MAR / MÆR
The performance duo MAR/MÆR consists of Mari Pitkänen (FIN) and Kaja Mærk Egeberg (NO).
MAR/MÆR is creating performance research, often in public spaces, centered around how the material specificity of a site can affect bodies and vice versa. MAR/MÆR have created performances and dealt with Camouflage Strategies in a row of performance-actions since 2017 in different cities and festivals:
Nonstop International Theatre Festival, Moss, Norway, 2023: STILL.HERE. 2023
Passage Festival, Helsingør, Denmark, 2021: STRANGE STILL
Bananaz, Oslo & St Croix, Fredrikstad, Norway, 2019: Sad Sailors' Salon
Ravnedans, Kristiansand, Norway 2019: SILENT CONVERSATIONS
Ärjä Festivaali, Kajaani, Finland, 2018: STOCKLINGS
Norwegian Theatre Academy, Fredrikstad, Tegel 2018,
Trinidad Carnival, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, 2017: LAND OF THE FREE,
Trinidad Carnival, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, 2017: SAD SAILORS
MARI PITKÄNEN is an actor and performing artist, working with applied theater and performance processes in various forms of collaborations. She holds a MA in Performance (2022) and BA in Acting (2018) at Norwegian Theatre Academy 2018 and BA in Performing Arts (2012) at Centria University of Applied Sciences. Focus of her artistic work lies in transformations of bodies and their affects in public spaces. She aims through listening practices to find ghostly and haunted aspects of sites, and to engage considerate dialogues with non-humans. She values deeply collaborative processes and finding new precarious positions for performing arts.
KAJA MÆRK EGEBERG is a performing artist and composer holding a BA in Acting from Norwegian Theater Academy (2018). Her work emerges between the near, the intangible and the non-human, with a practice based in movement, vocalizing and spatial strategies. She investigates for example anti-spectacular choreography with the performance Passages, disappearance in the performance duo MAR/MÆR, connection strategies in the performance “Det er sjeldent man finner ro i en annens kropp”, and creates experimental electronic indie in the band OAK & SHAW. She has worked in several productions by Theatre Cantabile 2 and a was founding member of the interdisciplinary expedition Dog Level.