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Instead, Miller has devised a themed programme known as Open Port, based on a series of residencies from four companies that are nothing if not diverse: Tel Aviv's Inbal Pinto dance company, the Oskaras Korsunovas theatre company from Lithuania, the Belgian experimental opera group Transparant, and the Handspring Puppet workshop of South Africa. Each will create a new piece by working with local residents and artists.
Miller's decision to import cultural practitioners has not gone unchallenged. In 2005, graffiti around the city demanded "Ka ta ittepa?" (What happens afterwards?), the slogan of a pressure group of local artists who felt excluded. "The fact is," argues Miller, "there simply are not sufficient Norwegian artists to create the work required for a project of this scale or ambition on their own. We have to remember that we are supposed to be delivering a European capital of culture, not a Norwegian one."
Though the cultural landscape of Stavanger remains relatively small, the physical landscape is astounding, and many of the year's events belong to a unique genre that straddles dance, theatre - and extreme sport. Abseil specialists Bandaloop will hurl themselves off a rock face; 100 residents will take part in a light-and-snow spectacular, accessible only by ski lift; and Rogaland Theatre will colonise an entire island to present a site-specific work, Adventures in Landscape. Meanwhile, international artists have been challenged to turn the region's cluster of lighthouses into a linked light installation laced along the coast.
Naturally, this being Norway, there are trolls. In bygone years, the citizens of Stavanger rang the church bells to keep the elfin folk away, but at the opening celebrations on January 12 they were out in force: stalking around the cobbled streets of the old town centre before converging on Breiavatnet, a lake at the heart of the city, which became the scene of a magical pageant featuring burning boats floating across the water.
An estimated 60,000 people turned out for the festivities, which continued all night with concerts in churches and bars, concluding with a grand party at Tou Scene, a 19th-century former brewery that's the hub of Stavanger's alternative scene. Tou Scene is the home of the NuMusic Festival, a summer event that promotes art exhibitions alongside dance nights and visits from electronic music pioneers; two years ago the late Karlheinz Stockhausen was the guest of honour. A mini-festival last weekend included a set by Knut Jonas, alternately known as King Knut, a DJ and producer born in Stavanger and now living in London.
Stavanger is proud of its status as the largest wooden city in Europe, though its 18th- and 19th-century clapboard houses now share the city with the concrete blocks of oil company headquarters. By the end of 2008, Norwegian Wood, the inevitable name for the competition for new timber constructions, aims to have completed a dozen building projects in the region, including 400 living spaces, two bridges, a kindergarten and a mountain lodge. The €20m (£15m) invested in Norwegian Wood will be one visible legacy of the Capital of Culture long after the fireworks have faded. Though relatively modest, the project stands in striking comparison to Liverpool's failed plan to build a "fourth grace" on the waterfront.
Stavanger's targets may be smaller than Liverpool's, but by expecting less it could end up achieving rather more, or seeming to. "We are so much the little cousin of Liverpool that there are many areas where we cannot even hope to compete," says Grete Kvinnesland of the Norwegian Wood project. "But there is one aspect of culture in which we cannot be beaten. What is the one thing that everyone who comes to Stavanger remembers? Little wooden houses."
· Details:
www.stavanger2008.no
Source:
Guardian Unlimited
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