(O)utpost Flørli
4th edition
6-7-8 June 2025
ARTISTIC LINEUP
Dana Michel (CA)
Lee Ranaldo/Leah Singer (US)
Tania El Khoury (LB)
Oleg Soulimenko (AT)
Avdal/Shinozaki- Fieldworks (NO/JP/BE)
Mazen Kerbaj (LB)
Mette Edvardsen (NO)
Marisa Anderson (US)
Findlay//Sandsmark (NO/US)
Fabrice Moinet (NO/FR)
Warren/Thompson (US)
Motus (IT)
Chris Brokaw (US)
Brian Rogers (US)
Nils Erga (NO)
Mirte Bogaert (NO/BE)
DANA MICHEL (CA) – Mike
Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
Artistic intention: The creation and production of MIKE is a commitment to highlighting the idea that without trust in ourselves and in others, it is impossible to safely live public lives that reflect our interior lives. We are sure to stagnate in a state of half-life and disharmony… gridlocked in the endless traffic of not knowing how to respect or even truly recognize the other. WE MUST LEARN HOW TO TRUST THE OTHER. We must first trust OUR «TRUE» SELVES in order to do this work. – Dana Michel
“Dana Michel presents MIKE, an epic work about work culture. From the margins comes a silent rebellion, taking its time and yours, utopianly yours.
Dana Michel specializes in creating situations governed by their own logic. She lives in a world of objects to which she gives new meaning and purposes, away from binary and linear thinking and doing. She breaches social norms from a position of curiosity rather than provocation, gently ushering supposed “marginal figures” to the centre of the conversation. With humour and sensitivity, she questions our very modes of existence.
MIKE asserts the nomadic aesthetic that has become Michel’s calling card over the course of her career. In an open space, during three hours, MIKE invites the audience to spend time inside its universe. It revolves around work culture and self-respect, and puts forward a burning question: is it possible to live public lives that reflect our inner selves?” – Enora Rivière
DANA MICHEL is a live artist whose work interacts with the expanded field of choreography, sculpture, comedy and poetry. Based in Montreal, she is currently touring four solo performance works: YELLOW TOWEL, MERCURIAL GEORGE, CUTLASS SPRING and MIKE. In 2014, she was awarded the ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna) for outstanding artistic accomplishments, and was highlighted among notable choreographers of the year by the New York Times. In 2017, she was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she became the first ever dance artist in residence at the National Arts Centre, Canada. In 2019, she was awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (Kuopio, Finland). In 2022, the Canada Council for The Arts awarded her the Jacqueline-Lemieux prize in recognition of her contribution to dance in Canada. In 2024, she was awarded the Prix de la danse de Montréal for international touring.
LEE RANALDO/LEAH SINGER (US) – Contre Jour
Saturday 7
Leah Singer and Lee Ranaldo present their thirty-five-year collaborative project, variously known over the years as Drift, and Sight Unseen, and currently Contre Jour – titles that suggest chance encounters, an appreciation of the overlooked and shadow play.
Since 1990, the artists have explored how image and sound interact in a live setting. Efforts to break down traditional performer/audience dynamics led to experiments with performing in the round and setting up the projection screen on the floor at eye level, eliminating the need for a stage while equating performer with audience member.
The performance invites a personal interpretation where the experiential nature of the work takes precedent over fixed exposition or any overt narrative.
In the beginning of their collaboration Singer used one then two 16mm modified analytical projectors that enabled the manipulation of the film and provided the opportunity to perform in tandem with live music; the film could move forward and backward, go slow and fast and stop completely in a freeze frame gaining flexibility like an improvising musician. The projectors were the instruments and Singer the performer. Just as a DJ scratches vinyl on two turntables, Singer used the projectors to juxtapose and mix films across a projection screen in real time.
The film was created in Singer’s signature style of shooting 16mm motion picture film in a still 35mm camera, abandoning 24 frames per second rhythm in favor of a fragmented form. The analyzer’s capabilities allowed for the projection of these unique camera rolls, which were very short and would fly by if projected at regular film speed. This meant a short piece of film could expand in time because it had to be projected frame-by-frame. These sequenced film vignettes, separated by black leader, create a visual score that takes on a different shape with each performance. As a result of mainly practical reasons, digital files have now replaced analog film while the core principals of the performance remain intact. The images are now prepared in advance with attention given to creating distinctive sections that adhere to a mise en abyme approach where images can reoccur, become mirrored and distorted, or present as shadows within shadows.
