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AMDUAT. AN OXYGEN MACHINE 2021

Dansk

AMDUAT

An Oxygen Machine

2021 / 2023


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.

Buy Ticket

1. – 12. June 2021

Teater Republique, Copenhagen, Denmark

 

AMDUAT / VIDEO CHANNEL – watch all videos here
AMDUAT A PLAY MACHINE – Try the Amduat game here

♥♥♥♥♥
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
Credits

PERFORMERS
Performers:
Bo Madvig and Ask Eckardt Amtoft
Dancers: Joel Fritzon, Simone Wierød, Jon Hoff, Love Hellgren,
Christian Reiter Seibæk, and Christine Sollie
Musician, DJ: Hari Shankar Kishore

ARTISTIC TEAM
Direction and scenography: Kirsten Dehlholm and Jon R. Skulberg
Co-director: Marie Dahl
Choreographic assistant: Hedda Lausund
Text: Harald Voetmann
Light design: Jesper Kongshaug

MUSIC AND SOUND ART

Sound design: Kristian Hverring
Composer:
 Hari Shankar Kishore 
Co-composer, singer, song-writer, translator / trumpet & synth player on selected songs: Abdullah Miniawy    
Arghoul: Amin Arghoul
Cello: Johan Carøe
Composer: Marie Højlund
Composer’s assistent: Klaus Q Hedegaard Nielsen

VISUALS
Costume design:
Kit Wan Studios
Mask design:
Marie Dahl
Video design:
Magnus Pind Bjerre
Video design assistent: Cecilie Rohde
Sculptures: Astrid Myntekær

PRODUCTION
Producer:
Lisbeth Bjerregaard Jacobi
Production management:
Jānis Liniņš, Oskars Plataiskalns
Light technician: Oskars Plataiskalns
AV-engineer: Uģis Ezerietis
Sound engineer: Kristian Hverring, Troels Bech Jessen
Sound engineer assistant: Laurits Jongejan
Production assistants/back stage: Agnes Olander, Alisa Rūta Stravinskaitė, Iben Damkjær
Stage manager (intern, DDSKS): Agnes Olander
PR: Ulla Katrine Friis, Adam Ryde Ankarfeldt, Astrid Haug (konsulent),
Barbara Hilton, Marie Dahl, Nadia Kristensen
Mask workshop: Marie Dahl, Lena Bjerregaard, Ruth Johanne Andersson, Sigrid Thorvildsen
Sowing workshop: Kit Wan Studios, Lena Bjerregaard, Mikkel Lykke Sinnerup Johansen
Props:
Christian Reiter Seibæk, Cæcilie Andrea Bue

Motors for hanging objects are kindly sponsored by Wahlberg Motion Design.

Manager: Ulla Katrine Friis

Thanks to: Østerbro Teater, Det Kongelige Teater, Stouenborg Aps, Batida, Ottavia Catenacci, Gregers Kirkegaard, Erik Rasmussen,
Amalie Falk Jensby, Asta Paludan, Ea Rasmussen and Rigshospitalet for radiation masks.

Co-produktion
between Hotel Pro Forma and Teater Republique

Reviews

♥♥♥♥♥
Politiken
June 5th, 2021
Excerpt

Hotel Pro Forma’s trilogy of the underworld is a grandiose death-dance between the living and the dead. Between gods and humans. Kirsten Dehlholm has achieved something which is unparalleled in Danish theatre and underlines what Hotel Pro Forma is and has been capable of when at its very best.

With the promising visual power of Amduat, an end comes to the journey through the underworlds with a potential to follow directly in the wake of Operation: Orfeo, which has long since acquired the status of a modern classic. The trilogy is without any parallel in the art of Danish theatre and at the same time it emphasises what it is that Hotel Pro are able and have been able to achieve over the years when at their very best.

Monna Dithmer

★★★★★★
Kulturkupeen

2.6.2021
Excerpt

‘Amduat. An oxygen machine’ is a truly beautiful performance that combines a present-day death in a hospital bed with an Egyptological cult of death. Perhaps we could learn a little from it.

In an unusual manner, Kirsten Dehlholm and co. have succeeded this time in collating widely differing elements, from present and past, combining them to form a vivid and at times life-asserting experience that is beyond time and place.

