Karna – a rip in time

The path that leads to Karnaberg is lined with uprooted and fallen trees sparingly illuminated by the light filtering through the high tree canopies. It smells heavily of damp moss, marshes and rotten wood. Walking on this path is like walking into the artist John Bauer’s pictorial world, into a dreamy and evocative twilight land where nothing is impossible. One can easily imagine the impact this place could have had on people in the past. The inhabitants of the villages must have had great respect for the incomprehensible rock and feared what could hide in its dark cavities. Karnaberg was a hangout for thieves and robbers throughout the ages and even in the first half of the 19th century there were notorious thieves there. In addition to the people who for whatever reason came there to live outside the village community, there were also trolls and other beings in the forest. In ancient times, trolls were a reality and an explanatory model for the deviant and incomprehensible, such as the fact that people could sometimes disappear. The world of the trolls was a kind of mirror image of the human world. They could sometimes be helpful but also sneaky and lure in lost hikers.

From a distance you can perhaps see your home village most clearly. During my years at the Valand Academy of Arts in Gothenburg, my thoughts sometimes went to the magical playground of my childhood, to climbing and exploring expeditions among rock blocks and caves in Karnaberg. An idea to do something there began to take shape. The years passed, but the vision of an artistic light and sound show in Karnaberg with dancers, musicians and new circus artists was still in the back of my mind. Its realization was made possible through a creative meeting with the theater group Kompani Error and the artist and songwriter Ida Adée Olsson. More cultural actors joined this first working group, each one contributing their special skills. The show was elaborated based on the inherent mystery and uniqueness of the place Karnaberg, and from the rich flora of old stories, we found inspiration and characters. Ida Adée Olsson wrote new songs based on the story of the girl Karna. Dance, fire arts and new circus acts were created by Kompani Error in collaboration with Peder Nabo who composed new music for these. About thirty people participated in various ways in the performance, which was directed by Joakim Engstrand.

The work Karna – a rip in time is a free and poetic interpretation based on stories about the girl Karna who lived in the village of Kättilshult. One day, when she and her little sister are herding goats near the big pile of stones, she is lured there by the trolls who live down in the dark caves. The unsuspecting girl is drawn towards the whispering voices of the mountain and suddenly she loses her sister. She moves up the boulders and is increasingly bound by the trolls’ power. Family, relatives and friends follow the sister back to the mountain to search but Karna is gone without a trace. The trapped girl realizes the possibility of escape is small. Despairing and unhappy, she longs for home. To put her in a good mood again, the inhabitants of the mountain arrange dancing, fun and fire arts. Could it be that they don’t really have evil intentions but want to throw Karna an unforgettable party ? Humans live in a parallel time and reality in relation to the beings that have existed in the forest and the mountain since time immemorial. In a fantastic and enchanted night, a tear appears in the fabric that separates them. Finally, the sisters are reunited. Karna, who has only been away for one night, is still young and beautiful, but a night in the mountain is a lifetime in the village, and the little sister is now an aged old lady. In our version of the Karna story, the trolls have been given more sympathetic features than in the older versions and represent curiosity and untamed nature rather than malice. The real threat turns out to be time, which separates the sisters.

Karna — a rip in time was staged on four occasions in September 2023 and on seven occasions in September 2024. The audience had to walk down the narrow path, which was sparsely lit by children with lanterns. The performance opened with a story about the trolls and their world by Sigrid Oldenburg, after which Karna and her sister appeared. In the clear September evening, ancient legends were combined with contemporary expression in music, dance, new circus and lighting. The past met the present in an evocative show whose stage was the rare and spectacular place of Karnaberg.