Hedenstad was one of the first theatreshows by the dutch Hotel Modern. I saw it in Arnhem when I was still at artschool. What hit me the most was the ease and nonchalance that they crossed borders between puppetry, visual art, performance art, animation and theatre. They still do by the way.
Check their new performances on Hotelmodern.nl.
From the jury report of the Incentive Prize for Puppetry awarded to Hotel Modern in 1999:
“A metropolis is created using an enormous assemblage of empty boxes and other packaging material, along with a sophisticated lighting design and an evocative soundscape. The audience is submerged into the seething, noisy chaos that is CITY for a night and a day. Fridges form a realistic skyline. Tiny illuminated lifts shoot up and down while on the roof a collection of elegant perfume bottles stroll about at a chic party. Earlier on, in a suicidal act, a banana threw itself off the roof. And so we sit, glued to our seats, won over by the obvious pleasure of the workers on the stage floor and the unexpected visual language – comprehensible for a wide age-range of audiences.”
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