Theatre performance

Human trafficking across continents. Families torn apart in the name of civilisation. The suppression of languages and cultures. Race-biological research.
The Nordic region’s colonial history has left deep and painful scars.
We Are the Nordics - A Decolonizing Ritual is a sensory performance that explores our shared history through the meeting of the personal, the historical, the factual and the emotional. The performance takes place within an installation created by Sámi visual artist Stina Aletta Aikio. A living stage landscape where soil, plants and glass help create a space that invites dialogue – beyond the spoken word.
Performers and audience members move, shape, dissolve and recreate the soil, while words, bodies and landscape merge in a gradual transformation where new connections emerge.
We Are the Nordics - A Decolonizing Ritual is an artwork that tours the Nordic region. Each time, the performance is recreated in collaboration with a local guest artist.
The work is presented at Norðurlandahúsið in collaboration with:
Playwright, author and performer Camara Joof (NO/GM) Composer Tróndur Bogason (FO) Visual artist Stina Aletta Aikio (Sápmi/FI) Choreographer and dancer Elisabeth Heilmann Blind (GL) Choreographer, dancer and artistic director Ingrid Tranum Velásquez (DK) Faroese guest artist Gunnvá Zachariasen (FO) Lighting design by Mikkel Magnus Olsen (DK)
The work was produced in 2022/23 with support from the Danish Arts Foundation, Arts Council Norway, Nordic Culture Fund, NAPA, the Augustinus Foundation, the Danish Composers’ Society, and others.
It premiered at Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia (The National Theatre of Greenland) in Nuuk in May 2023 and has since been performed in Norway, Sápmi/Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
The performance at Norðurlandahúsið is supported by Arts Council Norway, the Fund for Sound and Image, Fritt Ord, the Danish Arts Foundation and the Nordic Culture Contact Mobility Funding Programme.