1. – 10. June 2023
The Grey Hall (Den Grå Hal)
Refshalevej 2, Christiania, 1436 Copenhagen, Denmark
AMDUAT. An oxygen machine is performed in Danish on June 1., 2., 3., 6. and 7.
and in English on June 8., 9. and 10.
1. – 12. June 2021
Teater Republique, Copenhagen, Denmark
♥♥♥♥♥
Politiken, 2021
★★★★★★
Kulturkupeen, 2021
★★★★★★
Sceneblog, 2021
Amduat. An oxygen machine overwhelms us with its precision, which grips and holds the viewer with the same inexorability as the oxygen machine that lies over the terminal patient’s face in the bed in front of us.
Information, 2021
★★★★★Frederiksborg Amts Avis, 2021
★★★★Kristeligt Dagblad, 2021
★★★★★Ungt Teaterblod, 2021
Photos by Karoline Lieberkind
Køb digt romanen Amduat. En Iltmaskine af Harald Voetmann
On not dying alone
Do you know where you are? I’m home. I’m at Bøgebakken. No dad, you’re at Holbæk Hospital.
You have a serious pneumonia. And you probably
had another stroke. Is that you?
It’s so good to see you. Is that your mother walking
out there? No, mum has been dead for 25 years now
It’s an oxygen mask, it’s to help you
breathe. No, you have to keep it on, dad.
Hold on to my hand or to the bedrail.
Everybody is here.
Hotel Pro Forma re-stages the huge success and critically acclaimed performance AMDUAT. An oxygen machine from 2021, based on Harald Voetmann’s book with the same title.
It takes place in The Grey Hall (Den Grå Hal) from June 1 – 10, 2023 during CPH STAGE with special support from CPH STAGE, Augustinus Fonden, Knud Højgaards Fond, William Demant Fondet and Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond.
AMDUAT. An Oxygen Machine is curated by and presented in collaboration with CPH STAGE.
AMDUAT. An oxygen machine is a visually compelling performance with newly composed, live music, ambient sound-landscapes, video art, lighting and performance – all on a rarely-seen 28-metre stage.
Like Harald Voetmann’s book, the performance is an amalgam of the story of a man dying at Holbæk hospital and the journey of the Egyptian sun-god through the land of the dead at night. Amduat means ‘that which exists in the underworld’ and is the name of the ancient Egyptian understanding of the land of the dead.
Music and sound-images are the work of the composers Hari Shankar Kishore and Marie Højlund. On stage, Hari Shankar Kishore creates rhythmic sound narratives by blending electronic music with authentic present-day Egyptian music of choirs, voices and sound-images from Egyptian street life. The rhythmic music is interrupted and framed by ambient sound landscapes created by the composer and sound-artist Marie Højlund from her research into auditive hospital environments.
About letting go of life
With AMDUAT. An oxygen machine, Hotel Pro Forma focuses on the theme of life’s basic conditions and of letting go of life, but also on how myths can have a softening effect on taboo and difficult issues. Kirsten Dehlholm says the following about this:
“If the process of dying which is described in AMDUAT. An oxygen machine were to be told clinically and soberly, it would be exceedingly grim and sad. But precisely with the vitality of Harald Voetmann’s language and his use of the interweaving with Egyptian mythology and an ancient-Egyptian understanding of the land of the dead something fantastic happens. The story produces strongly evocative and highly visual universes, and the dying process is thus charged at the same time with black humour, and becomes absurd, sensual and highly present.“
Photos by Ditte Valente
Prologue
What is my name? the building says
Your name is pulmonary ward
Your name is Gastro SurgicalWhat is my name? says the room
Your name is room 4
Your name is room 2What is my name? says the patient
Your name is UnreasonableA haze of blood vessels wheezing in the bed
What is my name? says the be
discarded from central stockWhat is my name? says the diagnosis
known among the dead
Costume design: Kit Wan
"Each of the six dancers (in Amduat. An Oxygen Machine, red.) interpret the different hours of the sun. To coordinate the outfits, we work with alot of different shapes of circles, to represent the change of time in the underworld. By printing different gradient colors, we capture the grading of colors and the change of the color palette of the sun and how sun light reflects with the enviornment.
So in the first hour you see more like a full circle, and then when the sun goes down more in the later hours, you see the shape of the circle being deformed."
Music: Hari Shankar Kishore & Abdullah Miniawy
Kirsten Dehlholm:
What words are you singing?Abdullah Miniawy:
It is the language before Arabic. In Arabic culture it is the language to communicate to energy, ghosts or after life. These are just a few sounds out of it. I do not know the language. There are many quotations that I cannot understand, but I picked some letters out of it and I wrote this. And then we (Abdullah and Hari, red.) were syncing it together and it was really nice. It is more like bell sounds.Kirsten Dehlholm:
Like a secret language?Abdullah Miniawy:
Yes kind of. They say it is the language that Adam and Eve was speaking. This is the legend.
Sound design: Marie Højlund
"It is very thoughtful how many people die in hospital today and thus die in an environment where they have never lived neither physically nor soundly. In the hospital you are completely deprived of your own and accustomed sound environment and instead you are just as thrown into a place where tranquility and peace are sought and where alienating sounds easily penetrate. In terms of sound, staying in a hospital can be very sensual and very overwhelming and of course especially if you are diffuse.
So in my composition Amduat an oxygen machine, then I will try to make sense of the hospital as a sound place. A place where sounds from the bed you are staying in are very present."
Mask design: Marie Dahl
"I create a structure of common netting, which I cover in duct tape. When it is done, I use a material named worbla. It is termoplastic that is heated and when it gets cold again, it becomes stiff and gets a nice surface.
When the masks have been created, the last phase is to decorate and paint them, and add the Egyptian wigs, which we are sewing."
Video design: Magnus Pind
"We are making video projections for a stage that is 28 meters wide and 3 meters tall. And the projections depict the 12 hours of the ancient Amduat story. So we are making 12 different scenarios which these figures move through.
In my work I spend a lot of time researching together with Jon and Kirsten (directors), the figures and visual language of these old stories. I spend a lot of time looking in libraries, finding old original materials which I then manipulate, so that it becomes something else."
THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND BEHIND THE SCENES
In connection with AMDUAT. An Oxygen Machine Hotel Pro Forma has developed a video campaign divided into two: THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH and BEHIND THE SCENES.
In THOUGHTS ABOUT DEATH, several ambassadors express themselves about death in different ways and in BEHIND THE SCENES we go behind Hotel Pro Forma's creative development of the performance. Watch all the videos in the link below.
AMDUAT / VIDEO CHANNEL – watch all videos here
