NORWEGIAN DELEGATION
CINARS 2024
Performing Arts Hub Norway (PAHN) is thrilled to announce the full Norwegian delegation heading to the 21st edition of the CINARS Biennale in Montreal, Canada, from November 11-16, 2024. This international gathering is one of the world’s leading platforms for performing arts, providing an excellent space for exchange, knowledge sharing, and networking, attracting a global network of curators, programmers, and professionals in the field.
PAHN proudly presents a lineup of artists and companies participating in Nordic Pulse, our collaborative Nordic showcase. Nordic Pulse is a special pitch session spotlighting 16 Nordic artists, including six from Norway. These artists represent a broad spectrum of Norwegian performing arts, from contemporary dance to puppetry and visual theatre:
Our full delegation will also participate in the Nordics Combined program, where artists from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland unite under one Nordic banner to increase visibility and networking opportunities. This includes Nordic Party, Nordic pavilion/Square at the market place, networking sessions, and dedicated meetings with industry leaders, presenters and professionals.
WHERE TO MEET THE NORWEGIANS / NORDICS:
Experience the vibrant Nordic performing arts scene through our dedicated Nordic events:
Nordic Pulse: Wednesday, November 13 , 11:30 AM, Hotel Bonaventure, Room Montreal 1-5
Nordic Party: Wednesday, November 13 8:00 PM, Bar Pamplemousse, 1579 St Laurent Blvd, Montreal
Nordic Square: November 14th - 16th, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM , CINARS Exhibition Hall, Booth 124-127
THE NORWEGIAN DELEGATION
Elle Sofe Company
Elle Sofe Company expands on the groundbreaking work of Indigenous choreographer, director and filmmaker, Elle Sofe Sara. A full-time artist since 2007, Sara founded the company in 2022. The Elle Sofe Company draws heavily from Sámi culture, which is Indigenous to the northern parts of nations today known as Sweden, Norway and Finland, along with Russia’s Murmansk Oblast. Sámi culture is one born of a fierce climate of ice, the animal world and quiet intimacy. The work of Elle Sofe Company is deeply human, and thus accessible to people of all identities and abilities. We all yearn to belong, to feel held by others, to feel at home in the natural world and, perhaps, to navigate our lives with the use of ancestral knowledge.
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Maiken Garder (Elle Sofe Company) – Dance | maiken@ellesofe.com
Carte Blanche
Established in 1989 and based in Bergan (Norway), Carte Blanche – The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance creates two to three new productions per year. They collaborate with renowned and emerging international and Norwegian guest choreographers who bring strong artistic vision to the company. Their ensemble comprises of fourteen dancers from around the world, each delivering a distinctive presence and individuality to the stage. Throughout the year, Carte Blanche tours in Norway and internationally, performing different pieces simultaneously as part of their schedule. Carte Blanche is owned and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture, Vestland County Council and the City of Bergen.
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Gulli Sekse (Carte Blanche) – Dance | gulli.sekse@ncb.no
Ingri Fiksdal
Ingri Fiksdal works as a choreographer based in Oslo (Norway). She holds a PhD in artistic research from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and is an affiliated researcher with CoFUTURES at the University of Oslo. Ingri works with choreography as a format of speculative fiction that can propose complex and manyfold understandings of body, gender, species, knowledge and history.
Ingri Fiksdal has performed extensively in Europe, North America and Asia, notably at Kunstenfestival Brussels, Palais de Tokyo Paris, MCA Chicago, Beijing Contemporary Dance Festival, Harbourfront Centre and more. She is currently working on a 2025-commission for The Bentway in Toronto with director Jonas Corell Petersen.
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Ingri Fiksdal + Nicole Schuchardt (Ingri Fiksdal)– Dance | ingri.fiksdal@gmail.com
INGRID BERGER MYHRE
Ingrid Berger Myhre is a Norwegian choreographer and performer based in Brussels. She holds an MA in Choreography; Research and Performance from ex.e.r.ce at the Choreographic Centre in Montpellier, later deepening her project literacy in dance at the Research Studios at P.A.R.T.S.
