In a basement, we find four women, three dead and one alive. From the floor above, we hear the muffled voices of a men’s party. It’s sad. Until an arm twitches.

In a burgundy-red salon, a cellist prepares for a concert with a group of dancers. The music, Bach’s cello suites, follows its own abstract logic where associations can flow freely: one thought leads to another, and no interjections are wrong.

For more than three decades Oslo Danse Ensemble was the most popular dance company in Norway. Paradoxically, the company never performed abroad. When the company closed down in 2018, an interesting afterthought appeared: how can we expect the world to understand our domestic culture if we keep it a secret?

The Ministry of Unresolved Feelings has scarce resources but an important mission. The caseworkers are responsible for solving problems that no other agencies can remedy. The paper stacks in the incoming tray grow ever higher, but a surprisingly high number of applicants have their cases reviewed.

Eight people find themselves on an uninhabited island. The reasons for their presence vary: some have survived a shipwreck, others have fled from war, and some have escaped the pace of life and challenges they couldn’t overcome.

THE LOFT bathes in gallows humour – showing it to be a true human coping mechanism that enables folk to laugh at the twin faux of evil and error.

Like sepia-toned, “old-fashioned” photographs, bathed in warm shades of brown, afterimages of past experiences mixed up by memory, which has its own subjective chronology, the choreographic images conjured up by Jo Strømgren from the magic hat remind us that memories, although fleeting and intangible, do not lose their realness.

The Substitute is an independent continuation of The Tired Man, in which Clas Göran lives alone, but struggles to get up in the morning and loses his job. When we see him in The Substitute, he has moved back home to his grandmother’s. The performance is an evening of theatrical fun in typical Jo Strømgren fashion, but under the surface is a tribute to the invisible losers of the world, those who do their best to find their place in society and contribute something important.

The performance delves into the physical routine of football and elevates the aesthetic aspects of its insanity. It comments the difference between “common sports” and “eloquent arts”, likewise the concept of working-class football and upper-class ballet.

How we find love and how to make it last, all set in a melodramatic genre? PHEROMONES is our new award winning co-production with Juozo Miltinis Drama Theatre in Panevezys, Lithuania.

Roulette is often seen as a metaphor for life. After all, we can never know for sure what our choices will lead to. In this new theatre production, both life itself and the stage twirl and spin.

It is not easy being in a circus. Usually, the ones doing the same old tricks, the same old way, are the ones who can join the crew and become artists. Those who think differently must leave and become something else. But not anymore!

Life is miserable. Yes, indeed. Where can we find comfort and relief from its misery? SALVE REGINA is an associative journey through different eras. A fantastical time travel that anchors and agitates – through power and impotence, feudalism and individualism. The title of the performance refers to the Marian hymn which, for thousands of years, has offered comfort and hope to those who need it. And still, we need it.

Finding love is hard. Especially when risking everything on a blind date. Even more so if the date happens to be in a brand-new smart home with integrated sign language translation!

The show is about a man who oversleeps every day. When people cannot get up in the morning, they are often called lazy and indifferent. But if we follow this man’s extreme desire to change through a tiresome day, we may realize that he’s a hero.

“The Door” aims to portray fundamental human features through a naivistic and associative scrutiny of a group of people separated by a wall. Everything seems more interesting on the other side and a narrow door becomes the important threshold of change. But as in life itself, people are never satisfied with what they have and the search for something better becomes an endless quest.

Four dissidents from the former Soviet Union are stranded in the interzonal area between East and West. In the far from harmonious atmosphere the essential question remains – should they continue towards the unknown or should they go back to what they know?

Ping Pong is not just a sport. It’s a philosophy. The intellectual recipe is a mix of Yin and Yang, Heaven and Hell, Stephen Hawking and Uri Geller, with a dash of Kahlil Gibran and Bruce Lee on top.

A society of sworn coffee drinkers in Europe gather for their daily ritual. But harmony is broken by the discovery of a used teabag, probably Asian. How far are they willing to go in order to track the unpatriotic traitor down and bring this evil act to justice?

THE ACCIDENT deals with a family reunion after a death. When the patriarch is buried, old family conflicts are being dug up and reviled.

Even though most of the world has come to a grinding halt, JSK is at full throttle. Weird films for weird times. Two artists meet for the first time. No preparations. Let’s see what happens!

Outside a town is an abandoned house. One day two persons appear from different directions. They stand on either side of the house and think “I can live here!” One is an old sailor who has finally gone ashore. The other is a little girl who has run away from the orphanage.

”Life is like a book, they say. But life is written on thousands of loose sheets. You can tell a story and say it is the truth. But it’s a matter of choice. Of deciding which papers in which order. Our story is one of these.” Co-production with Polish Dance Theatre.

Few people in the fashion business have been as prolific and influential as Coco Chanel. But in one aspect, she may have been more ahead of her time than expected. Her staging of her own person and life story is no longer considered cynical nor questionable – today her career building strategies are almost basic knowledge for anyone who wants to climb ladders, be it in business or social life.

A new dance movie by Jo Strømgren and Stein Roger Bull, following up the Rose d’Or winning “Neighbour”. Featuring cellist Truls Mørk and collaborating dance companies 420PEOPLE (Prague) and KAGE (Melbourne).

A lonely pianist on one side of a wall.
A couple with domestic problems on the other.
They can hear each other.

This is a film about singles and couples, about the chance to start over again, about how music affects us and how we affect music.

In a remote hospital, three nurses try to endure the lack of patients by injuring then treating each other, performing their duties on themselves as an alternative to the real thing. Not a healthy activity, but it passes the time. A military chopper is constantly passing overhead, revealing a far simpler explanation for their problems.

Four hardcore bureaucrats have for long been stuck in an office deep inside a government department. Secret message deliveries and bleeping lamps control their daily chores and the outside world has become nothing but a blurred memory. But they manage. Until one strange day when the smell of freshly baked bread fills the air.

A provincial theatre troupe in the former Soviet Union has ambitions of performing in Moscow. A sugar-smuggling pact with the mafia was supposed to make their dream come true, but endless circles in muddy outskirts are starting to rise doubts about the deal. Time has come for radical decisions and serious sacrifices.

Jo Strømgren Kompani offers a great variety of workshops, both for trained performers and amateurs. The workshops are led by experienced members of the company, who will challenge the participants’ boundaries and maybe take them outside their comfort zone. We can promise that all our workshops are filled with exciting tasks, exploration of movement and language, and a lot of fun!