On herStay:

Bringing a new discourse on stage
"This is a total experience of dramatic art beyond words.
The audience sees a new kind of dance performance in a new space.
It comprises the full potential for a transformation of the imaginativeness of the audience.
The performance is so attracting, that it proceeded without getting aware of the time at all.
This is a postmodern global text on stage."
-Ajit Rai, India Times January 15th 2008

herStay in Los Angeles, Review in NY Arts Magazine and Berliner Kunst:
"On the opening evening, Norwegian performance and video artist, Monica Emilie Herstad executed a version of her performance Comewhatmay. She combines a mix of dance techniques with video and throbbing trance sounds.
(...) Herstad moved with simultaneity to the projected images of herself performing, closing distance between cerebral and sensational. Her decision for costume is to iterate couture critiquing the desire and desired.
Her choice to project onto the corrugated metal roll-up door paralleled the sensitivity and installation site specificity of "Re-Kreation" at POST."
- NY Arts Magazine and Berliner Kunst

"Monica Emilie Herstad is teached from the origin by the butoh master Min Tanaka through several years. Butoh is a Japanese performance expression. Still deeply connected to this tradition, she adds renewal to the tradition, its ritualism and monotony, with a just as eastern orientated hipness and surface esthetics. " - Jon Refsdahl Moe, Morgenbladet

herSta y i n Hong Kong November 17th - 21st 2008
herStay presents Monica Emilie Herstads performance Past is simulation - The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society

Monica Emilie Herstad presents a lecture on "Ibsen and the modern self", Conference in HK November 2008

September 1st, Monica Emilie Herstad is offered a grant from the International Ibsen Awards presented in an official ceremony:
"The choreographer, dancer and performance artist Monica Emilie Herstad established the ensemble herStay in 1996. Her works have since been synonymous with border breaking and innovative art. Monica Emilie Herstad´s exploring of the space between contemporary dance, performance, classical ballet, Japanese butoh, and visual art has manifested itself, not in a fragmented hybrid perception of the art-forms as such, but in an ingenious and pure form of ‘visualization’ or simplification that transgresses borders also in post-conceptual visual art"
-Ole Slyngstadli, International Ibsen Awards

September 1st 2008 Peter Brook presented a lecture in Norway. Listening to his voice, inspired Monica Emilie Herstad with an immediate remembrance of her performing on stage at Setagaya Theater in Tokyo, that was greatly commented upon by Peter Brook, as he as an invited guest entered the space, standing close to her and commenting to the audience upon her as "Beautiful concentration, Wonderful concentration", he repeated, as he was invited to observe Min Tanaka´s works during Tokyo International Festival of Performing Arts in 1997, a memorable moment.

herStay September 26th -E-W-I-G-
in Oslo, at the square Glacisgate, Myntgt, Kirkegt. In co-ordination with Nasjonalmuseet, arr. Oslo Open, with El Parche, at Culture Night Oslo, hrs 20 - 23
herStay -E-W-I-G- * Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan
"Alles Vergängliche
Ist nur ein Gleichnis;
Das Unzulängliche,
Hier wird’s Ereignis;
Das Unbeschreibliche,
Hier ist’s getan;
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan"

2008, release herStay book

herStay Dance Series 2008 - 2011
International Tour TBA

herStay laïcité
herStay performance work in progress 2008 - 2010 premiere Spring 2009

May 2009, herStay at Det Åpne Teater Oslo,

April 2nd, 2008, Monica Emilie Herstad presents her lecture: "Past is simulation" - "The contemporary Ibsen performance -A discussion between motivation and action"
Centre for Ibsenstudies at 2.15 pm, in Oslo.
Monica Emiie Herstad holds a Guest Research Stay at Centre for Ibsen Studies UiO from Autumn 2005 until Autumn 2008

2008, February 29th, herStay performance NoNameDance Oslo, herSta y i n Oslo, University Library, UiO, Georg Sverdrups Hus, 12.15, "Lunch med Kultur",

2008, January 7th - 15th, herSta y i n New Delhi and Mumbai;
herSta y i n New Delhi at LTG Auditorium the 11th of January at 2.30 and 6 pm, and in Mumbai, at Nehru Centre, the 14th at 6.30 pm, all at The India Theater Festival (Bharat Rang Mahotsav) at NSD, with the herStay performance Past is simulation:

"Monica Emilie Herstad is bringing a new discourse to stage"
- Ajit Rai, Indian Express / Jansatta, January 12th, 2008