In every way, the performance is a victory for Hotel Pro Forma, and indeed also for the concept of performance theatre, which itself can at times be close to death because of less than excellent artists. Not here, however! Hotel Pro Forma is superb.

Ulla Strømberg

Information
3.6.2021
Excerpt

Death takes the time it takes. Just as it takes the time it takes to sail by boat to the underworld in the world of the ancient Egyptians, it takes the time it takes for the projection of a boat to glide across the backdrop of the long room of Teater Republique. At any rate, in Kirsten Dehlholm’s incomparable death-picture narrative Amduat. An oxygen machine.

– It is a great work that overwhelms us with its playfulness and its natural play with existence. An international work that effortlessly unites all forms of artistic expression: images, music, dance, acting, video, light art, sculpture, sound design…

Anne Middelboe Christensen

★★★★★
Ungt Teaterblod

2.6.2021
Excerpt

Amduat. An oxygen machine is a play highly to be recommended, one that in less than an hour and a half both allows you to sense an ancient rave at Giza and then to tear at your heart as a spectator of the tragic fate of ending one’s day blurredly in some hospital bed. The coherent performance strikes the onlooker with the unbalancing and meaningless feeling connected to losing a parent. At the same time, it knocks you backwards in its attempt to explain the meaninglessness – and humans have always done with the aid of the supernatural and the mythical.

Sebastian F. Westh Nielsen


★★★★★★

Sceneblog

4.6.2021
Excerpt

With AMDUAT. AN OXYGEN MACHINE Hotel Pro Forma and Republique have yet again managed to show us what visual material is capable of within the art of stage drama.

Denmark’s leading lighting designer Jesper Kongshaug and the video designer Magnus Pind Bjerre have created a truly wild 28-metre-long living backdrop to AMDUAT. AN OXYGEN MACHINE, which unobtrusively thunders away with Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs, shadows and a classic green flickering line well-known from hospitals.

The composer Hari Shankar Kishore and the musician Abdullah Miniawy create the comprehensive soundscape to the performance, along with Marie Højlund as well as melodious works from a pre-Arabic language plus intrusive hospital noises and sounds from a trumpet, cello and synth. Together they create a complex sound image that contributes to a great extent to make as flow along with the Egyptian narrative – without losing focus on the individuals and the final hours at the hospital.

Casper Koelller

 

 

Press

Amduat. An Oxygen manuscript:

Read and download Amduat manuscript (Excerpt from Harald Voetmanns poetry novel).

Photos by Karoline Lieberkind:

Download Amduat. An Oxygen Machine press photos by Karoline Lieberkind

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.

Harald Voetmann

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.“

Hotel Pro Forma’s trilogy of the underworld

Using the ancient primordial tales of the underworld as her point of departure, Kirsten Dehlholm and Hotel Pro Forma have created a trilogy of performances: Gilgamesh (18/19), Amduat. An oxygen machine (19/20) and Operation: Orfeo (20/21). The reason why these narratives are still relevant after millennia have passed is that they bring to life a diversity of timeless subjects and bear witness to an underlying humanity. From the underworld we fetch our understanding of the world, a greater view and insights about ourselves.

“There is an underworld and an archetypal human in all of us. We are actually not all that different when it comes to it. We look different, but all of us consist of basic elements such as needs, urges, longings and wishes. We are dosed and filled up differently. The underworld is where we meet Lars von Trier. 
Kirsten Dehlholm, artistic director, Hotel Pro Forma.“
– Kirsten Dehlholm, kunstnerisk leder, Hotel Pro Forma.

GILGAMESH is Hotel Pro Forma’s first primordial tale in the trilogy and it forms a natural backdrop for the two subsequent narratives. As the earliest recorded narrative, written in cuneiform characters on clay tablets 4000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh is a natural beginning for the trilogy. Gilgamesh deals with King Gilgamesh, tyranny and power, valour, chaotic love, friendship and deep grief, the search for immortality and eternal life. Gilgamesh had its premiere at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek on 4 April and was performed to full houses until 28 April 2019.

AMDUAT. An oxygen machine is, as mentioned, part two of the trilogy. Its premiere will be on 19 April 2020 at Teater Republique, Østerbro Teater.