The latest evolution in Ranaldo’s performance involves ‘suspended guitar phenomena’, his electric Fender Jazzblaster guitar swinging freely through space like a sonic pendulum. Both player and instrument function as bodies to intercept the front-projected film, interacting with Singer’s constructed sequences, their shadow play on the screen homage to the earliest form of cinema. The range of sounds emitted from the guitar, and further audio material on the film’s soundtrack create a score that does not illustrate or sync the film but rather responds to it and catalyzes it. Overall the performance poses a set of divergent possibilities that distinguish and advance our experiences– positive/negative, monochrome/color, on/off, past/present.
Leah Singer and Lee Ranaldo have collaborated on image and sound performances since 1991, exploring the intersections and possibilities between the two disciplines. Chance elements and juxtapositions are embraced; the drone of a guitar string and the flash of a film frame take precedence over any fixed exposition or overt narrative. The immersive experience invites a more personal interpretation. A suspended electric guitar in the performance space, un-tethered from the amplifiers, swings freely like a pendulum. Singer’s projected images mix with live shadow play created by the swinging guitar and Ranaldo’s presence onstage.
TANIA EL KHOURY (LB) – As Far As My Fingertips Take Me
Friday 6 + Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
As Far As My Fingertips Take Me is an encounter through a gallery wall between an audience member and a refugee. Their arms touch without seeing each other. The refugee will mark the audience by drawing on their arm. The audience will listen to those who have recently challenged border discrimination. The marking can be kept or washed away.
Tania El Khoury commissioned musician and street artist Basel Zaraa who was born a Palestinian refugee in Syria to record a rap song inspired by the journey his sisters made from Damascus to Sweden. Through touch and sound, this intimate encounter explores empathy and whether we need to literally “feel” a refugee in order to understand the effect of border discrimination on peoples’ lives.
Our fingertips facilitate touch and sensations, but are also used by authorities to track many of us. In today’s Europe, a refugee’s journey can be set as far as their fingertips take them. The Dublin Regulation mandated a fingerprinting database across Europe for all refugees and migrants. The regulation often means that a refugee is sent back to where their fingertips where first recorded, without any regard to their needs, desires, or plans.
Credit: One-on-one performance by Tania El Khoury, originally performed by: Basel Zaraa, transmitted for Flørli by: Ward Zaraa. Song by Basel Zaraa (vocals, bass and keyboard): with Emily Churchill Zaraa (vocals), Pete Churchill (music production) and Katie Stevens (flute and clarinet). Commissioned by “On the Move” LIFT 2016 in partnership with Royal Court Theatre, London.
Bio Tania: Tania El Khoury is a live artist creating installations and performances focused on audience interactivity and concerned with the ethical and political potential of such encounters. Her work has been translated and presented in multiple languages in 32 countries across six continents, in spaces ranging from museums to cable cars to the Mediterranean Sea. She is a 2019 Soros Art Fellow and the recipient of the 2017 International Live Art Prize, the 2011 Total Theatre Innovation Award and Arches Brick Award. Tania was a festival guest curator at Bard Fisher Center. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2018, a survey of her work entitled “ear-whispered: works by Tania El Khoury” took place in Philadelphia organised by Bryn Mawr College and FringeArts Festival funded by Pew Centre for Arts and Heritage. Tania is affiliated with Forest Fringe in the UK and is the co-founder of the urban research and performance collective Dictaphone Group in Lebanon.
Bio Basel: Basel Zaraa is a spoken word artist and percussionist who writes on themes of exile and resistance. He has collaborated with a wide range of international artists including Akala, Guildhall youth project (Im)possibilities, Palestinian hip-hop group Katibeh Khamseh, Arabic fusion band Raast and funk band Shokunin. He is part of the cast of PsycheDELIGHT’s ‘Borderline’ satire about the Calais camp, in which he performs original music and DIY sound effects. He is also a visual and stencil graffiti artist. Basel performs in artist Tania El Khoury’s As Far As My Fingertips Take Me and has co-created with her a second piece entitled As Far As Isolation Goes.
