floor, on a folding chair, on the armrest of a sofa. People are filling up on beer and wine. It is unclear what we are invited to, but it is clear that we should not expect to be served the Sami dish gumbá here; something else is on the menu: Questions of belonging, belonging, unity. On the wall is a large club logo projected onto a screen, where above a large white drop of blood on a blood-red background it says “Est. 2018 / Blodklubb /Vara Valvi”. The club's founders step forward and introduce themselves as "author and Markasami" Sigbjørn Skåden, "Finnish/Norwegian performance artist" Kristina Junttila, "actor and Norwegianized Sea Sami" Bernt Bjørn and "dramaturge and rivgu" [Norwegian woman] Kristin Bjørn. This turns out to be Blodklubb's second gathering, and this time it is visitors to the Northern Norway Festival who are invited to take part in what the club leaders describe as "the hunt for the great WE, where the blood can flow freely through our bodies". But, as the club leaders explain, community can only be created by creating "clear boundaries".

Everyone in the room is therefore asked to cut off a lock of hair and based on the color we are divided into four groups, each with a club leader in charge of the group, who in turn gives rallying speeches to lure more members to their group. (…) It is not the performative implosion of the romantic notion of a large “we” that makes Blodklubb’s performance so important, but rather that the club meeting seems to create a collective space where otherwise individualized frictions and exclusions emerge. Even though we leave the bar speechless, we are unable to let go of what it is we have witnessed. The discomfort remains, as if the sadness that permeated Skåden’s speech now sticks to us in all our differences. As something we must deal with – together. 

-Brit Kvamvig, From the research diary at the Northern Norway Festival, June 29, 2019

I really didn't know what to expect when being directed to the second floor of the city bar in Harstad. I had signed up for Blodklubb and my curiosity was mainly around how this controversial show or gathering around genealogy would play out. As a newcomer to the area I did not have all the references in place but that did not mean I did not understand the methods and the means of this performative community experience. I thought it was daring, playful and edgy. Obviously some of the people in the audience were quite provoked and perhaps rightfully so but Ferske Scener managed to create a space for a truly shared experience, where you were invited to participate in a communal event that left me quite touched and certainly sparked many thoughts both about the artistic approach and about the content. The best experiences I have when proposed with an artistic content is when I see that the artist/s are trying to convey something that is close to them, their hearts and/or convictions and to be allowed to be a part of a meaningful process. All this I did experience that night and I wish for Blodklubb to remain as a search for a meaningful exchange between people of different backgrounds and opinions.

Ragnheiður Skúladóttir
Director of the Northern Norway Festival