Impure Company / Hooman Sharifi (Iran/Norway)

An empty stage surrounded by three white curtains taller than a man. In the middle, a spotlight frame hangs almost down to the ground. The actors: four people dressed in black who switch back and forth, and without warning, between muted energy, wild movements, silent screams and rigid poses. ‘Nietzsche said that God is dead, but I find it far more provocative to say: he no longer cares about us.’ The point of departure of God exists … are fragments from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Roland Barthes and Peter Handke. Affiliation – or rather the (futile) search for it – is the central thread running through the texts and the very physical performance, which uses very hard cuts. The audience is invited to read the texts projected onto a screen and to drew its own conclusions about the events taking place on the stage.

Hooman Sharifi, the founder of the Impure Company and one of Norway’s most distinguished choreographers, left his home country, Iran, at the age of fourteen. In this piece, he is also working through his own experiences when, for instance – like Karpar Hauser in Handke’s Kaspar – he is confronted with a language that he concentrates on listening to for so long until he is able to make sense of it.