Call for Programme 2023

We want your larps! Whether you’re a seasoned larp-wright or just a rookie, Grenselandet is committed to fostering new designs and encouraging experimentation.

Grenselandet will take place on Oct 13th and 14th 2023. 

This year we want to provoke your creativity with a theme: elemental. “Elemental” larps can be hot and steamy, light and airy, or grounded in history and lived experience. They might engage with the powers of nature or feature beings associated with the elements like gnomes and water sprites. Understood differently, elemental larps can also showcase aspects that are fundamental or typical of chamber larp. Finally, elemental larps make the best of their environments, which at Grenselandet 2023 will include the usual blackbox spaces, a yoga studio, and a Sauna!

We have the following requirements for all our larps (although we sometimes make exceptions)

- Designer should attend Grenselandet to run the larp (this also means a script is not required)

- No player preparations should be required

- Max duration: 4 hours (workshop time + runtime)

- Sauna larps: max 1 hour 45 min workshop (not in sauna) + max 1 hour 45 runtime (in sauna) You can submit your pitch here!

Grenselandet requires the designer to be present at the festival. Larp designers do not have to pay a participant fee, but have to pay for the travel themselves. We do however have a fund that can give travel grants to 4-6 designers who otherwise cannot afford to travel to Norway. Costs for props can also be reimbursed by the festival. If you want to stay in Oslo without paying for a hotel or hostel, it is usually possible to find a host among the local larpers if you post on the facebook-event some weeks before the festival. For designers, the Grenselandet organizers may also help out with this.

Ancient Hours

Two demi-gods, Love and Memory, are being held captive by humans on different sides of the globe. They are being tortured and pressured into giving up some of their powers to their tormentors. Conjuring their joint abilities, however, they manage to meet in their common memories.

Ancient Hours is a VR larp by Nadja Lipsyc and Joffe Rydberg that touches on themes like symbolic torture, mourning, breakup, captivity, love, and romance. It will be playtested at Grenselandet.

Content warning: Alternating between IRL claustrophobia, confinement, and VR open worlds. Players must be okay with spending time in VR (bright screen close to the face). It's possible to wear glasses, but not very comfortable. Players must be able to sit and stand several times during the experience (not recommended to very painful knees). Players must be okay with being touched (back, shoulders, hands). Players must be okay with having people guiding them while they are in VR, thus blinded (through light touch (shoulder/arms) and voice.

Taylor

We are all Taylor. ❤️ Taylor Swift ❤️ In this larp by Charles Bo Nielsen everyone gets to play Taylor. Each player gets to pick a specific song to build their version of Taylor around. Nerdy, country, brainy, slutty? By digging into her multifaceted public persona this larp touches on topics like lovers, haters, friendship, and feminism

B.Y.O.B.

B.Y.O.B. is a comedy larp designed by Yauheniya Siadova, Nastassia Sinitsyna, and Alisa Matavilava. It tells the story of childhood friends who are now adults, between 30–35 years old. They love to party and drink a lot. However all of them have strong reasons to quit drinking. Tonight is their last chance to have a raging drinking session and to look back on all the crazy stuff they've done.

Seaside Prison

Seaside Prison is set in an alternative reality where Åland Islands are under military siege like real world Gaza. You play two families who live as neighbours - family drama and wedding preparations. Their daily life is interrupted by bombings where some of the family members die. For more information check out the webpage: http://seasideprison.fi/en/index.html

Created by Kaisa Kangas (larp), Martin Nielsen (larp), Mohamad Rabah (larp), Essi Santala (lights), Hannu Sinervä (sound), and Joona Pettersson (video projection).

The Becoming

The Becoming is an experimental larp by Miles Lizak. You play a new being in a vast universe. This much you know: Your people explore the cosmos by sending new beings like you and your fellows into it, to build themselves and be built by the places they encounter. You are essentially a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Through different stages of observation and ritual, your people can adapt and assimilate to any environment.

The Things We Left Behind

Regardless of our varied reasons to migrate, the journey always begins with packing. While some might have the luxury of time and the resources to contemplate what to bring, others only have only a moment’s notice to take what they can. This larp, designed by Eliot Moleba, invites you to traverse the layers of things we lose and gain, the challenges and opportunities we meet in the process of migrating.