Fried Eggs Crazy Cabaret, by Tine Louise Kortermand and Nina Björk Eliasson

Uppsala Municipal Theatre

Kortermand with a huge microphone, recording the sound scape of a frying omelet prepared by Björk Eliasson in live performance, introduced the surrealist musical and mixed media show. The show was loaded with references and complex conceptual puns going all the way back to the sixties and the Fluxus movement.

The recorded sounds of frying omelet was to appear later in the show as a composition. This kind of an artistic loop has a lot of references in surrealist music and performance art. Related, as it involves cooking and a musical scene, is an example from Fylkingen 2001, where a man is tapped of his blood, which eventually is served to him as a meal in the form of pan cakes. Peggy Sue's dream of having her own Cooking Show in Jenny Grönvall's impersonation is another reference to an act where repercussion plays an analogous characterising role.

To a quite large extent this performance was about sound, ryhtm, musical expression, experiment, and instruments. The other main topic was the exploration of traditionally female experiences and spaces. Cooking, make-up, calling for a sick leave, clearing a kitchen cabinet to create a hide out et c..

Cool conceptual design, combined with the intimacy of domestic life turns out have a very good artistic result in the separate acts. It is another question whether it is possible to appreciate the rich qualities of each act, in this rather compact cabaret format.

Kortermands make-up on the trampoline examplifies the complexity of interacting dimensions. While singing and jumping a trampoline the artist painted her face with the traditional make-up tools. The result, due to the conflicting demands of the parallel activities, was not at all a perfect face. The colours were all over her face, in stead of being delimited to their proper places. The grown woman looked like a little girl who had sneaked in and borrowed here mothers lipstick, mascara and eye-liner. Her appearance was rather touching through the rest of the show, when she acted as if all was normal, using the ordinary facial expressions. Under reflection the work opens up a rift in time and space where feelings, attitudes and concepts merge and opens up the world to different perspectives.

But disregarding the confusing complexity, the theme was elaborate and grown to fulfilment in this cabaret. The cooking and vocal experimentation of Björk Eliasson also merged into an aesthetic of the sensual and the conceptually sublime when the omelet eventually was served to the audience, as smell was united with taste and the aftermath of a daring musical experience.