The closest the audience gets to my work, comes to surface in the critically acclaimed performance "When Boys Cry" (2016), when shown as The Home Edition. I started The Home Edition in 2021, a way of showing my work that I find incredibly interesting - and that suits my art well. My performances gets closer to the audience than ever before, and the audience expericnes it in the environment in which they usually cook, eat and relax, sleep in. "When Boys Cry" tells my own story of being raped by a stranger as a child - about life in the seconds, minutes, days and years afterwards. I have previously performed the performance in theaters, schools, and churches, but in recent years I have taken the performance into private homes in The Home Edition. The aim of The Home Edition was to see what happens to me and the audience's experience in such a context. Home, which is supposed to be the safest place we can be, is for some the exact opposite. We need to be reminded of that.

 

I feel a responsibility to ensure that the audience feels looked after from the moment they arrive at my performances. Part of this could be an artist talk. Here I share the story behind the performance, or about the process of creating it, or what it is like to work with the topic in question in a theatrical context. And last but not least; the audience can ask questions and make their observations.  

 

I have always been concerned with audience development. A key part of this for me is to contribute to show my work outside of the big cities, and into smaller places and stages close to where people live. Therefore, the vast majority of my premieres have been presented in smaller places, mostly in Northern Norway. Several of my performances have been co-produced by Lofoten Kulturhus (Svolvær). Lofoten Kulturhus also supported the years I ran Aorta Dance Company..

 

Aorta Dance Company was a dance program for children and young people in Vågan in Lofoten, where the children got to meet the artist Thomas. Over a few years, we worked closely together, and the children were able to express themselves creatively and create performances in which they had great ownership. A place where the children learned a lot, but so did I! In the encounter with their sincerity and directness, I myself was challenged as an artist.   

 

For 15 years I have worked to illuminate darkness. Some of it has been necessary for me personally, while some has been for other reasons. With the hope of being able to contribute to making it less scary and hard to talk about the difficult stories, and with the marking of Thomas of Norway 15 years, I look forward to another 15 years.

 

I have never been afraid of the dark.