Ole Martin Meland and Smerz bring the plague to Sentralbadet Scenekunsthus
The dance performance SYV FIGURER BLIR SYKE (Seven figures getting sick) by choreographer and dancer Ole Martin Meland starts from an idea of the plague as an ancient phenomenon. He explores it as an archaic symbol of doom, but also as a force of nature – a warning. Is the plague a cruel reckoning, or nature’s response to what no longer holds – a necessity, and perhaps a possibility for new forms to emerge?
The performance draws inspiration from David Lynch’s experimental short film from 1967, Six Figures Getting Sick, and unfolds as a feverish fantasy in which seven figures undergo a cycle of decay and transformation. They grind, jolt, twist, turn and force themselves out of their own skins, into dissolution – into a new day.
For the third time, Meland is collaborating with the electronic duo Smerz, who won two Norwegian Grammy Awards in 2026 for their album Big City Life. Together, they create a theatrical universe in which sound and movement seem to influence one another. Meland’s choreographic language is direct, unpolished and explicitly physical, whilst Smerz’s musical landscape propels the characters forward through shifting states of restlessness, desire and transformation.
