meltingICE
Inspired by the UN’s International Year of Glacier Preservation and informed by the Norwegian Glacier Museum, the ICE-group created a short film highlighting the issue of how global warming affects our glaciers, causing them to melt.
The Glacier, represented in the shape of a human form, is melting before our eyes. A dancer stands on Nigardsbreen, dancing intensely slowly the melting of a glacier. Pale white face with drawn features and slightly static movements, a silent scream of protest. She is not dancing on the glacier; she dances the glacier (in accordance with Sami joik traditions). The soundscape is created by natural sounds from lake-ice breaking, water melting, ice cracking, crumbling.
Inspired by posthuman research, and the Japanese contemporary dance form butoh, the artists attempted to explore the physical and artistic point of contact between humans and the mighty glacier. When one receptively encounters the world, the distinction between subject and object ceases. Such a soulful encounter opens up the possibility of understanding nature around us sensibly, instead of defining or labeling it. One can encounter it with openness and feel that it is external in itself. One may possibly discover the harmony between us and the non-corporeal. The goal is for the artistic encounter to teach us something about the glacier, beyond the narrow, rational concept. Through an embodied, receptive artistic exploration, one will attempt to postpone the human need for definitions and labels. One resists the urge to find quick answers, and instead opens oneself to bodily experiences and new cognition. We pondered and wondered around the co-creative process between the living human and the inanimate glacier. How will we co-create? How will we limit and liberate each other in a common search for communication under the sun? How can the recorded songs of the ice speak directly to our human souls? Can humans and other-than-humans find common ground and coordinate in a pursuit towards a better future for the Earth? Is it too late to stop the heating-spiral?
The ICE-group:
Janne Robberstad (Bømlo) – concept, producer and costume-designer
Torkjell Einarson Venjum (Sogndal) - film-photographer and director
Margrethe Slettebø (Bømlo) – choreographer and butoh dancer
Christer Fredriksen (Kristiansand) – composer and musician, soundscape-artist specializing in the sounds of the ice
Robin Mathias Fossheim (Bergen) – film-photographer and drone-pilot
Wilma Nilsen (Kristiansand) – butoh dancer
This might be one of the most important and interesting artistic projects I have worked with. Perhaps because it was so extreme, because it has such an important message, perhaps because the artists who didn’t know each other before we practically were on the glacier itself were so open to the organic process, so open-minded and willing to co-create with the glacier. Incredibly talented in their respective fields and moreover team-players who embraced the madness of it all. All participants are collaborating at reduced costs because we believe in the importance of communicating wicked problems through the unique voice of art.
Cool facts:
47 countries around the world have glaciers, Norway alone has over 2500.
Glaciers cover 10% of the Earth’s surface.
Glaciers contain 70% of the World’s fresh water supply
Glaciers are “farmed” as a source of fresh-water for crops and animals in parts of the world and can be grown by the same farmers
Several life-forms live on, at or near glaciers, the most famous being penguins and polar-bears
