Undersang is a performance that takes shape as a performance ritual in the city forest of Hangö. Undersang is a tapestry of opulent configurations soaked in a shimmer of queer ecologies and extravagant gestures. Here mythologies, national romantic ideals and science fiction converge, revealing a world of ancient powers.
Weaving Afro and Asian-Nordic diasporic narratives, Undersang plays with the notion of dissonance as a potent and ambiguous feeling of empowerment, sparking questions about cultural fictions and what it means to belong. As a ground for refusal, reclamation of time and looking beyond the idea of ownership, the work seeks fertile ground for healing, for lament and joyous celebration.
“Undersang is a demonstration of power that shamelessly places sexuality and the body in nature, both in contrast to and as part of it. An affectual unravelling that conjures up queer fantasies and desires from below, and (perhaps) a new ecological future. A way of coming together and creating community.”
– Martin Lervik / Norsk Shakespearetidsskrift
The audience gathers at Kulturmagasinet Victor at 5:30 pm on Friday and 3:30 pm on Saturday, from where we’ll walk to the performance location together. The route is about 2 kilometres. We’ll organise lifts for those who wish to preserve their strength.
Content warnings:
Proximity to the audience.
Harald Beharie (he/they) is a Norwegian-Jamaican performer and choreographer based in Oslo, Norway. Beharie’s choreographic practices are collaborative voyages, navigating through realms of ambiguity and phantasm, punctuated by themes of deconstruction, hope and uncertainty, disinterest and emotional intensity. They hold a special interest in DIY and the vulnerability of being in the unknown.
Beharie is also interested in how the body can function as a motor for dramaturgy, a force in itself that transforms through practice. In his works Batty Bwoy and Undersang, he has engaged with monstrosity as a tool for empowerment. By playing with disgust and transgressive energies, he challenges established bodily narratives about the Black body. He allows ritual to be the transcendent force within his practice, opening up to the unknown – the clumsy, the uncanny, and the awkward in-between spaces where understanding slips, and new possibilities emerge. A vibration is created, one that builds over time, an energy that becomes increasingly unbearable, twisting between the comedic and the unsettling.
His work also explores friction, longing, and deep listening – how small “glitches” can disrupt our perception and open up unforeseen ways of being and moving. In 2023 Beharie won the Hedda Award for Best Dance Production for Batty Bwoy and in 2024 Undersang won the Norwegian Critics’ Award for dance.
Concept & choreography: Harald Beharie
Artistic collaborators: Christian Beharie, Karoline Bakken Lund, Veronica Bruce
Performers: Amie Mbye, Loan Ha, Jens Trinidad, Nosizwe Baqwa, Carlisle Lienes, Mariama Slåttøy, Harald Beharie
Sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund & Veronica Bruce
Music/composition: Christian Beharie
Costume: Karoline Bakken Lund & Harald Beharie
Producer: Mariana Suikkanen Gomes & Kristina Melbø Valvik
Distribution: Damien Valette
Outside eye/sparring partners: Deise Nunes & Hooman Sharifi
Co-producers: Black Box Teater, Dansens Hus, Oslo, Rosendal Teater, BIT Teatergarasjen, RAS, TOU Scene
Supported by: Norwegian Art Council, FFUK, Fond for lyd og bilde, PAHN – performing art hub Norway
Thanks to: Magne Misje, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen, Charlott Utzig, Pål Græsvik, Erick Kelly, Nicolas Jara Marthinsen, Sven Undheim