During DanseFestival Barents, LATERNA re-visits Áhkánjárstábba, the renown stone, known as the Stallo in Kvalsund, this time inviting to the gallery at the Arctic Cultural Centre/Arktisk Kultursenter. This is one event in a series of performative events in the project CoSA- Concerning the Spiritual in Art.
In June 2017 LATERNA created a performance in collaboration with LOCUS, Robert Steijn and Kvalsund Kommune/Stallodagene. For days we sat five artists together with Áhkánjárstábba, we talked and sang for it, had meditative conversations, we moved objects and ourselves around the stone. We slept, dreamt and conversed beside it. On the day of summer solstice we celebrated the stone together with people from the local community and also some visitors from afar.
Re-visiting Áhkánjárstábba, we are searching for ways to involve the audience where they may experience the stone, landscapes, stories and traces that the stone left in us. During the hour of twilight, we invite the audience to witness our meeting with the stone - inside the gallery space.
What may an ancient stone tell us in our time?
Are we able to embody the stone´s body by looking back into roots of folklore, back to a time when we still knew how to live our lives in coherence with nature?
Is it possible to find a mysterious relationship with a landscape that does not remain a personal experience, but a collective experience, shared in a community?
May interpretations of landscapes make the local universal?
Perhaps we sometimes need to pass magic road signs like Áhkánjárstábba to be able to move on in life with greater ease?
What happens when we invite to a gathering "around the stone" inside the gallery space?
If even stones can fly - can we?
