Borealis Winter Festival Webcast
After Christmas I have ploughed into a performance production for the Borealis Winter Festival here in Alta, Norway. Being the creator, choreographer and designer, it has left me little time for anything else. However, today is performance day and I am happy to announce to our readers information about our live webcast of the Borealis opening ceremony and performance. You can see the webcast here.
Live video for mobile from Ustream
Live video for mobile from Ustream
If, for whatever reason, you cannot see the stream on our website, go to this ustream channel:
Vi er Alta (We are Alta)
The show is about the evacuation of Alta during World War II, and the people’s return to their city. The seasons are what defines us here in the north, and they play an important role in history. In the autumn of 1944, the people of Alta were evacuated. Many of them saw their city in flames as they left on boats. Many families were separated, some fled to the wilderness or to hiding places, others were never seen again. It was a mild winter with little snow, and this was a blessing for those who stayed behind in Alta to survive. After the war many of the people of Alta returned to find their city in ruins. In a true spirit of friendship, people worked together to rebuild each other’s homes. Together they built the future of Alta.
In our story we follow a boy who was left behind during the evacuation. We learn about his relationship with nature and the importance of his family. The show is a dancical using original music developed by local artist Dag-Jarle Nilsen. It uses puppetry and symbols to tell the story. All performers are children aged eight to 14 years. The stage has been sculpted entirely out of ice and snow!
The opening ceremony starts at 19.00 local time and includes a parade of flags from the representing countries for the Finnmarksløpet, the biggest European international dog sled race. At around 19.20, my performance production, Vi er Alta, will start. I hope you can join me and Alta to celebrate all that winter can offer.
If you want to confirm when the show starts in your own local time you can use this timezone converter: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
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det er veldig vakkert (thanks for sharing!)
I wondered what happened to your blog, but now I can see you had your hands full with a hectic schedule. I think you chose an important event to portray an unfortunte event in Alta’s history. The burning and destrution of Norway starting at Kirkenes and south including Alta was so pointless from a military point of view. It is probably difficult for the younger population of Alta to visualize the hard times suffered by the populace during World War II, but perhaps your play will serve as a timely reminder.
I came across an interesting book called Hitler’s Pre-Emtive War by Henrik O. Lunde, a Norwegian author. I’m sure it was written in his native language first and subsequently translated to English. The book details the beginning months of Hitler’s invation of northern Norway and the valiant resistance of an ill equipped local force. The troops from Alta are favorably portrayed by the author along with many other local communities in northern Norway. I got the book through Amazon’s Kindle but it may well be in your local library if interested
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from L-Jay:
Thats very interesting. I’ll check it out, thanks.
The show was an amazing hit with the people of Alta. People were moved to tears and yet they were thoroughly entertained. A lot of people are grateful that this story has been told so publicly for the opening of the Finnmarksløpet. People have said that it is important to remember the history of Altaværinger and telling it through a fairytale invites the next generation to understand who they are and where they come from. What’s more, they think it is brilliant that a non-Norwegian could place such importance on such a story. The show received amazing reviews and I think the people of Alta will remember it for a long time.
thanks 4 sharing this post with us
I have also wondered where you had got.I had been enjoying your christmas festivities and traditional norwegian decorations and then you disapeared !
It seems you have been very busy bringing to light such an important time in not too distant history to the younger generation of Finmark.The occupation and susequent destruction of Finmark is something that still effect my own mother today.My mother was 8 years old when Alta burned she was then evacuated to Sweden for 6 months away from her family.Not something that we here in Australia can ever imagine happening.
Karen