The Ark

Our latest addition to the programme is The Ark (NO) by Karete Jacobsen Meland and Martin Nielsen. It takes place on an Ark - not one that saves pairs of animals from extinctions, but one that takes the last single member of a species on a journey.

A group of different animals, all believed to be the last of their kind, are on a final journey. Lonesome, but with others who face the same destiny. How will they experience impending extinction? With sorrow? As an opportunity for change? Or as a chance to properly enjoy life because there is no tomorrow?

The Ark is a quiet, bittersweet, contemplative, and slightly surrealist experience, where we will use artificial smell as a way of directing the play. All players will portray different animals – with their own quirks and demeanors – travelling with the Ark to new and old corners of the world and of their lives and exploring being alone and together at the same time.

A World Apart

We are pleased to present the next larp from our challenge on Corona Resilient Larps: A World Apart (DK) by Nina Runa Essendrop.

All the people live in their own little worlds. 

They all have their meaningful routines, their possessions and their abstract task to fill out their lives. 

Each one is separate, unable to touch or talk to the people living next to them. 

But in their dreams, they reach out and gently become part of something shared, something deeper than their everyday life. And as their dreams start to influence their reality they learn to see and connect with others across the borders of their own little words.   

 

A World Apart is an abstract, physical larp about finding connection with others who are far away. 

It is a larp about the things we have in common even if our circumstances are different and the way we can influence each others actions and world views even when we cannot be physically in touch. 

Die Lassie! Die!

The next larp from our dinner party challenge is "Die Lassie! Die!" (DK) - a film noir inspired larp by Julie Streit Pilegaard. This larp is not a dinner party in the traditional sense - but rather a group of mobsters around a table in a dirty back room of a London pub.

Nothing helps to hide violent crimes and murdered bodies in her dark narrow streets as 1946’s London.

In a small room behind a gritty pub, a gang of small time hardened mobsters meet to cool down and wipe off the blood after a botched robbery. Drinks are poured and conversation starts to flow, as they talk about their jobs, old times, and wait for their friend to return with words from The Boss.

Soon everything takes a deadly turn. 

All of them are soon to discover that nothing they know about themself and each other are as it seems.

Memories in Concrete

Today, we can announce the second larp from our challenge on making corona resilient larps: Memories in Concrete (UK/FR) by Michael Such and Nadja Lipsyc explores new ways of using technology to bridge larp and the real world.

Something bad happened and now you are in pieces. Trauma has scattered your memories and identity all over a concrete jungle. Can you make yourself whole again?

Together we will try, playing as pieces of the same person. One of you will be our Ego, mapping memories at a Grenselandet venue. The rest of you will be playing outdoors in Oslo or your own city. You will explore the urban space and recollect memories and emotions, in contact with other players over voice and video. Together, we will reconstruct our protagonist, their life and memories across the years. In the end you will have a collective decision to make via video call:

Who or what will be forgotten for good?

The experience lasts for two hours including briefing and debriefing. You will need a smartphone with roaming data, headphones, and to be dressed appropriately for walking outside.

NB! This larp might be possible to participate in even if you are not physically present at Grenselandet. More info will come regarding this.

First dinner party larp: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Before the summer, we presented a new innovation that we want to try out at Grenselandet this year: The-dinner-party challenge. We have a dedicated room where there will be a dinner table, chairs and some corona-convenient food and drinks available, and we invited larpmakers to pitch their ideas for larps that could be run in this scenography. Today, we are happy to present the first of these larps: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (UK) by Mo Holkar.

A group of friends and lovers attempt to eat dinner together, but are repeatedly interrupted.

Can they retain their personalities and their faultless manners, in the face of a succession of increasingly surreal and disturbing disruptions?

Can the bourgeoisie preserve its discreet charm, as familiar world order crumbles into chaos? 

First challenge larp: Simarilium

Before the summer, we had a challenge where we invited people to pitch larps for two formats: Corona resilient larps, and Dinner party larps. The latter is 2-hour larps taking place around a fixed dinner table (with 1 metre between each person, at least for now).

Corona resilient larps are larps that either accomodate playing without physical contact and/or accomodate digital participation or other means to make it available despite corona-restrictions.

We have selected a handful of larps, and are happy to present the first one: Simarilium (NO) by Frida Sofie Jansen.

What if you had chosen the other road.

What if you had walked away from that argument? 

What if the one you never said hi to could be the love of your life?

Simarilium is a story of what ifs, of a group of friends and how the choices they make and the chances that happen to them could change everything.

The larp will take place in more than one venue at the same time, where the players will portrait the same grouo of characters. Through video link the players of the different venues will always be able to look "into the mirror" and see how it all could have been, if things had happened differently.

This larp is especially designed for bringing the experience to different people who cannot, for one reason or another, meet up in person, and while one venue will be in Oslo, the other will take place somewhere else, to bring the Grenselandet experience to more people during lock down. 

The Last Thing to Die

Susanne Gräslund and Anders Hultman once again pokes at painful spots in our history, this time the oppression of Jews during World War 2. They will run their scenario The Last Thing to Die (SE) at Grenselandet this fall.

The setting is Norway during WWII and the German occupation. You will play Jewish families who try to cope with the changes in society during the war. You will have to make difficult choices for yourself and your loved ones. Many of you will not survive, but there is always hope.

To hope is to be human. We always look for good signs, or a way out of difficult situations. We are also very bad at really imagining the worst, and often think that things can’t be that bad after all. This scenario is about how people can slowly be trapped, step by step. How the normalisation process can make us accept small movements towards a terrible end goal. We often think that the bottom must have been reached now, and that it will soon become better if we just manage to endure the current hardships. We cling to what hope we have and believe that in the long run, truth and justice shall prevail.

Susanne Gräslund & Anders Hultman have previously written scenarios such as “The Testimony” and “Women” together. Susanne have co-organized the larp “Knappnålshuvudet”. Anders have co-organized larps like “A nice Evening with the Family” and “Fortune & Felicity”, as well as having been one of the organizers of the Stockholm Scenario Festival since 2013.