On a glorious sunny day in Oslo with sunworshippers festooning the marble terraces of the Opera House it seemed rather a pity to be going indoors to visit Jo Strømgren Kompani in The Basement. However, it didn’t disappoint as four feisty women celebrated the eternal female in a dance/theatre production of typical eccentric humour from Strømgren, currently also house choreographer at the Norwegian National Ballet.
There are facts: either you are dead, or you aren’t. Not so for Strømgren. In the gloomy basement there is a pathologist, of sorts, somewhat in charge, and there are three bodies. It’s the standard drill. She dons coat and plastic gloves, removes the sheet from the body, checks the foot, the pulse and swats the bare bottom for good measure. Registering no signs of life, she heads to the computer to log her post-mortem report as a bare arm slips from the gurney. As the body climbs down and stumbles back to life, the pathologist hurriedly wraps a white coat over her. The other bodies join the party in comic moves of rubber-boned disjointedness, descending into anarchy as they finally coordinate their dancers’ limbs and proceed to destroy the office like manic Coppélia dolls (a few decades back Strømgren choreographed a riotous Coppélia).
The Basement is the sequel to The Loft (2022) which presented the theme of love between women. This time Strømgren pays tribute to women throughout history, so often subjected to unequal treatment, early deaths and long forgotten, but now remembered in a pageant of hallucinations. The four dancers: Henriette Hamli, Nora Svendsgård, Anna Benedicte Andresen and Malika Berney are versatile shape shifters and remarkable performers who reincarnate at will, fight, love and live for the moment.
The black comedy opening sets the tone. There are hints of a dystopian outside world as we are told a men’s party is continuing above. The work opens with disturbing sounds of violence, the door opens and light streams in briefly before it slams shut. The pathologist who hurtles in is brandishing a gun then, realising she has no need for it, pops it on a shelf. When the women decide to leave the space, dancing through the doorway in leggings and bra tops they are later unceremoniously thrust back, now wrapped in straight-jackets but a little ingenuity serves to get the bonds swiftly untied.
The race through female history in just over an hour covers a variety of situations. Banging on the door precedes a figure roughly rolled in. Her head is in a sack and rejected by the others she is kicked around and treated roughly before the sack is removed. The scene changes to a golden glow, the tables are laid out like a religious offering hinting at martyrdom and female saints. The music, by Bergmund Waal Skaslien, echoes the liturgical theme accompanying a duet danced on the gurneys. Returning in suits the women are now seated round a board room table and armed with weapons. Their male attire signals a male solution and fighting breaks out. It’s fast and furious and soon dissolved.
This is a work to celebrate girl power and expressed through vibrant dance in an extensive range of costumes. Designer, Bregje van Balen has a field day as dancers reincarnate in floral chiffon for a party, suits for the office and a variety of dance and day wear. The dance space is dissected by a curtain of plastic strips offering two distinct playing areas which respond to different lighting states. The curtain is as permeable as the barrier between the quick and the dead and is most effectively used to add a further dimension to the choreography notable when dancers in the rear area are lit to reveal full colour of the costumes while those in the foreground became silhouettes.
In the final moment it is the pathologist who puts on a hospital gown and lies on the gurney in the manner of the corpse. The door opens but no-one enters. The lights fade hinting at a possible rerun or perhaps a new story and a better future for females. Strømgren’s choreography is remarkably eloquent with emotionally charged movement in a fast-paced performance with a serious message.
Maggie's trip was paid for by Norwegian National Opera & Ballet
