Thesis from NYU Tisch design, 2010.
The venue is the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo.
The music of Humperdinck is both sentimental and brutal. Listening for the first time I felt like I was 7 years old. I decided to hold on to that feeling as a guide in my process.
H&G may at first seem sentimental, whimsical and silly, but when you start analyzing you find layers upon layers of meaning and taboos.
It’s a moral tale about becoming of age and a warning against naivety and gluttony.
The venue is the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo.
The music of Humperdinck is both sentimental and brutal. Listening for the first time I felt like I was 7 years old. I decided to hold on to that feeling as a guide in my process.
H&G may at first seem sentimental, whimsical and silly, but when you start analyzing you find layers upon layers of meaning and taboos.
It’s a moral tale about becoming of age and a warning against naivety and gluttony.
In my verson of Hansel and Gretel we are somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Norway. Our family is living on the edge of society in a rusty old mobile home on a pile of dirt. They are surrounded by wast mountains, dead nature and a power line runs straight over their head. Style and colors are inspired by 70 ties social realistic art, faded pictures and landscape painting.
The forest is represented by a translucent vinyl curtain.
In contrast to this drab reality heavenly creatures: angels, or grandparents appear from behind the forest curtain when the situation seems hopeless. The angels fill the roles the parents fail in. The dream is of complete indulgence in a perfect world.
But sweetness taken to an extreme degree, becomes cloying, even repulsive as we see in act 3.
The witch is a kind of "super child" with the will, impulses, and moral of a toddler, but the powers of an adult. She belongs to the so called desert generation. She knows a child's weaknesses because she is forever a child herself.
The Witches house is partly an extension of the witch. Its pink, placenta looking and sticky artificial gingerbread dough.
The big sticky candy mountain is obscene, horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Little children cant resist it, they get stuck and vanish, like a reversed birth
The forest is represented by a translucent vinyl curtain.
In contrast to this drab reality heavenly creatures: angels, or grandparents appear from behind the forest curtain when the situation seems hopeless. The angels fill the roles the parents fail in. The dream is of complete indulgence in a perfect world.
But sweetness taken to an extreme degree, becomes cloying, even repulsive as we see in act 3.
The witch is a kind of "super child" with the will, impulses, and moral of a toddler, but the powers of an adult. She belongs to the so called desert generation. She knows a child's weaknesses because she is forever a child herself.
The Witches house is partly an extension of the witch. Its pink, placenta looking and sticky artificial gingerbread dough.
The big sticky candy mountain is obscene, horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Little children cant resist it, they get stuck and vanish, like a reversed birth
From Storyboard
Lost in Forest (Scale Model)
Hansel and Gretel's Dream (The Birthday Party)
Dew Fairy, her cow and some of the 14 Angels
The Witches Home (Giant Pink Sticky Candy) and Gingerbread Children (stuck in this)
The Witch is dead