Language and semiotics are central elements to Ingrid’s artistic work, which comes together in unpretentious and humorous performances. Her most recent works In Other Words (2021) and Spelling Spectacle (2023) tests grammar, vocabulary and syntax; the logics of dance as language. Since 2020 her work is supported by Caravan Production and the advancing performing arts project (apap) network.
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Ingrid Berger Myhre & Karel Dombrecht (Ingrid Berger Myhre) – Dance | ingridbergermyhre@gmail.com
Wakka Wakka
Wakka Wakka is an OBIE and DRAMA DESK award winning theatre company consisting of artists who share a common language in creation and ensemble work. Their mission is to create works of theatre that are bold, unique, and unpredictable. Since 2001 Wakka Wakka has created and produced ten entirely original works of theatre: “B9: Clinch Mountain Lookout”, “Fattie and Skinny Show!”, “The Untold Story of Monkey,” “The Death of Little Ibsen,” “FABRIK: The Legend of M. Rabinowitz”, “Baby Universe”, "Saga", "Made in China", "Animal R.I.O.T. and "The Immortal Jellyfishgirl". All of Wakka Wakka’s productions have been highly visual, overlapping in a wide range of styles.
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Kirjan Waage og Gwendolyn Warnock (Wakka Wakka) – Puppetry | kirjan@gmail.com
Alan LuCien ØyeN/
Winter guests
Alan Lucien Øyen is one of the most exciting artists on the international dance scene today, whose work has been performed by companies around the world such as Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Netherlands Dance Theatre and the National Theatre of Norway. In 22/23 Øyen had the rare privilege of opening the season for Paris Opera Ballet with a full-length work. As a theatre director, writer, and choreographer, he can best be described as a unique storyteller always in pursuit of sincere and human expression. With a highly cinematic and dramatic drive, Øyen ambitiously combines music, movement, opera, theatre and dance - often based on real life experiences, sourcing material from the performers and the rehearsal process in the shaping of the final narrative. Øyen is house choreographer with the Norwegian Opera House.
Read more
Alan Lucien Øyen (winter guests) – Dance | alanoeyen@gmail.com
BYSHEIM & PATRY
Bysheim & Patry: A satire of the phenomenon of seduction, Blue Carousel is a bold performance created and performed by dance artists Katrine Patry (Quebec) and Lisa Colette Bysheim (Norway), scored with a live techno set by asiangirlsonly (Norway/Philippines). Inspired by qualities of bird mating rituals interweaved with our own social codes of flirtation, two dancers and a dj-duo evolve and interact in a brightly coloured arena. A power play of expectations and associations collapse and climax into a series of transformations. Bysheim and Patry work with humour and repetition as a choreographic tool to comment on how the female body is viewed, objectified and categorised. In a study of the alluring form, they indulge in all-consuming moments. Revealing, twisting and defying expectations, through layers of fiction they present soft and unforeseen confrontations as insistent movements weave together with distinct techno beats. Bysheim and Patry are particularly interested in using humour to dissolve preconceived ideas. Working with the ‘spectacle’ as a tool to explore human behaviour and socially constructed expectations, they aim to question and play with the nuances in power relations. Their latest work is Blue Carousel, which premiered at Dansens Hus Oslo, June 2024 and BiT Oktoberdans, October 2024.
OFFCINARS
Date: 12. nov kl 20:30
Adresss: Studio Flak, 486 rue Ste-Catherine ouest, #305.
Link: https://cinars.org/biennale/events/blue-carousel-3814
READ MORE
Lisa Collette Bysheim & Katrine Patry, (Bysheim & Patry) – Dance | lisa.c.bysheim@gmail.com
Plexus Polaire
Artistic director of Plexus Polaire, Yngvild Aspeli, develops a visual world that brings our most buried feelings to life. The use of life-sized puppets is at the center of her work, but the actor’s performance, the presence of the music and the use of light and video are all equal elements in communicating the story. Within her company Plexus Polaire, she has directed : Signals (2011), Opera Opaque (2013), Ashes (2014), and Chambre noire (2017). Moby Dick (2020), Dracula Lucy’s Dream (2021) and A Doll’s House (2023) are still on tour in Europe, North America and Asia and have been critically acclaimed.