OPERATION: ORFEO is the last part of the trilogy. The performance is Hotel Pro Forma’s classic from 1993. The myth of Orpheus’ journey to the underworld is not told directly, but serves as a dramatic sequence of events, with the classic three-part division as the starting point for a series of images, composed and translated into a modern scenic visual idiom. The three-part division refers to the developmental phases of the myth: descent, ascent and loss, staged with songs and music. Operation: Orpheus will be revived and performed as a main attraction at the stage art festival Homo Novus – International Festival of Contemporary Theatre in Riga on 4, 5 and 6 September 2020. It will subsequently be performed at musikhuset Aarhus on 11 February 2021 and be the main attraction during CPH STAGE – the largest Danish stage art festival – in The Royal Danish Playhouse, The Royal Theatre on 2, 3, 4 and 5 June 2021.


Photos by Ditte Valente


Prologue

What is my name? the building says
Your name is pulmonary ward
Your name is Gastro Surgical

What is my name? says the room
Your name is room 4
Your name is room 2

What is my name? says the patient
Your name is Unreasonable

A haze of blood vessels wheezing in the bed
What is my name? says the be
discarded from central stock

What is my name? says the diagnosis
known among the dead

Harald Voetmann

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."

Kit Wan


Music: Hari Shankar Kishore & Abdullah Miniawy



Credits

PERFORMERS
Performers:
Bo Madvig and Ask Eckardt Amtoft
Dancers: Joel Fritzon, Simone Wierød, Jon Andreas Hoff, Christian Reiter Seibæk, Love Hellgren and Christine Sollie
Musician, DJ: Hari Shankar Kishore

ARTISTIC TEAM
Direction and scenography: Kirsten Dehlholm and Jon R. Skulberg 
Co-director: Marie Dahl
Choreographic assistant: Hedda Lausund
Text: Harald Voetmann

MUSIC

Composer: Hari Shankar Kishore 
co-composer, singer, song-writer, translator / trumpet & synth player on selected songs: Abdullah Miniawy    
Arghoul: Amin Arghoul
Cello: Johan Carøe

SOUND ART
Composer: Marie Højlund
Composer assistent: Klaus Q Hedegaard Nielsen
Sound design: Kristian Hverring

VISUALS
Costume design: 
Kit Wan Studios
Mask design: Marie Dahl
Light design: Jesper Kongshaug
Video design: Magnus Pind Bjerre
Video design assistant: Cecilie Rohde
Sculptures: Astrid Myntekær

PRODUCTION
Producer:
Lisbeth Bjerregaard Jacobi
Production management: Jānis Liniņš and Oskars Plataiskalns
Light engineer:
Oskars Plataiskalns
AV engineer: Uģis Ezerietis
Sound engineer: Kristian Hverring and Troels Bech
Sound engineer assistant: Laurits Jongejan
Production assistants/back stage tasks: Agnes Olander, Alisa Stravinskaite, Iben Damkjær
Stage manager (intern, DDSKS): Agnes Olander
Mask workshop: Marie Dahl, Lena Bjerregaard, Ruth Johanne Andersson, Sigrid Thorvildsen
Sowing workshop: Kit Wan Studios, Lena Bjerregaard        
Props: Christian Reiter Seibæk, Cæcilie Andrea Bue

PR: 
Ulla Katrine Friis, Adam Ryde Ankarfeldt, Astrid Haug (consultant), Barbara Hilton, Marie Dahl, Nadia Kristensen

Manager: Ulla Katrine Friis

Motors for hanging objects are kindly sponsored by Wahlberg Motion Design

Thanks to: Østerbro Teater, Det Kongelige Teater, Batida, Ottavia Catenacci, Gregers Kirkegaard, Erik Rasmussen, Amalie Falk Jensby, Asta Paludan, Ea Rasmussen, Rigshospitalet for radiation masks

Co-produktion
between Hotel Pro Forma and Teater Republique

Press

Press Release:

Read and download press release about Amduat

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."

Marie Højlund

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."

Marie Dahl


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."

Magnus Pind


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
 


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Hotel Pro Forma Tomsgårdsvej 19 2400 København NV Denmark Tel. + 45 32 54 02 17 mail@hotelproforma.dk

Previous Posts

  • Døden i kunst – CPH STAGE 29 March 2023
  • RUM DER TALER 29 March 2023
  • ARTIST TALK – Meet the directors behind AMDUAT. An oxygen machine 29 March 2023

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