Bio Ward: ‘Ward Zaraa is a multifaceted artist and advocate with a diverse background in painting, illustration, writing, and Gender Studies. Currently pursuing their studies at the Gender Studies Department of Lund University, Ward’s artistic practice focuses on powerful societal themes such as identity, migration, ecofeminism, individual freedoms, and the intricate intersections of spatial, gender, and political identities. As an illustrator and land artist, Ward uses various mediums to challenge and explore these narratives. Beyond their academic and artistic endeavors, they are actively involved in leading art workshops and have authored multiple articles addressing pressing issues like refugee rights, LGBTQ+ topics, and queer identities.’
OLEG SOULIMENKO (AT) – Songs and Stories (from 60’s til today)
Saturday 7
An ode to well known classics from rock and pop history somewhere between cultural heritage and private memories. With a balalaika, kids music instruments and sound objects Oleg cover songs from the 60’s to our days, which are inscribed in our memories in a unique way. The Beatles, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Suicide and Billie Eilish.
OLEG SOULIMENKO lives and works in Vienna and likes to do too many different things. He grew up in a big city where it was not allowed to listen to rock’n roll and dance with a naked torso, but he did both anyway. He works in the fields of performance art and contemporary dance. His performances have been presented in venues and festivals such as Festwochen Wien, Tanzquartier Wien, brut and Impulstanz in Vienna, Performa in New York, Tanz im August in Berlin, Theater Festival Impulse in Germany, Rimi/Imir SceneKunst in Stavanger, Kaai Theatre in Brussels, Baltic Circle in Helsinki and many others.
AVDAL/SHINOZAKI – fieldworks (NO/JP/BE) – yet so far
Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
yet so far is a series of small and larger scale site-specific endeavors set out in various locations.
The core of our artistic approach is commitment to exploring the choreographic process – its practices, knowledge, and potential. We aim to experiment with alternative methods to reconsider, develop, and share choreographic work, expanding its boundaries and impact.
yet so far focuses on exploring various movement improvisations that engages with architecture, or structural aspects of a building, a location, or within a certain surrounding area.
Using the body as a tool, we examine and rediscover the subtle details of a chosen place. By collecting these details and fostering a dialogue between architecture and the body, we aim to generate new interpretations of a site. How can we uncover and reconnect with the past memories embedded within the structure of a building, or a situated area?
This conversation aims to reinterpret the site and its stories, fostering new insights into its history, present and future. Can we create scenarios where both concrete and abstract relationships with the site place us in suspended time pockets, which allows us to transcend linear time offering alternative perspectives on current times we‘re living in right now?
Credit:
Concept & direction: Heine Avdal. Yukiko Shinozaki
Created and performed by Ingrid Haakstad, Heine Avdal, Yukiko Shinozaki
Sound design by Joahann Loiseau
Support: Norsk kulturfond, Vlaamse Overheid
MAZEN KERBAJ (LB)
Friday 6 + Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
Music performance: ‘I will be there and then #1, 2, and 3’
Three improvised and site specific performance in different locations to be decided on the spot and with three different instruments (trumpet, prepared trumpet and crackle synthesiser) that will be decided according to the location selected.
Exhibition
Gaza on the Wall is a selection of drawings made by Berlin-based Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj in response to the ongoing genocidal campaign on Gaza. As early as the 9th of October 2023, Kerbaj started drawing in reaction to the horrors that all of us were – and still are – seeing daily on our screens, and posting the images on his Instagram page. On the one hand, he draws to bear witness and raise awareness; on the other, as a coping mechanism, in an attempt to remain sane amidst the unfolding madness. The straight-to-the-point, high-contrast black and white images are often accompanied by striking slogans. The works have been widely shared on social media, allowing tens of thousands of people worldwide to express their own solidarity and to identify with the artist’s feelings and positions.
Mazen Kerbaj is a Lebanese comics author, visual artist, and musician born in Beirut in 1975. He also works on selective illustration and design projects and has taught at the American University of Beirut.Kerbaj is the author of 15 books translated into more than ten languages and his work has been shown in galleries, museums and art fairs around the world.
Mazen Kerbaj is widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. As a trumpet player, he pushes the boundaries of the instrument beyond recognition.
His visual art is heavily influenced by his musical improvisation practice; this is apparent in his long standing “four hands” collaborations with other visual artists, such as his late mother Laure Ghorayeb and Lebanese artist Hatem Imam, as well as his live visual performances, such as Wormholes or Synesthesia.
