Grenland Friteater Perform At Double Edge This Weekend

Norway's Grenland Friteater returns to Double Edge Theatre for a limited run of two performances. The first, 7 SONGS OF THE REFUGEE, takes the audience to ninth-century China, to the downfall of the mighty Tang dynasty. We meet the hermit and poet Tu, an old man who is "exiled forever." He has fallen from a prestigious position of high office at the Emperor's court: "It was a misunderstanding: I expressed myself too clearly." Now he is a refugee, living on the few herbs he can find under the snow. In a flashback, he remembers his years as a soldier at the front, leaving his family, and the bloody battles he fought.

Tickets $20-$25. Purchase at www.doubleedgetheatre.org/tickets

The second performance, MR. FUMBLEBODY, is a hilarious show for families, combining physical slapstick with vivid audience participation and on the spot improvisations. It's the story of an ordinary day with Fumblebody at his "Help Agency". People call him at his office to get help in solving all kind of problems. No problem is too little, no problem is too big! The audience will pretty soon understand that Fumblebody himself is the one in need of help.

Tickets $8-$15. Purchase at www.doubleedgetheatre.org/tickets

Grenland Friteater was founded by Trond Hannemyr, Tor Arne Ursin and Lars Vik in 1976, who were soon joined by Geddy Aniksdal and Anne Sophie Erichsenand. Grenland is one of Norway's oldest independent theater groups. The company is based in the town of Porsgrunn, and work internationally.

Grenland Friteater is a center of work for a group of artists and theater people who like to challenge themselves and each other. Today, 12 people work in the group, but a large number of freelancers are linked to the company in a variety of ways, totaling about 25 full-time artistic and administrative staff. Some have been with the company since the beginning, some have been there for a long time, and more and more are coming. Grenland Friteater has been living at Friteratret in Porsgrunn center since 1987. Each spring Grenland Friteater presents the PIT Festival, and large-scale international theatre festival, in the heart of Porsgrunn.

Double Edge Theatre, an artist-owned organization, was founded in 1982 by Stacy Klein. The Double Edge Ensemble leads the company in applying vigorous physical training and the principle of an artist's autonomy to create work intimately woven with the community, and creates performance cycles which tour internationally. These performance cycles include the Women's Cycle, the Song Trilogy, and the Garden of Intimacy and Desire, The Chagall Cycle, and, currently, The Latin American Cycle, which is inspired by the magical realist literature and surrealist visual art and literature of South America. In 1994, Double Edge moved from Boston to a 105-acre former dairy farm in rural Ashfield, MA, to create a sustainable artistic home. Today, the Farm is an International Center of Living Culture, a base for the ensemble's extensive international touring, with year-round theatre training, conversations and convenings, greening and farming initiatives, and a popular indoor-outdoor traveling spectacle which takes place alongside the hills, pastures, river, and gardens of the Center. The DE facilities include two performance and training spaces, production facilities, offices, archives, music room, and outdoor performance areas, an animal barn, vegetable gardens, and two additional properties: housing in the center of town for resident and emerging artists and DE's Emerging Artists Studio; and a design house, with design offices, studios, costume shop, and set, costume, and prop storage. A vision of future facilities includes a public archive/gallery, a meeting space called Ohketeau (meaning to plant something to grow), which gives primacy to the voices of Native youth, and a fully developed farm.