"A study of the postmodern woman on the stage"
"To escape the feeling of unease, a woman flees to the seashore, repeatedely. For hours she gazes at a flying bird. As another female character seems to search for reason, in the darkness, through dance gestures. While leaving, a third is suddenly startled. The fourth attempts a suicide. The fifth shudders abruptly with fear. The sixth, the seventh, the eight, and, in similar manners, innumerable women appears, with patterns of actions since times immemorial. For example: doing housework, loving someone, rearing children, quarrel with husband, being whipped, or shedding tears.
These female characters, who emerges out of the dramas of Norway’s famous dramatist Henrik Ibsen, came together on stage in the presentation directed by Monica Emilie Herstad in her Past is Simulation: The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora and other Stories of the society. The staging took place at the ninth day of the India Theatre Festival at the LTG Auditorium. Enacted in New Delhi and Mumbai, and with generousity of the Norwegian Embassy, this play is important from several points of view. The woman director searches for a new stage language by new ways of acting, light-designing and presenting music, for the dance performance. It succeeds way beyond words. This is not Physical Theatre, where, through the agency of body language and the language of gestures, a script assumes shape in a formless manner.

This is a total experience of dramatic art beyond words.

The audience sees a new kind of dance performance in a new space. It comprises the full potential for a transformation of the imaginativeness of the audience.

The performance is so attracting, that time passed by without getting aware of the time at all.

This is a postmodern global text on stage.

Monica Emilie Herstad is – instead of promoting a rather acerb image of the women or of showing protest – performing a deep examination, from the ingress into the innermost core.

She is creating an ironic disguise of the texts of Ibsen’s dramas. It is exactly this ironic disguise which develops into a comment on the images of women in the present milieu.
Her actresses appear on stage with high heeled shoes, contemporary hair-do, and hyper-modern dresses. They show in ironic disguise different matters of concern of the women, and their emotional expressions and body movements, in deep, white, faint light, together with mystical music. These matters of concern are selected from the lives of Ibsen’s women.

The performance has its background mainly from the lives of the protagonist Ellida and her two coeval stepdaughters Hilde and Bolette, from the drama Lady from the Sea, and of the heroine Nora from A Doll’s House.
An evaluation of Ibsen’s texts is done by the German feminist writer Elfriede Jelinek in her book What happened after Nora had left her Husband, including the text Pillars of Society. In one scene it is the aura of the unforgettable world famous author Susan Sontag, in which she presented the character of the heroine Ellida of Lady from the Sea.
The performance with its latent meanings raises, however, several questions at the level of script and style. On the one hand she disturbs the acerb images of the biographies of the women of the dramas, but at the other she succeeds to overcome the acerb images on the stage by employing the medium of artistic explanation. Words are not presented here. And the music appears slightly segregated. Together with an examination of the relevance of Henrik Ibsen for the present times, the performance investigates in addition the question whether our world has really changed for women during the one hundred years after Ibsen. The decision rests with the audience."
- Ajit Rai, Jansatta/ Indian Express, January 12th, 2008

"The play opens with a complete surprise, with a mechanical bird winging its way over the proscenium, and hovering the dancer on the large stage.
The tantalising conjectures are woven around the splendid solists, who seem to express the ambivalent emotions of Ibsen´s women when their bodies move, fall, strech, and bend.
Dancing as mirror-images, or the captivating trio moving in unison, they bring out rich associations with Nora, or the steph-daughters Hilde and Bolette, of Lady of the sea, or the eponymous heroine of Hedda Gabler, or even the youthful Hedvig of The Wild Duck." - Dr. Utpal K Banerjee, Pioneer, New Delhi, January 15th 2008

"From the European segment of the festival, two were dance theatre performances — Pina Bausch’s “Bamboo Blues” and Monica Emilie Herstad’s unwieldily titled “Past is Simulation: The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora and Other Stories”.
Dance theatre works around themes rather than stories. The immediate impact is sensory. One movement follows another working to an unwritten script that the audience must grasp as best they can.
The Norwegian performance piece was dense with references which became significant only if, besides Ibsen, you also knew the work of the director Elfriede Jelinek and the late Susan Sontag’s reading of “Lady of the Sea”.
Otherwise what you saw [in Past is simulation] were incredibly flexible female bodies that posed, contorted, writhed and grew slack to express a whole spectrum of emotions, dark to bright, between male-constructed women and women as they are and want to be.
- Shanta Gokhale, The Hindu Magazine, February 10th 2008