In 2015, Kerbaj was the recipient of a DAAD one-year artist in residency in Berlin. He lives and works in the German capital since. Since his move to Berlin, Kerbaj has developed several new projects in different fields, such as Borborygmus a theatre play he co-wrote, directed and performed with Rabih Mroué and Lina Majdalanie; Synesthesia, a concept for a live graphic score for an improvising ensemble that premiered at the Ultima festival in Oslo; and Walls Will Fall, a composition for 49 trumpets performed in a water reservoir in Berlin in 2018. He also started working on his most ambitious graphic novel to date, a biography of his father, actor Antoine Kerbage, mixed with his own autobiography and stories from the golden age of the Lebanese artistic and intellectual life of the 70s. This work is being published in individual chapters since the beginning of 2019.
METTE EDVARDSEN (NO) – Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine
Friday 6 + Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
by Mette Edavrdsen with Staffan Eek, Siriol Joyner, Jon Refsdal Moe, Marit Ødegaard
For ‘Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine’ a group of people/ performers memorize a book of their choice. Together they form a library collection consisting of living books. The books are passing their time in a library, sitting in chairs, walking around, talking together, looking out of the window, reading in paper-books from the shelves, ready to be consulted by a visitor. The visitors of the library choose a book they would like to read, and the book brings its reader to a place or setting in the library, in the cafeteria, or for a walk outside, while reciting its content (and possibly valid interpretations).
The idea for this library of living books comes from the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451. It is a future vision of a society where books are forbidden because they are considered dangerous, that happiness must be obtained through an absence of knowledge and individual thought. The number 451 refers to the temperature at which book paper starts to burn. As books are forbidden in this society an underground community of people learn books by heart in order to preserve them for the future.
Books are read to remember and written to forget. To memorize a book, or more poetically ‘to learn a book by heart’, is in a way a rewriting of that book. In the process of memorizing, the reader for a moment steps into the place of the writer, or rather he/ she is becoming the book. Maybe the ability to learn a whole book by heart is relative to what book you choose, the time you invest, and perhaps your skills. But, however much or well you learn something by heart you have to keep practicing it otherwise you will forget it again. Perhaps by the time you reach the end you will have forgotten the beginning. Learning a book by heart is an ongoing activity and doing. There is nothing final or material to achieve, the practice of learning a book by heart is a continuous process of remembering and forgetting.
Mette Edvardsen
The work of Mette Edvardsen is situated within the performing arts field as a choreographer and performer. Although some of her works explore other media or other formats, such as video, books and writing, her interest is always in their relationship to the performing arts as a practice and a situation. She has worked since 1994 as a dancer and performer for a number of companies and projects, and develops her own work since 2002. She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists, both as a collaborator and as a performer. A retrospective of her work was presented at Black Box theatre in Oslo in 2015, and the focus program Idiorritmias at MACBA in Barcelona in 2018. Her project Time has fallen alseep in the afternoon sunshine is ongoing since 2010, presented twice at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in 2013 & 2017, Sydney Biennale in 2016, Index Foundation in Stockholm in 2019, Oslobiennalen First Edition in 2019-2020, Trust & Confusion at Tai Kwun Arts in Hong Kong in 2021, Sao Paulo Biennale 2021. She presented works and a performative exhibition ‹Suppose a Room› at Amant in New York in 2022, and develops a project in long term residency at Les Laboratoires d›Aubervilliers in Paris 2022/ 2023.Mette Edvardsen is structurally supported by Norsk Kulturråd (2022 – 2026). She is finalizing her research as a Phd candidate at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Norma T
Norma T is a project room, an occasional bookshop and a fictional friend. She’s named after a fictional character and is usually located in a former shop in a small street in Oslo. Norma T will make some apparitions at this year’s Flørli festival, bringing parts of the bookshop and daydream other activities.
MARISA ANDERSON (US)
Saturday 7
Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. Her deeply original work applies elements of minimalism, electronic music, drone, and 20th century classical music to compositions based on blues, jazz, gospel and country music, reimagining the landscape of American music. Her work has been featured in Billboard, Rolling Stone, NPR, SPIN, the BBC and The Wire. Festival appearances include Big Ears, Pitchfork Midwinter, Le Guess Whow and the Copenhagen Jazz festival.
‘ One of the best emotional mediums in the field of solo guitar, Marisa Anderson is a master of lovely melancholy.’ – Pitchfork
The New Yorker calls Anderson ‘one of the most distinctive guitar players of her generation’, while NPR refers to her as among ‘this era’s most powerful players’.
