STRANGE STILL
by MAR/MÆR
Site-specific performance
“Pity me not, but lend
thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold”
– Hamlet’s Ghost
Strange Still is a performance action, a creation of the Camouflage Creature.
The past pandemic year has raised questions about isolation, silence and belonging, as well as material and virtual presences. If the walls around us are speaking and listening, what kind of stories do they have to tell?
The Camouflaged Creature is a silent trickster that creates ambiguity and slippages between human and non-human bodies. One cannot tell the reason for the hiding: is it a defense or a lure? Camouflaged bodies are invoking the Ghost, it’s forgotten songs and stories, those which walls in our surroundings resonate.
The performance took place by the walls of 12th søbatteri of Kronborg Castle and was made site specifically for Passage Festival 2021.
Concept and performance: MAR/MÆR
Mari Pitkänen & Kaja Mærk Egeberg
Artistic & technical assistant:
Tobias S. Petersen
Poster: Mari Pitkänen
Documentation: Tobias S. Petersen
Collaborators: Passage Festival,
Cronborg Castle/ Slots og Kulturstyrelsen
Supported by: Gjestespill/ Kulturrådet, Nordic Culture point/ Mobility Funding
MAR/MÆR
Mari Pitkänen (FIN) and Kaja Mærk Egeberg (NO) collaborate in the performance duo MAR/MÆR, with focus on performance research in public spaces, and how the material specificity of a site can affect bodies and vice versa.
MAR/MÆR have dealt with camouflage strategies in several performance-actions since 2017. The first was created by Lapeyrouse Cemetery Wall in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in collaboration with Lordstreet Theatre Company, Tafar Chia Lewis and Norwegian Theatre Academy.