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Claire Costa (Plexus Polaire) – Puppetry | clairecosta@plexuspolaire.com
Spreafico Eckly
Spreafico Eckly was founded by Andrea Spreafico in Bergen in 2013 in the apartment of Andrea Spreafico and Caroline Eckly, where it still has its HQ – hence the name. Directed by Andrea, the company has never had a fix group of collaborators, but the team of each piece has been decided accordingly to the needs of the concept. Nonetheless some patterns have repeated themselves and Matteo Fargion (London) and James Long (Theatre Replacement, Vancouver) have become important partners in the development of the artistic discourse of the company. The forms of expression are different every time (songs, choreographies, theory, drama, opera, interactive situations). Most of Spreafico Eckly’s works treat one element from the past in order to re-consider the way we usually watch at our present time. They are thought as breaks (pauses) in the constant flow of informations, as ways to reconsider our present without “taking position” against it, as models of an alternative way of thinking our time. Before working as an artist Andrea Spreafico has been a Nietzsche scholar (PhD at University of Bologna, Italy and Reims, France in 2006). He’s currently Associate Professor in performance at the Bergen School of Architecture.
READ MORE
SIgrid Aakvik, Art and About (Denmark), Transitteateret / Spreafico Eckly – Theatre | info@art-and-about.dk
Luamar Visual Theatre
Luamar Visual Theatre is an Oslo-based puppet theatre company headed by actress/puppeteer Mafalda Silva. Since 2023, the company explores a visual signature composing of larger scale masks, objects and moving scenographical structures. Inspired by international giants like Cie Philippe Genty and Papermoon Puppet Theatre, we seek to combine the immersive sensory experience of puppetry art with great storytelling. Currently in residence at La Fabrique de Théâtre Insolite in Trois-Rivières to develop our first piece for adult audiences, we are delighted to travel to Montréal and share our work and young artistic vision at the CINARS 2024.
Mafalda Silva (Luamar Visual Theatre) – Visual Theatre | mafalda_seneca@hotmail.com
Nøtterøy KulturHus
Nøtterøy Kulturhus (established 1994), is a medium sized, non profit, programming venue located one hour south of Oslo. For the last 20 years we have presented multiple international companies, mainly contemporary circus, physical theatre and dance theatre. For the last 10 years we have taken a role concerning touring international companies in Norway, and have produced several tours with 4-9 Norwegian venues. We had two reasons for doing this: 1. We wanted more people to experience high quality stage art. 2. It’s more sustainable to coordinate several shows when we bring an international company to Norway. For this investment in presenting high quality stage art in Norway, we have got financial support from the Norwegian Council of Culture for the years 2020-2022 and again (and increased support) for 2023-2025, as one of very few receivers. After establishing a Norwegian network of presenters the last years, we now try to establish a Nordic network – to be even more focused on making sustainable tours, not just for Norwegian presenters, but for all the Nordic countries. This network is in the start-up phase.
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Einar M. Schistad (Nøtterøy Culture House) – Venue | einar@kulturhus.no
BÆRUM CULTURE HOUSE/Dance Southeast-Norway
Bærum Kulturhus has established itself as one of Norway's leading venues for contemporary dance and nouveau cirque. Over the past decade, it has become a cornerstone for these art forms, hosting celebrated performances by prominent international companies and choreographers like Batsheva Dance Company, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Compagnie Käfig & Mourad Merzouki, and Cirkus Cirkör.
READ MORE
Marianne Bilger, Bærum Culture House/Dance Southeast-Norway | marianne.bilger@baerum.kommune.no
NORWEGIAN DELEGATES
Explore the full list of Norwegian representatives at CINARS below.
