Invisible Lands

– a   g e o g r a p h i c a l   s t r i p t e a s e –

Across the desert, behind our back. Up the mountain, down our spine. Over the sea, just under our nose. On the day the war broke out, we left home.

Geography and politics are physically extended and transformed into organic performance platforms – our bodies – and we learn what touch, presence, and endurance really are about.  With Invisible Lands, the visual theatre duo Livsmedlet challenges themselves in a unique meeting between puppetry and choreography.

Invisible Lands has premiered 2015 and has been since then performing in Finland, Estonia, Poland, France, Sweden, Slovenia, Germany, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Lithuania, Canada and the U.S.A.
Invisible Lands won the Festival’s Director’s prize in the Banialuka festival in Poland 2018, and a prize for “Intimate artistic grasp of current theme” in Spectaculo Interesse festival in Czech Republic, 2019.
From the review:

“Best of all is Invisible Lands (★★★★★) by Finland’s Livsmedlet Theatre. It’s the story of refugees, represented by tiny figures, like the population of a model railway, delicate and vulnerable as they flee their war-ravaged home. What makes the show extraordinary is the path they travel. Every mountain pass, snowy outcrop, desert expanse and night-time highway is created by the bodies of Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren.

The performers take turns to bare their flesh as the figures line up for their perilous journey. Falke’s back becomes their escape route from a smoking village; Lindgren’s stomach, painted blue, is the sea to Europe; knees turn into hill tops, feet form the rendezvous for a bus. The pulses of the performers breathe life into the models as they queue at border crossings, flee helicopters and crowd on to boats. It’s masterfully done, the combination of physical effort and contrasting scale making the wordless tale devastatingly sad. – The Guardian, 8.2.2019

Concept, direction and performance: Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren

Sound and Music: Niklas Nybom

Light design: Jarkko Forsman