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Film Retrospective: A Chinese Woman Meets a Deaf Pianist, and Soon the Dance Begins
Can someone become a musician even if they’re deaf? The fact that the answer is yes may come as a surprise to many. Norwegian pianist and performing artist Rita Lindanger has defied all prejudices. As a deaf performer, she has developed an artistic practice where music is not only heard…
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Film Retrospective: Lars Øyno and His Theatre of Cruelty (Part 2)
This article is for those who want to learn more about the Theatre of Cruelty and how Lars Øyno carries on Artaud’s extreme project. In the accompanying film, he talks about Artaud’s vision and how he works himself. The film includes excerpts from what is perhaps his most controversial production,…
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Film Retrospective: Lars Øyno and His Theatre of Cruelty (Part 1)
A visionary French theatre artist, Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), had a strong desire to break away from the text-based theatre that dominated Europe in the 20th century. His personal experiences with mental illness, pain, madness, the body, and transcendence laid the foundation for a radical vision: a new form of theatre…
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Meet Ulf M: An Outsider in Stamsund (Part 2)
Be prepared to jump almost 20 years back in time. In December 2005, an unusual painting exhibition opened at a gallery in Bodø, an important cultural hub in the Norwegian Arctic. A series of paintings made people stop and wonder. Melancholic men with unusually long necks drowned their sorrows in…
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Meet Ulf M: An Outsider in Stamsund (Part 1)
Ulf Steinar Melkstavik, known as Ulf M, is a Norwegian painter who has developed a distinctive artistic voice: recognizable and subtly whimsical. His art resides at the intersection of the surreal and the folkloric, often populated by figures placed in scenes ranging from the absurd to the deeply melancholic. His…
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Waiting for the Ulf M Film: An Outsider in Stamsund
Lately, I’ve been helping my husband, Eldar, prepare some old films he had stored on hard drives. Many of them have never been shown before. He feels the footage has aged well and serves as a sweet time capsule. The first project he asked for help with was a music…
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GaffGaff Galleri
My wife, Grace, and I have plans to launch an online gallery called GaffGaff Galleri: Digitalpoetism & Beyond. We’ve chosen an absinthe bottle as our trademark. Absinthe has long been associated with bohemians, artists, dreamers, and those who dare to look beneath the surface, much like art itself. The absinthe…
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Becoming the Woman I Needed to Be
A personal journey through growth, healing, and emotional maturity I have always been a fan of personal development topics. Human behavior fascinates me, and I’ve spent years reflecting on my personality. I’ve often admired women who carry themselves with finesse, grace, education, and a worldly sophistication. I would see them…
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No One Told Me About Perimenopause
I would like to use my blog to raise awareness about something I’ve been struggling with since the age of 38: perimenopause. I had some knowledge before it hit me hard. I’d come across it in books and articles occasionally. I even expected it to begin around age 35. But…