"Regarding your performance in New Delhi of Past is Simulation - The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora and other stories]
Hello There, Greetings from India.
I'm a software professional based in New Delhi. Today I happened to view your performance 'Past is simulation - The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories' at LTG theatre.
I have been watching theatre for almost 10 years now and I must admit that I have never before seen such a unique poetic artistic creation. A performance that keeps on coming back and striking one's mind again and again.
Right from the start, from the airplane movements, one is gripped by the slow meaningful expressions of the performers, their perfect synchronization and subtle motions. So much is conveyed in so simple terms with minimal sets, costumes and very appropriate light design.
The simultaneous movements of the twins, the picturization and lighting of the echo scene, the whip aspect all express the message they are intended to convey. Finally the coming together of the three performers, the sea and tranquility give an pertinent climax to the excellent performance. The use of the airplane, the chairs and the small duck convey a deep message with minimum effort. The captivating music matches the equally powerful performance. The best part is that the universal message of the play gets conveyed without any language barriers.
My congratulations to herStay, the director, all the performers, the music compiler, the light designer and the makeup and styling artists.
It was indeed an unforgettable presentation. I hope and wish that you people soon come back again to India with more of your artistic productions.
With warm regards and thanks again,
God Bless You all.
Rajan."

herStay book release Autumn 2008
Release herStay Artist-Book herStay Performance
T.B.A.

Now in book stores:
December issue Norsk Shakespeare- & Teatertidsskrift, Monica Emilie Herstad on Medea by Sasha Waltz and Pascal Dusapin at Statsoper Unter den Linden Berlin (16.9.2007)

Monica Emilie Herstad on Body and context
Master Class Lecture, at Oslo Fotokunstskole, Autumn 2007

h e r S t a y in Berlin 2007
September: BallHausOst at 21 Uhr, 9 pm

Monica Emilie Herstad presents NoNameDance

Adress: Pappelallée 15, 10437 Berlin, close to Kastanienallée, U-bahn: Nordbahnhof
R e c e p t i o n: 20 - 22 Uhr, 8 - 10 pm

SUMMER News 2007:
august 15, 16, 17 2007
herStay performs at Observatoriet in Oslo, Observatoriegt. 1, Centre for Ibsen-Studies / UiO
herStay Té-performance kl. 14.00 - 14.20
No Name Dance (2007)

herStay ww Autumn 2007 - Spring 2008:
Upcoming detailed schedule will follow, for tickets/ invitations, or info in advance, RSVP to info@herStay.net in the near future

::::::::

june 12th 2007
herStay performance NoNameDance at Observatoriet in Oslo

may 3d - 13th 2007
herStay performance at Nasjonalmuseet, herStay NoNameDance (2007) at The Official Opening at Festival Oslo Open, Thursday 3d at 6pm

herStay performances also at both Saturday 5th and 12th at 6 pm (kl 18.00), and Sunday 13th at 2pm (kl. 14.00) at Nasjonalmuseet

The herStay video work "Krank im Palast", is pre-launched in May at http://youtube.com/herStay

may 26th 2007
21.00 hrs at Frogner, Vårfestival Vollapük herStay performance No Name Dance, in the garden, Site Spesific

april 27th - 29th 2007
herStay performance at Observatoriet in Oslo
herStay Té-performance kl. 14.00 - 14.20, fri 27 – sun 29 april 2007
No Name Dance (2007)

herStay, NoNameDance (2007):
Choreography: M o n i c a E m i l i e H e r s t a d
No Name Dance: Hedda meets Hedvig in an environmental crisis. with support from Fond for utøvende kunstnere
Music: I. DJ Hicham Bouddén, II. Mozart, Andante, klaverkonsert nr. 21 i c-dur, III. Authentic birds in the garden
No Name Dance is programmed at Unesco Dance Day International Program 27 – 29 april 2007

april 27th 2007
Monica Emilie Herstad in Kunstkritikk, commenting Sasha Waltz: Gezeiten at Shaubühne, Meg Stuart: Blessed at Volksbühne, Philip Quesne: Aprés Nature, at HAU in Berlin April 2007

april 24th 2007:
Monica Emilie Herstad in NRK P2/ Scenerom, on Sasha Waltz / Unesco: The International Dance Day, and on Riksteateret

march, april 2007, february, march 2008:
herStay in Berlin, tlph.no.: +49 1577 235 9176 / 0+47 415 215 01

january 2nd 2007
NRK, P2: Scenerom: herStay performance Past is simulation - The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society, is pointed out as The theater experience of the year, described as the performance that NRK/ P2 Scenerom conciders worth of remembrance, from the year 2006, for it´s excellence, listen to the radio stream:
NRK P2, http://www.nrk.no/programmer/sider/scenerom/

december 8th 2006,
Read the exciting review Feminist Melancholy, on Monica Emilie Herstad´s oevre Past is simulation, The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society:

