The Burning tang-man - A series of MAkeshift happenings

The burning tang-man festival is a seras of happenings that took place along the norwegian cost as counterculture to commercial norwegian festivals. Including Bukta Festival in Tromsø and Øyafestivalen in Oslo. The festival started as a fascination with the “burning man” festival originally burnt in San Francisco in 1986, that later has evolved into an over commercialized hippy Mecca. In contrast to the original burning man, we are creating a tang-man, made of dried seaweed (tang). Other than that the same mechanisms are examined. Ritual, sacrifice, bringing people together for ceremonies and performances.

This project was a lo-fy, naive examination of some of the things theatre can do. The burning tang-man happenings have consisted of improvised puppet performances, masks that initiate the audience, collective dance, and ceremonial performance, offerings in the form of fruit, flowers, raw fish, and of course a man/woman/goat made of sculpted seaweed. The sculptures have been the pivotal point of the happenings bringing together the ritual, performances and party, and thematically pointing toward the ocean as the origin of life.

The burning tang-man started as a playful collaboration between Ellen Jerstad and visuals artist Hedda Grevle Ottesen in 2013.