Sarabande

By Jeppe Bergmann Hamming and Maria Bergmann Hamming
Players: 12
Genre: Nordic
Sarabande is a scenario originally created for Fastaval 2013. It has been run in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, France, Texas (and soon Lithuania).
It is an expressionistic Larp
 focusing on the use of repetition, non-linear time and the use of art 
as communication. It is set in a French café on Montmartre at the end of
 the 19th century where twelve persons meet every day– all entangled in 
issues of love, beauty, freedom and truth. Day after day they live out 
these issues through their art, trying desperately to break free or to 
find that one true love.
The scenario uses special repeated scenes with choreographed 
movement, restrictions on the use of spoken language for communication, 
props and the use of sound and music for shifting between scenes.
The game begins with a workshop session, where the participants 
construct their characters, conflicts and relations on top of a 
pre-generated stereotype through the use of a mixture of collaborative 
idea generating sessions, symbolic props and the use of movement and 
music. The amount of prewritten material is very limited, since the 
scenario is generated and played out through the use of the 
participants’ bodies rather than their heads.
Through the workshops the participants will develop their 
characters’ routine, a choreographed set of movements to a central piece
 of music. They will repeat this routine again and again during the 
workshop evolving it and integrating it with the other participants’ 
routines, so that in the end they all know their routine by heart. At 
the same time the routines are so heavily integrated, that any change in
 a routine will cascade through all the participants’ routines, causing 
changes for all the characters. Since the routine is used for cutting 
between each scene and marking the shift to a new day, it is used to in 
the beginning mark the similarity of each day at the cafe, but as the 
scenario unfolds, the participants will choose to alter their routine to
 mark a decision made by them, and this decision will cause other 
characters to experience a change in their routine, which will perhaps 
cause changes for their character.
In this way the routine is a physical expression on how the characters 
are tied together and how our decisions affect others.
The workshop will also provide the participants with means to 
perform the actual scenes of the scenario. Since Montmartre is a place 
of truth and beauty, and since the scenario is set in s surreal version 
of Montmartre, nobody in the café has boring ordinary discussions or 
talks. Instead the scenes are played with what we call dramatic 
expression. This is the use of monologues, dancing, singing, painting, 
writing, reciting, playing or any other means of communication, which 
has an artistic dimension. In this way all conflicts and interaction 
becomes something worthwhile for all participants to watch, and since 
the characters and conflicts have been generated in collaboration 
between the players, it will be clear for all players what the other 
characters are actually expressing. And a main theme of the scenario is 
to have the drama and conflict played out in the open for everyone to 
see instead of it happening inside of the participants’ heads.
Since the play is continuous the participants will have no chance
 to talk about how much time transpires between each scene, but will 
just have to play along with whatever the other participants decide to 
put into play. The conductors of the scenario only instruct during the 
workshop, when the play is started they only control the music and when 
to cut.
It is up to the participants whether they would like to jump forward in 
time, or perhaps repeat the same day again and again. And sometimes some
 participants will play as if several weeks pass between each scene 
while others in the same room are experiencing the same day again and 
again. This is in no way a problem but just ads to the intended artistic
 feel of the larp.
The game is mainly influenced by operas like La Traviata and La 
Bohème, and like opera it is not centered around the plot since it is 
taken for granted that everybody knows up front what the plot is, but 
instead focuses on the expression and the way that the plot is told. In 
contrast to typical larps which are more focused on unfolding a story 
and perhaps surprising the participants with plot twists.
From the larping scene it has taken inspiration from Vrøvl and Déjà vu and was written for Fastaval, where it won the Otto for Best Participant Experience and was nominated for the Jurys' Special Prize. Before Fastaval it was playtested on Vintersol and has afterwards been run at Grenselandet, Stockholm Scenariofestival, Playing to Loose in London and in the US by Sarah Lynne Bowman. It is currently on the program for Metamorphoses in Lithuania and Black Box Horsens in Denmark.
Previous NZ runs
Christchurch 2016
Auckland 2015
Category:Maria Bergmann Hamming
Category:Jeppe Bergmann Hamming
Category:Nordic