"Feminist Melancholy"
Monica Emilie Herstad, herStay, Past is simulation, Black Box Teater, 23 – 26 November, 2006.
Review by Kunstkritikk, critic: Elisabeth Leinslie, December 8th 2006
"The women are fighting, but surpressed by their own and others forces. It is like we are dragged into an eternal spiral kept going by an anti-feministic de-culture and capitalistic fetishism (both by women and men).
The choreographer, dancer and performance artist Monica Emilie Herstad established the ensemble herStay in 1996.
Her works have for several years been synonymous with border breaking and innovative art. Herstads´ research, on the meeting point between classical ballet, contemporary dance and Japanese butoh, crystallizes into her unique hybrid expression. She considers video and music (and dance) as equal elements in her works. In the later years Herstad has participated in a number of international festivals with dance videos and performances of her own. At the time she is to be found at The Centre for Ibsen Studies, doing research. And her new performance Past is Simulation is a part of this Ibsen project. The performance is also a part of The Ibsen Year 2006.
Herstad opens her performance with a solo, in which she communicates with a motorized, yellow, little airplane that circles in the air. She is like locked within an unfree body, in strong contrast to the freedom searching airplane. It is a poetic and heartbreaking beginning of a scenic comment on women in todays society.
The subtitle of the performance is “The Ladies of the Sea vs Nora,” and other stories of the society, referring to Herstads´ main inspiration; Et Dukkehjem/ A dolls House and Fruen fra Havet/ The lady form the sea, by Henrik Ibsen. Herstad is not searching to adapt Ibsen´s dramas, but rather to stage her interpretation of Ibsen`s messages regarding gender. Ibsen´s work is a jumping off point for Herstad, to comment on contemporary stereotypical depictions of women.
Nora, without understanding from her husband, leaves, While Ellida who is met with understanding and freedom to leave, stays.
Similarly we find inspiration from both Hedda Gabler and Hedvig from Villanden/ The Wild Duck, in her work.
In Herstads universe the dancers are in focus; four women dressed like contemporary model-chics; with high heels, dresses, classy hairdos and sometimes masks. They are very feminine and stereotypical – and they are all ecstracts of, and commenting Ibsens women. The female roles are unwrapped and turned, still remains within their conventional frameworks. It says something about how we repeat ourselves; how the women of the past, as well as now, whips each other, and are imprisoned in their thoughts, bodies, behavioral patterns, and cultural codes.

Feminist Melancholy
Herstad´s earlier emphasis on video in her productions is absent in Past is Simulation. In this production the dancers (Monica Emilie Herstad, Andrea Csaszni Rygh, Beata Kretovicova, Maria Ryther Hoem) and the sound picture (compiled with DJ Hicham Bouddén) is primary.
A suggerating, monothonic, athmospheric landscape moves slowly and concentratedly forward. The choreography shifts between cliché-like expressive movements and introverted butoh-inspired dance. This gives the characters a characterizing of at the same time being captured in psycho-social and private patterns. The collective and the individual will is put together and up against each other. And with good assistance from the athmospheric, unpleasent music, it is created an unbearable nevrotic situation of anxiety, that developes to the worse for all the female characters, except for one. This woman is in the end taking her [pink] shoes off, leaving through the the stage door, with a confident smile on her lips.
A feminist melancholy develops through this work. With references to Elfriede Jelineks´ anarchistic interpretation of the Nora-character in Was geschah, nachdem Nora ihren Mann verlassen hatte oder Stützen der Gesellschaften [What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband or, Pillars of Society] (1978), Herstad shows little belief in women´s liberation in the socially conservative political economy of today. The women are fighting, but are oppressed by their own and other´s forces. It is like we are dragged into a spiral kept going of an anti-feminist de-culture.
In spite of strong subjects, this performance was silent and abstract in its expressions, and the humor was nearly absent. Herstad escapes this way an artview that supports the entertainment value of art.
Past is Simulation, is more an art work that puts intellectual motivation before the movement. This intellectualization creates a distance between work and viewer – and we see, without further comparision similar tendencies in other choreography researchers works recently.
(...) The distance this kind of work generates has something to do with the extended focus these researchers have on research in the process. The works are characterized by a deeply analytic entrance to the material, including for instance asking questions about how to treat traumas and how cognitive social structures are kept, processed and expressed through the body. These works are presented more like work in progress, than a dance work in the classical meaning of the word. In other words, Herstad´s Past is simulation creates a distance between Stage and audience. But this does not predetermine that her work do not communicates with the viewer. At the same time as the work is characterized by introverted meditations, the athmospheric suggestion is distinct. This doubleness captures us and poses us into a meditative state of mind that generates both contemplation and emotion"
http://kunstkritikk.no/article/11415

2006, november 23d – 26th,
Monica Emilie Herstad´s PAST IS SIMULATION - The ladies of the sea vs Nora, and other stories of the society, Black Box Teater, Oslo
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herStay everywhere