Premiere: 1.6.2021
Direction and scenography: Kirsten Dehlholm and Jon R. Skulberg
Co-director and Masks: Marie Dahl
Text: Harald Voetmann
Light design: Jesper Kongshaug
Sound design: Kristian Hverring
Composer: Hari Shankar Kishore + Co-composer Abdullah Miniawy
Composer: Marie Højlund + Composer’s assistant: Klaus Q Hedegaard Nielsen
Costume design: Kit Wan Studios
Video design: Magnus Pind Bjerre
Sculptures: Astrid Myntekær
AMDUAT. An oxygen machine is a very visual performance by Hotel Pro Forma for which Marie Dahl co-directed as well as designed and created 29 individual masks. Making the masks was a huge work, done in many stages. The masks are made of thermoplastic, Worbla, shaped over sculpted forms.
Based on the book by Harald Voetmann, the performance is an amalgam of the story of a man dying at Holbæk hospital and the journey of the Egyptian sun-god through the land of the dead at night. Amduat, meaning that which is in the underworld, is the name of the ancient Egyptian book about the passage from life to death, the 12 hour challenging journey from the land of the living to the eternal life in the blissful land of the dead.
The performance is made for a 28-metre stage in two different levels between which the scenes alternate. The top level is the domain of the Egyptian underworld, on which 6 dancers in costumes and Marie Dahl’s masks move to live music and sound, performed by composer Hari Shankar Kishore. The floor level is connected to the hospital, with two performers, a hospital bed and composer Marie Højlund’s sound landscapes from her research into auditive hospital environments.
