Post uit Hessdalen
is the company of juggler and video artist Stijn Grupping and director Ine Van Baelen. With their shared background in film and their own walks of life in circus and theatre, they have been creating hybrid performances since 2015, in unusual settings such as the back of a lorry or a plain with a 4.7 km view. The leading roles in these performances are given to (video) imagery, juggling with bouncing balls and (live) music.
Their work is internationally acclaimed for its attention to detail, technical ingenuity and interplay with the rhythm and drums of musician Frederik Meulyzer. Post uit Hessdalen collaborates in a fluid constellation with choreographers, musicians, visual artists, lighting and costume designers. Through collective creation, the company searches for a distilled performance language to explore phenomena such as time, space and our virtual future. For example, by literally attempting to escape time; making the rhythm of the economic rat race tangible with bouncing balls; or sharing the stage with musical robots.
Post uit Hessdalen performs across Europe at theatres, schools, jazz clubs, circus festivals, opera houses, squares, woods, car parks, … for audiences of all ages.
Dear spectator,
each performance is a two-way conversation, with the senses on alert and great curiosity on both sides, but also the questions are tricky, the answers complicated and the outcome changeable. Even if we have not truly found each other, be aware that we have listened attentively and will try again tomorrow. And again.
Yours sincerely,
Ine & Stijn, Post uit Hessdalen
"The fact that this creative duo conducts substantive research over a longer period than a single performance and combines this with various forms and disciplines makes them just as interesting. From their debut 'The smallest family circus in the world', in which they use video projection to transcend the physical boundaries of the circus body in time and space, to the documentary ‘Poolnacht’ (Polar Night), in which the shimmering grey darkness and a narrative voice transport you into a timeless trance, or now this ‘PAKMAN’: radically different in form and discipline, they share the same concern in terms of content: how do we as humans deal with the phenomenon of time? As a virtual, natural or economic given.”
"Post uit Hessdalen had already demonstrated their ability to impressively combine technique, juggling, and artistry with their PAKMAN. With their latest juggling performance, they have achieved this feat once again. It is a skilfully timed and beautifully balanced composition of images and sound."
Since 1940, an inexplicable light phenomenon has been observed in the valley of Hessdalen in Norway.
Between December 1981 and the summer of 1984, the number of sightings peaked to between 15 and 20 a week. Since then, a group of scientists has been looking for an explanation of this mysterious spectacle of light. All the hypotheses so far proposed – from car lights to extraterrestrial life – have been dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
Only about a hundred people continue to live in the valley of Hessdalen. The community was once four times as large. Nowadays many of the houses are empty. Having been ridiculed for their attempts to describe the mystery, those who still live in Hessdalen now do so with great discretion.