A WAY

Fotos: Jonas Kjærsgaard, Søren Gammelmark og Christine Fentz

A walking performance about ways and going astray in life

The walking performance A WAY  is a story about lives - the ways we choose or abandon. You meet youths and elderly from Eritrea, Mols, Syria and Aarhus. Fragments of their stories intertwine as you walk through the spring in Mols Bjerge, a landscape where things aren't always as they seem.

The performance premiered on May 12th 2016 A WAY in Mols Bjerge. The performers were both professional performers and normal people - youths, adults and elderly from Gellerup and Mols. A WAY was staged by Secret Hotel's artistic director, Christine Fentz, and the experienced german director Uta Plate, who travels around the world and creates works in collaborations between citizens and professional artists.
A WAY was shown nine times during May 2016. All of the shows were sold out!

"A WAY is definitely a site-specific performance full of cunningness. It mixes the 18 participants of professionals and amateurs so calmly that the difference between them becomes unimportant. Here, the main character is the landscape, and the plot is merely an outline of phases between birth and death. Even with stories from an actual midwife. Here, the goal is the stimulation from nature on the spectator's body and thoughts. The experience of the earth and the sky and the sea. And perhaps even the experience of also having a thin, hairy body and weak legs."

– Anne Middelboe Christensen, Culture reporter at Dagbladet Information – 20/15 – 2016

"... audience and performers and fiction and reality... is intertwined because everything happens interactively between each other and out in the open. The birds are singing along freely and uncontrollably. The performance has a pre-defined a programme, and luckily this is well thought out. A programme which we are also responsible for filling out."

– Kirsten Dahl, Culture reporter at Aarhus Stiftende – 12/5 – 2016

Here are some selected remarks from the audience:

"You are absorbed by the landscape. A Way from every life. The lovely Mols meets Eritrea, Syria and Teenage Limbo. It has a nice contrast. Thank you for the experiment and the way."

"We know that we change. But we often think about change as what we have gone through. Have we no words for the change that arrives? Thank you for an awesome experience!"  

A WAY was mentioned in Information, Politiken and Aarhus Stiftstidende.

A WAY was created by Secret Hotel in collaboration with Aarhus Theatre's UDFLUGTEN, Femmøller Efterskole, Jafra danserne, Ramallah Spejderne, Sigrids Stue and others. A WAY was supported by The Danish Arts Foundation, Aarhus Municipality, AP Møller og Hustru Chastine McKinney Møllers Fond til almene Formaal, Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansen Fonden, Syddjurs Municipality and others.