Letter Performance: The Journey
Experience or relive unique, experience-hungry and homesick travel letters from the most important cultural figures in Scandinavian cultural history brought to life by a number of fantastic actors.
“My own friend. Why am I starting to write to you just today, when for so long you have sworn me into the hottest hell because I never wrote a line? I had decided all along that I wanted to write to you today - when the whole hubbub was finally over and the 'Journey' had begun."
This is how Herman Bang writes in a letter on 6 January, 1912, putting ink to paper on exactly the topic this autumn's letter performance is about: the journey. In recitation, song and music, adventurous, homesick, beautiful, funny, touching, horrifying and deeply personal letters from the Royal Danish Library's collection are brought to life by a number of fantastic actors.
Discover letters from, among others, Søren Kierkegaard, Asta Nielsen, Ludvig Holberg, Pia Arke, Herman Bang and Ingeborg Stuckenberg.
Please notice
Some historical letters include language that is considered offensive or derogatory. The letters are presented as historical testimony with their original wording.
Historical letters from near and far
Hear letters from, among others, Søren Kierkegaard, who describes his first trip to Berlin, where he lives with "an extraordinary precision" and fills his water precisely at ten o'clock in a certain corner of the city.
Or film star Asta Nielsen in tourist class to Malaga. You can also hear Ingeborg Stuckenberg's desperate letter to her sister written from Australia a few months before she committed suicide far away from Denmark.
With travel as the theme, we get a unique insight into historical relationships from near and far through the most private correspondence of individuals. This is exemplified by the 18th-century doctor Paul Isert's harrowing travelogue on board a slave ship on its way to the old Danish West Indies.
It will be an evening where we travel by land, by sea and in the air – and through time. To foreign cities and across national borders through words from some of the most significant figures in Nordic history.
The entire letter performance is framed musically by the singer Katinka, who in addition to being a soloist is also a songwriter, composer and author.
Participating actors
Andreas Jebro, Benjamin Kitter and others.