Anderson’s discography includes five solo records and multiple collaborations. Her latest release, Lost Futures (2021), is a collaboration with guitarist William Tyler. In 2020 Anderson released The Quickening with drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White). Anderson is sought after as a collaborator and composer, contributing to recordings by Matmos, Tara Jane O’Neil, Beth Ditto, Sharon Van Etten and Circuit Des Yeux among others, as well as creating music for short films and soundtracks.
Classically trained, she honed her skills playing in country, jazz and circus bands. and currently tours extensively throughout Europe and North America.
“There are some musicians whose skillful playing seems to come so easily, it can appear supernatural. Guitarist Marisa Andersen is one such sorcerer of song. The Portland-based virtuoso has issued several records’ worth of instrumental numbers that delight and bewilder with cascades of fingerpicked notes. Anderson demonstrates yet again that she’s one of this era’s most powerful players, and one whose sleight of hand is some serious business indeed. “ – NPR music
Marisa Anderson is one of the most eminent guitarists working today. Her lucid, eloquent approach to guitar music and composition has established her as an unparalleled artist and an insightful, coveted collaborator.
Anderson’s work draws on a mosaic of folk musics and lives in conversation with myriad musical traditions. Her music is inviting and candid, beckoning the listener into sprawling ecosystems and intimate corners alike, from barren landscapes to verdant thickets, impassioned communal experiences to pensive reclusions. As a master of her instrument, Anderson translates abstractions into undeniably moving music, tracing through traditional folk tunes, imagined Sci-Fi films, and foggy sanctuaries of sound.
On her most recent album ‘Still, Here’ Anderson is at her most direct, laying bare her practice of processing and understanding the world through music and distilling that practice into pieces as expressive as they are transfixing.
FINDLAY//SANDSMARK (NO/US)
– iteration broken flørli
Friday 6
iteration broken flørli is a continuation and derivative of the recent (broken) project, parsing and re-imagining elements to find new connection points and resonating ripples.
By Marit Sandsmark and Iver Findlay
Assistance: Greta Jasaitė
The project is supported by Norwegian Arts Council, Rogaland Fylkeskommune, and Stavanger Kommune.
Findlay//Sandsmark is a performance company working across the disciplines of dance, theater, live music and video art in a collaborative and collective effort. Over the past few years they have created several productions in the borderland between performing arts and installation, bending connections and correlations over disciplines to create live art which resonates from a physical and emotional plane.
FABRICE MOINET (NO/FR) – Timeline – India –
Friday 6 + Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
During one of his trip in India, Fabrice has recorded the sound of his journey during one month. Those recording have been taken everyday in different locations for several hours using two tiny microphones placed on his shoulders. All recording can be listened with one of several small brief cases that Fabrice has made for this purpose. Each brief case contains a headphone, a sound player based on a computer and small display showing a global overview of the recording timeline. The sound player is following the time of the day in a way that it is only possible to listen an audio recording depending on the time it has been recorded. A small rotary knob allow the listener to switch between different dates but the time rolls, following our daily 24hour cycle.
Fabrice Moinet (NO/FR) is a sound artist and designer, working in the performing arts and dance field and collaborating and touring with various artists like Christina Clar, Heine Avdal, Constanza Macras, Terry Riley, Franck2Louise, Garlo and others. As a member of the French institute of Music and Research (IRCAM), he has been using emerging technologies since 1998 to explore multiple aspects of sound. Currently based in Stamsund, he has been focusing and reflecting on his practice as a sound artists and technician, driven by mathematics and physics, where sound has been the medium that opens questions about the quantic aspects of the space between sound sources and our ears.
WARREN/THOMPSON (US) – Normal Noises in Here
Friday 6 + Saturday 7 + Sunday 8
This work in-progress is a visual exploration into a collection of photos, memories and dreamscapes from the past, present and the (future). Peter Warren is a freelance sculptor/visual artist based in Kansas City. In Kansas City, he has participated in Studios Inc residency program and The Kansas City Collection.He has been represented by various galleries which include Blue Gallery, Trap Gallery, Studios Inc and Habitat Contemporary. Peter has enjoyed collaborative work locally with Trina Warren, Emily Sloan, as well as multiple local businesses. Internationally he has worked in collaboration with Findlay//Sandsmark throughout Norway, Europe and the USA for over a decade. He is a founding member of Combustive Arts, a NY arts collective.
