Tremble Staves

Raven Chacon I Sarah Zahid I Iselin Shumba I The Living Earth Show

14–15 September 2024

Den Norske Opera & Ballett

Free

Showings and tickets

Saturday, 14/09

17:00–18:00

Den Norske Opera & Ballett (Opera beach)

Free

Sunday, 15/09

13:00–14:00

Den Norske Opera & Ballett (Opera beach)

Free

Who owns the fjord? Pulitzer Prize-winning Raven Chacon is a composer and artist from the Navajo Nation. For this Oslo version of Chacon’s acclaimed performance work Tremble Staves (2017–19), the Opera beach and roof transform into a ritual site where musicians in mythical costumes extract sounds from musical instruments and the very water of the fjord. Texts, music, architecture and the coastal location provoke a reflection on human interactions with each other and the land.

Originally created for the ruins of a failed public bath project in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tremble Staves deals with the scarcity and sacredness of water. In Oslo, poet Sarah Zahid, a rising literary star and author of Bjørnholt vgs, evokes the presence of water in Oslo’s urban experience and the city’s collective imagination.

The piece is performed by actor, artist and activist Iselin Shumba and the San Francisco-based experimental duo The Living Earth Show, featuring Travis Andrews (electric guitar) and Andy Meyerson (percussion). They are accompanied by over 30 percussionists and electric guitarists from the Norwegian Academy of Music and Slagverkløftet.

Journalist and composer Solveig Sørbø met up with Raven Chacon before performance of his Pulitzer Prize-winning work Voiceless Mass in Bodø in 2024. Read more about her interview with Chacon here, or listen to the radio episode Raven Chacon w/ Ultima Festival, produced by Stegi Radio.