Sunday, January 11, 2009

Welcome to THE HORSEPLAY COMPANY blog.

The history of THC
We were classmates at The Commedia School in Copenhagen, Denmark 1995 to 1997 and the idea sprung up that we should join forces after graduating, and go on tour. Four of us, Toomas & Haide (EST) and Elfar Logi and I (Iceland) had worked together under the name of "Island/Estland Comedy Group" during the school years. We then added Linnea Happonen (FIN), Marianne Tønsberg & Mette Engel (DK) to the group and THC was born.

During the summer of 1997 we toured Sweden, Finland and Estonia with clown, buffoon and cabaret performances. This was, however to be our only project to date as we were all from different corners of Europe and the team scattered. Since then we have been slumbering in our dark cave. Now it is time to awaken the giant and start working again, it is simply our destiny.

Why?
You may ask why on earth we would start theatre work in these times of "credit crunches" and turmoil? And at times when liberal governments are doing their best to throttle the arts and turning them into mainstreem brands and franchises? Well the answer is easy: because we can. Not to fight against the powers who will try to quench us, as resistance only creates more resistance. No, we will not give these forces any of our time and energy, but instead concentrate fully on the process and bliss of creating wonderful performances to entertain and stimulate our audiences. Our motto is Dr. Joseph Campbell's immortal phrase: "Follow your Bliss, and the Universe will open doors where there were only walls!"

Project
Right now we are in our infancy, or early re-incarnation if you will so the schedule has not yet been set. Our first project will however have the theme of "Love". We have chosen Iceland to be the first land to perform in, both because we love being there, but also because we feel we can bring laughter and happiness (and maybe also happy tears) to the Icelandic people who have been dealt a devastating blow during this economic crisis. Eventually we shall take the performance to Finland, Estonia, Czech Republic, Denmark and hopefully more countries. More we cannot say right now. If everything goes well we will perform already this year 2009.

Present members
The core group of THC will be made up of 5 artists:
Toomas Tross & Haide Männamäe (EST) who are our Estonian representatives. They are both professional actors and performers with a wide range of experiences in the performing arts, both in the classical theatre, tv, film, as well as having created the very successful clown couple Pip & Tut.
Linnea Happonen (FIN) who lives and works in Prague and is founder and leader of the very successful theatre group KREPSKO. She is a master puppeteer and improv artist. Linnea will take care of both Finland and the Czech Republic side of things.
Elfar Logi Hannesson, (ISL) who will be our Icelandic representative. Elfar Logi co-founded, together with myself, Kómedíuleikúsið and has since been working as an actor and director in Iceland. He is the main organizer of the solo performance festival "Act Alone" which has taken place in the town of Ísafjörður in the north-west of Iceland for the last 5 years and been a huge success.
Robert Snorrason, (ISL) lives in Copenhagen, Denmark and will be the organizing things there. Robert works mainly with Livingstones Kabinet (Pete Livingstone & Nina Karais Livingstone), who specialize in dadaistic and old style cabaret performances. Livingstones Kabinet was nominated last year for the Danish "Reumert" theatre prize for our show "Babble Babble".

We will in the future cooperate with many other artists from different countries and their names will be added as we go along.

And now we take the first steps into the great future of The Horseplay Company. We will need a lot of help from wonderful people who want us to succeed so anyone who wants to help with organizing venues, sponsorships, administration etc is more than welcome to be in touch.

Here's to the future!!!