TRINA THOMPSON (US) – A Moving Meditation
Friday 6 + Sunday 8
Trina will offer a guided experience exploring gentle, natural movements influenced by our external and internal worlds with a meditative “journey”.
Trina Thompson Warren is a Kansas City-based artist, Pilates and movement instructor. In Kansas City, she has collaborated and performed in site-specific installations with artists Peter Warren, Emily Sloan, and Jane Gotch. As well as solo work performed at the Folly Theater. Previously, Trina danced with several choreographers in New York including nine years with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. She has also enjoyed many teaching projects and setting Trisha Brown’s repetoire at many places including P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, University of Minnesota, Western Washington University, Lyon Opera Ballet, and Ballet de Lorraine.
MOTUS (IT) – Presentation: Motus, Bodies and Monsters
Friday 6
The talk is a journey through all our productions (with photos and videos) from the beginning to today, exploring the relationship with monstrosity, up to the account of the various residencies for the latest documentary research, [ÒDIO].
MOTUS (IT) – Workshop: My Rage Is A Silent Raving
Saturday 7
Workshop by Daniela Nicolò & Enrico Casagrande (MOTUS), with the collaboration of Lisa Gilardino
The workshop takes its title from a line in Susan Stryker’s poem My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage (Stryker is an author, filmmaker, and gender studies theorist).
It will be a collective journey of unveiling, mutual care, and the discovery of new possible alliances through a series of participatory moments, research activities, and fun, simple exercises suitable even for those with no prior experience… A voyage toward discovering one’s own body and its shadowy zones—a collective happening aimed at giving voice to those who are often voiceless.
Following the shared practices, which will lead to the creation of a large collective visual artwork, we will organize a series of individual moments/interviews—only for those who wish to participate—for the making of the documentary film [ÒDIO] (Italian for “Hate”).
MOTUS, Italy’s leading independent theater collective, has been conducting artistic research since the beginning of 2023 on the interdependence of discrimination and hatred. This project is part of a trilogy inspired by Frankenstein and its creature—a being that initially looks at the world with curiosity and love but, upon recognizing its own social exclusion, internalizes the monstrosity imposed by others and ultimately transforms into a monster itself… Last year, right here in Florli, the small performance Daemon premiered—also part of the ongoing research on Mary Shelley’s novel.
This research runs parallel to the creation of the Frankenstein performance, seeking instead to position monstrosity and the rage born from discrimination as a resource, because:
We need Monsters
and we need to recognise
and celebrate
our own monstrosities.
—J. Halberstam
[ÒDIO] the film, will have its world premiere at the MAMbo Museum of Contemporary Art in Bologna in March 2026, followed by screenings in all the cities/artistic spaces that collaborated on the project.
CHRIS BROKAW (US)
Friday 6
Four years after his rock juggernaut PURITAN, Chris Brokaw delivers GHOST SHIP, a landscape meditation (at sea) for vocals and electric guitars.
I set out to make an 8 song statement like ‘Desert Shore’ or ‘Raw Power’, but it became a 9 song…something else. I’ve described it to friends as ‘Twin Peaks-ish’ but that feels only part right. The songs were written on a 60’s Teisco Del Rey electric guitar, set up by the Belgian luthier Flip Scipio with heavy gauge flat wound strings and an .80 gauge low E string tuned down to a low A, which reframes how you play the instrument. I wrote them all quickly in a kind of fever. – Brokaw
“You need to listen to GHOST SHIP from beginning to end. Stand too close to the speaker holding a plastic cup of seltzer with lime and really crank it up. If you have a purple light bulb, screw that into the ceiling fixture, and it will be like seeing Brokaw play the kind of live Brokaw set that puts you on the bottom of the ocean, standing under a transmission tower with a semicircle of effects pedals at its feet. If I’m making this sound vaporous, consider the conversational chords of ‘8 Or 9 Things’, the sharply descending final notes of ‘Profile’, or the extinction burst of ‘Anything Anymore’. Think of echolocation: sonics defining space and distance, time elapsing, the disappearance of something – maybe drugs or a doomed love, possibly in the same form. ‘I’m a ghost ship on a long trip / and if you come aboard I’ll never run ashore.’” Mimi Lipson
Chris Brokaw is perhaps best known for his work with the bands Codeine and Come. He has released over two dozen solo albums of instrumental and vocal music since 2002, and played in The New Year, Pullman, Charnel Ground and the Lemonheads. He has scored nine films, most recently ‘Crookedfinger’ by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund, and written for dance and performance work, most recently ‘Lowlands’ with Findlay//Sandsmark in Stavanger, Norway. He has recorded and performed as an accompanist to Thurston Moore, Christina Rosenvinge, Rhys Chatham, Jennifer O’Connor, Steve Wynn and GG Allin. Currently he plays in Lupa Citta (with Sarah Black and Jenn Gori), the Martha’s Vineyard Ferries (with Bob Weston and Elisha Wiesner) and the Chris Brokaw Rock Band (with Clint Conley and Luther Gray). He continues to perform periodically with Codeine and Come; and will be touring internationally on GHOST SHIP both solo and in his trio.
