JRT & Norwegian Artistes Collaboration Births An Intl Avant-Garde Studio Album Project

A cultural collaboration between Jos Repertory Theatre (JRT) Nigeria, and the Norwegian performing duo, Kate Pendry and Audun Aschim, aimed at the Pidgin adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Master Builder to stage in 2025, has birthed an international, Avant-Garde Studio Album project.

The Studio Album will blend actress Pendry’s Shakespearean punk London background, musician, Aschim’s Scandinavian history, and the stories of (14) Nigerian artistes/creatives with that of a 200-year-old Scandinavian poet to create an artistic work Pendry says will last forever. 

As facilitators of the two-day collaborative workshop, Pendry and Aschim knew within thirty minutes of the (16) participants rendition of an excerpt of Master Builder in Pidgin language, its stage-ability. 

But they were also prepared for the extemporaneous, that moment of inspiration that leads to something quite different. Pendry compares it to an investigative journalist whose hunch for a story suddenly leads them somewhere else. Thus, when the participants guided by Audun’s guitar, spontaneously created a sonic expression of Master Builder’s essence, both artistes were moved.

Said Pendry: “There are some events in your working life that you understand are defining moments, when a lot of things fall into place, and you see a direction forward where you may have been in some kind of limbo, this workshop was one of them.

“One thing I have is good instinct, and my instinct says this collaboration with Patrick Jude and Jos Repertory Theatre will come to fruition. I did the same work I would have done with students in Norway or in the UK. I asked them (participants) very challenging questions, expecting them to rise to that level. So, it was business as usual.

“What is worth gold to us, on the creative side, is the material that have come to us through this workshop. You’d expect it’d be just some experiment where you learn some stuff, but a brand-new art has been born in this room, and on Friday (today), we are going to make a studio album,” affirmed Pendry.

While it may not be a CD, Pendry said the Avant-Garde Album which will be ‘something of its time’, will feature an album cover with sleeve notes, and is a documentation of what will be a pioneering work with a 200-year-old Scandinavian poet. 

Forged over a period of years, the collaboration between JRT and the Norwegian artistes started with an email from the latter’s producer Camilla Svingen to JRT’ founder and Artistic Director, Dr Oteh expressing an interest in his work. Both eventually found a united interest in Ibsen. With the onset of COVID 19 conversations halted, but resumed post the pandemic, with several online meetings firming up the framework of the collaboration, before the artistes’ arrival to Nigeria.

Fund challenges notwithstanding, the long period of virtual communication, shared risks and investments made by both sides ensured an equal and level field of cultural exchange – where both sides are mutually influenced, compared to scenarios where an agency or embassy sponsors the project.

“The Norwegian Embassy’s coming in has been timely and extremely useful. Within the last couple of days, we have met some incredible human beings at the embassy that we would not have met if not for this project. That said, what we had working for us is that we have been working on this for a couple of years without any external funding or input. By the time the embassy came in, the project was already cast. It is a relation of equals. It’s about us sharing ideas. For us both, the very idea that the Master Builder, and later, hopefully, Ghosts will be rewritten in Pidgin English is another form of excitement. These ideas have already been cast in stone. Similarly, by the time other institutions come in along the line, the project framework is not going to be changed because the basics has already been done.”

With the success of the workshop, which lays the groundwork for the staging of Raise Am the Pidgin adaptation of the Master Builder at the 2025 Jos Festival of Theatre, Dr Oteh is looking forward to staging Raise Am in 2028 at the celebration of the 200 years anniversary of Henrik Ibsen’s death. 

“We are all working towards 2028, not just 2025. With the entrance of institutions and the Embassy of Norway, hopefully Norwegian organizations, the project is getting bigger. We will keep our fingers crossed and do our parts,” concluded Oteh.