Maiken Garder (Elle Sofe Company) – Dance | maiken@ellesofe.com
Ingri Fiksdal + Nicole Schuchardt (Ingri Fiksdal)– Dance | ingri.fiksdal@gmail.com
Gulli Sekse (Carte Blanche) – Dance | gulli.sekse@ncb.no
Kirjan Waage og Gwendolyn Warnock (Wakka Wakka) – Puppetry | kirjan@gmail.com
Ingrid Berger Myhre & Karel Dombrecht (Ingrid Berger Myhre) – Dance | ingridbergermyhre@gmail.com
Alan Lucien Øyen (winter guests) – Dance | alanoeyen@gmail.com
Claire Costa (Plexus Polaire) – Puppetry | clairecosta@plexuspolaire.com
Lisa Collette Bysheim & Katrine Patry, (Bysheim & Patry) – Dance | lisa.c.bysheim@gmail.com
Sigrid Aakvik, Art and About (Denmark), Transitteateret / Spreafico Eckly – Theatre | info@art-and-about.dk
Mafalda Silva (Luamar Visual Theatre) – Visual Theatre | mafalda_seneca@hotmail.com
Marianne Bilger, Bærum Culture House | marianne.bilger@baerum.kommune.no
Einar M. Schistad (Nøtterøy Culture House) – Venue | einar@kulturhus.no
Hege Knarvik Sande – PAHN - Performing Arts Hub Norway | hege@pahn.no
Luba Kuzovnikova – PAHN - Performing Arts Hub Norway | luba@pahn.no
Anders Rohlan Småhaug – PAHN - Performing Arts Hub Norway | anders@pahn.no
OFF CINARS
Check out BYSHEIM & PATRY - Blue Carousel as part of the Off CINARS program!
Date: 12. nov kl 20:30
Address: Studio Flak, 486 rue Ste-Catherine ouest, #305.
Link: https://cinars.org/biennale/events/blue-carousel-3814
About:
A satire on the phenomenon of seduction, Blue Carousel is a bold duet created and performed by dance artists Katrine Patry (Quebec) and Lisa Colette Bysheim (Norway), scored with a live techno set by asiangirlsonly (Norway/Philippines).
In a study of the alluring form, they indulge in all-consuming moments. Revealing, twisting and defying expectations, through layers of fiction they present soft and unforeseen confrontations. Bysheim and Patry work with humour and repetition as a choreographic tool to comment on how the female body is viewed, objectified and categorised.
About PAHN
Performing Arts Hub Norway (PAHN) is a Norwegian national competence centre promoting professional performing arts domestically and abroad, with a special emphasis on independent performing arts. PAHN functions as a performing arts advisor for The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and manages the Ministry’s travel grant system for Norwegian performing artists performing abroad. PAHN is also a part of Norwegian Arts Abroad, a network of organizations including Office of Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), Music Norway, Performing Arts Hub Norway (PAHN), Norwegian Crafts, DOGA, Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) and Norwegian Literature Abroad (NORLA). Performing Arts Hub Norway is supported by the Ministry of Culture & Equality and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
About CINARS
Established in 1984, CINARS has evolved into one of the most significant international conferences for performing arts. This biennial event brings the world of performing arts to Montreal, with performances, workshops, networking events, and exhibitions. For more information on CINARS, visit [cinars.org](https://cinars.org/cinars).
Thinking about joining us at CINARS 2024 or need assistance connecting with industry professionals attending the event? Reach out to **Anders Rohlan Småhaug** at [anders@pahn.no](mailto:anders@pahn.no). We look forward to supporting and showcasing Norwegian performing arts on this exciting international platform!
QUESTIONS?
Contact PAHN - Performing Arts Hub Norway:
Luba Kuzovnikova, Senior Adviser - International relations & Project manager | luba@pahn.no
Anders Rohlan Småhaug, Executive Producer & Adviser - International relations | anders@pahn.no