BRIAN ROGERS (US) – Small Songs
Friday 6
Small Songs is an abstract auto-fictional travelogue—and a love letter to the late visual artist Nancy Holt—made from footage captured during several cross-country road trips (including a visit to Holt’s landmark work the Sun Tunnels) between 2021 and 2024. A deeply personal solo project entirely shot, scored, and edited by Brian Rogers, the film borrows audio material from Small Songs (the album), a related collection of very short synthesizer compositions released in 2023.
Brian Rogers is a theater and film director, video and sound artist, and performing arts curator. Since 1997, Brian has created films, performances, albums, and other time- based projects including Small Songs (2023-2025), Screamers (2018), Hot Box (2012, co-presented with FIAF’s Crossing The Line Festival / PS122’s COIL Festival / EMPAC Center, Troy NY and supported by a MAP Fund grant), and the Bessie-nominated Selective Memory (2010). Brian composed the soundtrack for Shaun Iron & Lauren Petty’s film Standing By: Gatz Backstage and has collaborated as a sound and video artist with numerous experimental dance and theater artists in NY and elsewhere. Brian is a MacDowell Fellow, and has had residencies at Yaddo and Mount Tremper Arts. Brian is the Co-Founder and Artistic Executive Director of The Chocolate Factory Theater, an internationally recognized venue for experimental dance, theater, and interdisciplinary performance based in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. Brian serves as chief curator of the organization’s artistic programming (now in its 21st year) and leads its artistic and administrative operations.
NILS ERGA (NO)
Friday 6
Nils Erga is a violist, synthesist and vocalist from Stavanger, Norway. He currently plays in the psychedelic trio Tørrfall, folk duo Gaute & Nils, and space techno outfit John Dance. Nils has previously collaborated with Findlay//Sandsmark for their productions Lowlands and Returner. At (O)utpost Flørli, he will play a solo set of new compositions.
MIRTE BOGAERT (NO/BE)
Saturday 7
As you like it is a research project that is currently in development to become a performance.
The performance is based on Bogaert’s research into how Western perspectives on the female body, nudity, and sexuality have influenced Japanese ideals—particularly during the early Meiji era and the (post-)World War II period. A key part during TOKAS Research Residency in Japan, involved visiting striptease theatres, where the cultural codes offered rich ground for reflection and inspiration.
Through movement and dress, Bogaert investigates the external gaze and its lasting influence on societal norms, questioning how we look at bodies and what that gaze reveals about ourselves. Where does the line lie between connection and voyeurism, between presence and projection? This performance challenges audiences to confront their own viewing habits, exploring the ambiguity of intent and the shifting boundaries between cultural influence and personal interpretation. The gaze becomes both a tool and a tension—shaping norms, drawing borders, and inviting reflection. Through embodied research, Bogaert repositions the act of looking as a site of critical inquiry and potential transformation.
Many thanks to: Lilach Orenstein, Sølvi Katrine Andersen, Tomoko Seto, Daisuke Muto, Ive Stevenheydens, TOKAS team, Saori Izumi, Mai Endo, Natsu Usami, Hino Hiruko, Jennifer Merlyn Scherler, Joakim Aras, Kaoru Ueda, Fu Kuen Tang, Jimmy Ong, Tarlen Handayani
Supported by: Bergen Dansesenter / MOtiVE Brooklyn (USA), PAHN, Charleroi Danse (BE), Vestland Fylkeskommune (NO), Arbeidsstipend (Arts and Culture Norway)
Residencies: Bergen Dansesenter / MOtiVE Brooklyn (USA), Charleroi Danse (BE), TOKAS – Tokyo Arts and Space (JP), Mogus House (ID), Miao Dance (SG). As you like it participates in Forecast Forum 2025 (DE)
