Blood club #5

Using our own stories as a starting point, Blood Club #5 lets fly at one of the greatest taboos in society’s relationship to all things Sami: the relationship to alcohol.

This is the story of liquor’s role in the colonisation of Sápmi. It’s the certainty in a thousand North-Norwegian sketches about drunken, joiking Sami; it’s our own soaked forefathers and mothers, and anxieties about hereditary dependence. It is also the joy of community, the safe spaces which emerge where intoxication is allowed, where people open up and raise their voices and glasses to celebrate each other, the dance, the song and the joik, where the proud and vulnerable mix until we’re not quite sure which is which and whether or not it’s even important.

We want to process shame, whether it’s the shame of belonging to the minority, or the majority, or representing the state – the shame too of being cowardly, prejudiced, oppressing or oppressed. We wish to give the audience the experience that we no longer need to be locked together in shame. There is room for manoeuvre, even in the complex, deeply personal issues we raise.

Maybe you’ll get the answer you need from the drunken oracle, maybe you can complain about the legacy of liquor, maybe a joik comes over you, maybe you sacrifice blood and alcohol, maybe you go home from the party with new shoes.

At Blood Club #5 we want to create an evening for intoxication, with or without alcohol in the blood! An informal celebration of each other and blood and genes and where we come from and where we’re going.

Gathered here for marking and market
It runs and drips from the ears and heart
Ancient tracks, a club and a flock, Varra čoahke,
Land and water, contempt and shame, yeah fuck that, blood’s running in my veins.
Sideways glances, DNA’s chances, yeah fuck that,
Blood’s running in your veins.

Wolves take deer that run with no flock
Genealogies close with leaden padlock
Are you soundless lightning, a speechless husk
It’s fine you’re a Finn but are you Sami enough?
Love who you are
But who the fuck’s that?
Is your family tree a genius act?
The voice that laughed, the hands that struck.

Reviews of Blood Club #5

“With the music, Solberg’s shaman-like presentation and crowberry potion, with the conversations between people and the great, concluding blood-ritual around the bonfire, Ferske Scener creates a wholly unique artistic arena. An arena which is affecting on a deeply human, but also political level. And for which there is a very great need. In a time when ‘us’ and ‘them’ have assumed a position that should scare us all.”

Anki Gerhardsen – Nordlys

“The nearly three hours flew by, and suddenly it was over. I stood there, full of impressions and at a loss for words. ‘Botany is what flowers dread the most,’ wrote Nordahl Grieg, and it feels relevant when I try to convey in words the loving tumult that Blodklubb orchestrated. Perhaps it’s precisely because one cannot pinpoint where art ends and life begins, between chance and dramaturgy, that Blodklubb works so damn well. Through an experimental, playful, and curious approach to the performing arts as a social arena, they create an impactful platform and a safe space. And from here, they manage to address the nuances of complex questions without being preachy or relying on clearly biased positions. The event was sold out and quite packed, but I wish there were even more of us and that it lasted even longer.”

Espen Johansen for the online arts-magazine Hakapik