Blood Club #4

About Blood Club #4

Location: Oslo International Theatre Festival, Black Box Theatre. March 2023

(Ušllu): Ušllu Álbmotgaskasaš Teáhterriemut 2023 – Oslo International Theater Festival 2023 at the Black Box theater is without a doubt the most important of all years of the festival. Maybe the festival should just change its name permanently and become an annual Sami theater festival?

Mention

Blood Club

Blodklubb is a series of performative meetings where the actors and the audience will research the relationship between genetics and culture – with a particular focus on Sami and Norwegian culture. The Blodklubb is led by Sigbjørn Skåden, Bernt Bjørn, Kristin Bjørn and Kristina Junttila. Blodklubb is a series of performative meetings where the actors and the audience will research the relationship between genetics and culture – with a particular focus on Sami and Norwegian culture.

In the theater hall, the audience is seated around large round tables. There is a bar on one short side where we can buy drinks. On the other short wall is the stage where the hard-core band Ondt Blod plays. There is a party atmosphere. And they serve blood club, or gumppus, which is traditional party food from Sigbjørn Skåden's area. A video shows how the blood club leaders take a genetic test – this is the starting point for a personal investigation of where they come from and where they are going. And the audience is involved and invited to find their starting point and thoughts about the way forward.

We are divided into four groups: tall and light, short and light, tall and dark, short and dark. The blood club leaders each have their own group and each represent a northern Norwegian archetype: “The Sami activist” (Sigbjørn Skåden), “The researcher” (Kristina Junttila), “The victim of Norwegianization” (Bernt Bjørn) and “The bearer of Norwegian guilt” (Kristin Bjørn). The audience can migrate to another group if they feel like it. The audience groups are asked to take part in a competition by creating a theatrical piece each that will be judged by a panel of judges consisting of the oldest people in the room. It becomes an exercise in creating something together with people you have never met before or do not have a relationship with. It worked surprisingly well and of course the small and dark ones won the competition by a landslide. In the end, everyone swayed in the dance to the music of Ondt Blod.

Norwegian Shakespeare Journal, Elin Lindberg