The Chosen Ones – 2012

In continuation of “The Art of Getting Tamed” and actualization of the terms “inside” and “outside”, De Utvalgte cooperated with a group of people who are marginalized and fall outside the concept of normality.

People categorize each other by looking for signs of whether they are in the same culture or the same ingroup, based on inequality or proximity to ingroup. We are measured against norms of behavior, averages for intellectual abilities and culturally accepted emotional expressions. If we are to believe evolutionary psychologists, we have an inherited skepticism towards what we perceive as different and alien.

Lord said to Noah: “Of every clean beast thou shalt take with you seven pairs, male and female together, and of all the beasts that are not clean by two, male and female together, of fowls likewise, seven pairs, male and female, to keep each species on the earth alive.”

When something is said then it will exist. In the production we use excerpts from Inger Christensen’s poetry Alphabet and the words are examined by the participants.

Earth in its orbit about the sun’s

Earth on its route through the Milky Way’s

With waters, land masses

Earthquakes are

You think of words that chromosomes

And love fruit the failed growth

Somewhere I become suddenly born

The company received the Hedda Award for special artistic achievement in 2013.

From the press:

– I still have no overview of what really happened there. But when I walked out of the theater, people looked quite different. More whole. Holier. And I could still taste a bit of space in my mouth: Something larger than us, in us.
– What is unique about this performance is that otherness is not presented as a problem that has to be solved, but as the solution of a problem. Something revolutionary.
Demian Marco Vitanza
Norwegian Shakespeare and Theatre Journal, 01-2013
Full review: Norwegian Shakespeare And Theatre Journal (english)

The Norwegian Shakespeare and Theatre Journal

– Theatre miracle.
– A performance that is so beautiful that it hurts.
– The room ‘disappear’, and the people on the stage are situated out in the universe, the starry sky. […] The ability to take the world to themselves, feel harmony with the universe and recognize themselves in the other. The majority of the actors [.. .] has Downs syndrome […] video projections [gives] the opportunity to study close ups that take your breath away. Then laid bare. So tender and in the samt time brutal, it’s a performance that communicates something about living with the senses wide open. If you have the ability to it and, dare it. […] up to us what kind of moral and political, or spiritual content we read in. But I am left with a feeling of being at the core of what this debate is all about.
Therese Bjørneboe
Aftenposten, 22.12.2012

– De Utvalgte brings out the universal of being human, whether one is born this way or that way. We all exist … An important message.
– As usual with De Utvalgte Boya Bøckman adds projections visual excitement, intensity and drama to the performance. De Utvalgte is both a daring and an ambitious project, which places great demands on the artists, demands that they certainly managed to fulfill at the premiere of their own naïve, touching and heartwarming joy. Just like Marte Wexelsen Goksøyr did earlier this year with I answered a dream which these days has aroused the enthusiasm at the National Theatre, De Utvalgte manges to show the general of being human, whether they are born that way or so. An important message today.
Idalou Larsen
Klassekampen, 23.12.2012

FULL REVIEWS:
Dagblad (Groningen Stad) 25-8 Recensie De Utvalgte (dutch)
NRC 26-8 4 sterren Meierhans, Antony, Utvalgte (dutch)