In Mette Edvardsen’s chamber opera the protagonist suspends time. Penelope postpones decision making, a strategy that makes her autonomous and able to contemplate feely. She recalls and remembers, remarkable yet ordinary things, allowing what to come emerge through singing and musical elements, inviting the audience to in their turn close their eyes and let thoughts arrive uninvited.

The 2019 opera, commissioned by Kunstenfestivaldesarts, will for Ob/scene festival be re-created in Korean translation by the dancer and performer Suh Yeongran, with music and singing interpreted by the sound and voice artist Noh Eunsil.

The opera will be presented in an unconventional setting, outdoors around a campfire, letting the approaching darkness and the stars guide us into dreaming and sleep.

An opera by Mette Edvardsen & Matteo Fargion
Text: Mette Edvardsen
Translation: Kathy Kyunghoo Lee
Music: Matteo Fargion
Performed by: Suh Yeongran, Noh Eunsil
Co-production: Kaaitheater & Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), BUDA (Kortrijk), Black Box teater (Oslo), Teaterhuset Avant Garden (Trondheim), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), centre chorégraphique national de Caen in Normandie (Caen), apap-Performing Europe 2020 - a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Supported by: Norsk Kulturråd, Norwegian Artistic Research Program – Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Mette Edvardsen
Mette Edvardsen is a choreographer, dancer and artist living and working in Oslo. Next to her performances her project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine has gained international recognition. She is currently finishing her PhD at the art academy in Oslo.

Suh Yeongran
Suh Yeongran is a choreographer and practice-based researcher active in Copenhagen and Seoul. She creates multidisciplinary dance performances based on her background in anthropology, shamanism, and traditional dance. Between dance and creating situations, Suh Yeongran’s work reconnects with the ancient intimacies, with the organic and mythological, offering viewers and participants a safe space to explore their own agency, in regard to care, social mothering, friendship, and politics of gathering. She is a member of Becoming Species, a climate activism performance collective, writes, guides workshops, and creates performances on multi-species traditional ecological knowledge and collective storytelling.

Noh Eunsil
Noh Eunsil is a performer, sound artist, and vocalist who has been shaping her own artistic language through the medium of voice. After studying pansori in Korea and later attending the art academy in Prague, she began presenting performances that merge the theatricality of pansori with objects. More recently, she has been experimenting with audiovisual works that use the voice as raw material to transcend expressive limits, while developing sound performances and improvised collaborations grounded in her concept of voice art. She looks forward to the day when she can fully share the raw energy and beauty of the voice with her audience, continually expanding the world of vocal expression.