After sold-out performances in August, we are delighted to invite you to the Christmas special of “Safariland”! In this pub-based travel diary performance, you’ll hear plenty of stories … and the Christmas special works just as well as a reunion for returning adventurers as it does for first-time safari travelers. Take part in the traditional meat-quiz, hosted by Takt & Tone’s own drummer, Rein Åge Sander (Jon Fosmark). In addition to the performance, you can enjoy a Christmas dinner featuring reindeer meat and potatoes – the potato that has been the staple food of Finnmark for over 200 years. Kristinsdottir/Willyson and Black Box teater look forward to ringing in the holiday season at Shamrock!
“Safariland” is a travel diary in pub format, blending East Finnmark and East Africa in a most unflattering union. The performance is staged at our beloved neighbor, The Shamrock Bar. After each show, you’re welcome to raise a glass, chat, and reflect with the company.
In «Safariland», Kristinsdottir/Willyson mock both themselves and us, the audience. … The textual creativity and joy of storytelling are almost bubbling over. … The performance constantly balances on a knife’s edge, flirting with the banal and the very exoticism it thematizes and criticizes, but it succeeds because its strongest asset is self-irony.
“Safariland” definitely doesn’t resemble anything else you’ll see in the theatre this autumn. … The journey is as ambitious as it is absurd
Artists Arne and Randy travel from Nesodden to Kenya. Arne is on a literary mission to confront the legacy of his grandfather, who in 1952 made the controversial film Safariland – Among N* and Wild Beasts in East Africa. Randy, a performance artist, has always dreamed of going on safari, and sees the journey as a chance to gain inspiration – and perhaps earn greater recognition in Nesodden’s art scene.
In Kenya, they encounter the troubadours from Finnmark, Mattis and Tom Rudy. The duo has been hired for the event “Kick-off Kenya”, where they are to entertain a company preparing to begin deep-sea mining off the coast of East Finnmark.
In the show, Mattis and Tom Rudy serve up the very best of Northern Norwegian storytelling, recounting the journey, fall, and feeble attempts at redemption of the southern artists Arne and Randy.
Safariland is a performance about loneliness and longing, and about racism, prejudice, and the exoticization of people far to the south – and far to the north. It is also about cultural policy: Kristinsdottir/Willyson draw inspiration from the ongoing culture war, the mockery of artists on social media, and the right wing’s alternative state budgets, with significant cuts to art and culture funding.
Safariland is made with love for art – and not least for the pub, a place where we can gather with people we don’t know, or barely know, to experience something unexpected, and afterwards raise a glass, discuss, and be on familiar terms. The performance is inspired by the TV series Du skal høre mye (Wait Till You Hear This) which gathered families around the television with anecdotes from across Norway from 1987 to 2003.
Tourists and desperate artist souls take a beating in Kristinsdottir/Willyson’s flirtatious, semi-autobiographical, and humorous “Safariland” … The performance is just like life itself – somewhat messy, random, funny, and, not least, tragic.
Thanks for inspiration, joy and quotes: Ridley Borchgrevink (“Animal Tracks and Wild Honey”, 1950), Karen Blixen (“Out of Africa” 1937), Toppen Bech (“Magiske Kenya”, 1994), Thomas Espedal (“Lyst – en forfatters selvbiografi”, 2002) and the NRK archive.
● The artist duo Kristinsdottir/Willyson have collaborated since 2007 and have visited Black Box teater numerous times – both together and individually. They are known for experimental, poignant, and laugh-inducing theatre that explores deep emotions, big questions, and small people. Their most recent visit to Black Box teater was in 2023 with Do-re-me-too-sa-Lo-li-ta, and they have previously presented My Little Willy (2021) and Lille Leiolf (2019).
