PRESS

“Dunkelfolket from Fosdalen” is an innovative street-/parade- and mask theater group

that adapts to match every situation and location whether in towns, the forest, the countryside, on the beach etc. Dunkelfolket was founded in 1989, and has since its birth from the mold of Northern Jutland produced laughter, horror, fright and admiration from the beautifully handmade wooden masks by Kirsten Gitz-Johansen. Dunkelfolket appears in black costumes that help emphasize the unique and individual design of the wooden masks. The group consists of up to 35 trained masks carriers male or female, of all ages and social classes. The masks become alive by dancers, puppets and stilts, and portray different sides of the human nature. The performers interact with the spectators in a mutual process of creation. The performers use their bodies and their masks as ways of communicating, and therefore words are unnecessary to get in contact with the spectators. The performance is based on fundamentally comprehensible ways of contact, understandable by children and adults regardless of nationality.

In its crossing of towns, Dunkelfolket creates magic, shocking, fun and outrageous situations. Dunkelfolket captures areas where people reside and live, and their appearance is experienced as alien bodies that both disturb and expand the reality of the town. The group creates experiences and thoughts accompanied by beautiful pictures and tunes, and is a catalyst and promoter for human act and the unfolding of pent-up, spared and embedded lusts, burdens, laughter, tears, emotions and temptations.