Strawberry Fields (Not) Forever? “Iceberg Reflections” on Performing Greenland
Annelis Kuhlmann*
Abstract
Since 1954, the Danish constitution tells that Greenland is part of the Danish Commonwealth together with the Faroe Islands and Denmark. Although the United Nations has focused on Greenland’s colonial status, since the end of WWII—the 1979 Greenlandic home rule referendum, followed by the 2009 Greenlandic self-government referendum, means that by law the Greenlandic people is considered an independent indigenous people—its colonial history remains evident in today’s cultural landscape of theatre and performances in and about Greenland. These circumstances require us to reconsider theatre historiography regarding colonial and environmental issues from a Nordic perspective. The aim of this essay is, therefore, to critically throw light on some examples of how Greenland in contemporary theatre performances deal with climate issues and internal colonization.
Keywords: Tue Biering, The Wrath of Berries, Jessie Kleemann, Running Time, Marthaler, ±0 (Plus – minus – zero, 2011)
“The ice is melting at the pøules,” said the Danish minister of Foreign Affairs, Villy Søvndal, at a COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, regarding climate change. Initially, hardly anybody heard the message, but a few years later, the statement suddenly re-emerged and went viral. People began to laugh at the minister’s funny Danish Jutland accent and, at the same time, to acknowledge the far-too-apparent evidence behind the words. This message became more than merely amusing. Fifteen years later, the assertion that the ice is melting has evolved into a political slogan, providing a shaky foundation for performative interventions in the climate change debate. This discussion encompasses not only geological and glacial conditions but also cultural issues within a broader context of internal affairs.
My article has been inspired by Danish director Tue Biering’s performance The Wrath of Berries (2024), which confronts the spectator with mechanisms and metaphors about how foreign unprivileged human labour is hired to collect strawberries in southern Spain under conditions resembling organized structural racism, economical exploitation and slavery inside the European Union.
In my earlier research on the contemporary history of theatre in and about Greenland, I had mainly focused on the historical role of the Tuukkaq Theatre in relation to the group theatre movement in Denmark, a movement which mostly took place outside the capital of Copenhagen, often connected to grassroot movements, constituting bricks of an emerging cultural democracy at that time (Kuhlmann, “Det iscenesatte Grønland” 80–99).
As a Danish historian of theatre, I have found it important to write about theatre, which is related to how Greenland—Kalaallit Nunaat—is performed in recent times, and how Danish theatre historiography can include history of theatre in and about Greenland. Personally, I have witnessed all cases mentioned in this essay.
Climate is not only an environmental question about nature. It concerns the co-existence of peoples as equals. It is, therefore, impossible to discuss how Greenland is performed in productions in/about Greenland without touching climate concerns and the problems of colonialism, more precisely the decolonization of Greenland. There are many paradoxes in the Danish-Greenlandic relationship that have become more evident since the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and that opened the eyes of the population in Greenland to civil rights, to the importance of expressing their identity as indigenous people and to reviving lost traditions. There is a strong desire to overcome the ignorance, of which Danes have indicated only little awareness, and to express their rejection of the continued blind automatism of Danish political and economic justice (Buettner; Jensen; Huggan and Jensen; Østergaard; Ostergard).
The oxymoronic constellation of concepts, held in the expression of “internal colonization,” is borrowed from Walter Benjamin’s description of rural Russia and applied by historian, Alexander Etkind, as a metaphor of the way how Russian empire has activated not only external but also internal colonialism. The double understanding of colonization has most frequently drawn attention to external colonization. However, the understanding of internal colonization refers to the largest empires in the world like England, Spain, France and Russia. The notion of internal colonization has equally striking records within the Scandinavian territory. Denmark is one of the smallest countries in the world, yet it was historically one of the seven largest colonial powers.
The social contract within the theatrical performances I examine introduces historiographical perspectives that highlight the challenges of internal colonization through a performative lens. This approach not only brings Greenland to life on stage but also engages Danish audiences, prompting them to reflect on their collective responsibility in the decolonization process. I have found Rashna Darious Nicholson’s study stimulating for my work on this article, especially when taking into account the challenges I have faced when writing representative chapters on “Denmark” in recently published theatre anthologies (Nicholson; Kuhlmann,”Denmark”). The selection of performances in the present article does not aim to canonise any theatre productions in or about Greenland.
On a larger scale, my article questions the arts in relationship with Greenland, as Greenland is not only staged—that is, becomes an object—but also performing as a subject. This means that the internal colonization is both a mechanism of a special artistic nature as well as a metaphor for historical connections seen from the present moment of performing. The distinction of a matter of either mechanisms or metaphors would be false. I try to go critically about it by demonstrating that many theatre and performance artists from Greenland, from Denmark and from other countries care about the troubles of the internal colonization through performing Greenland.
More attention than ever was intensively paid to internal colonization at the CPH Stage Festival programme in May–June 2024. Nine events had direct connection to Greenland and the coproduction, Nordting, staged by Norwegian artist Amund Sveen, referred explicitly to the consequences of democratic representation in the parliament context of the North. I attended Nordting at the Royal Playhouse on 5 June 2024, the Danish Constitution Day, which turned the event into a radically urgent performance about today’s political challenges with climate and decolonization matters in the Danish Commonwealth.
When I use the terms “staged Greenland” it has a dual sense. It refers to the concrete stage, on which narratives related to Greenland are performed, but it also has even more metaphorical significance of representation related to an imagined Greenland, governed by a perception of the self as a hegemonic and sovereign mentality.
Background of Theatre in Greenland
In Greenland, theatrical performances historically go back to its first peoples, to oral performances, dancing and singing. In a more contemporary sense, performing Greenland goes back to the era of the beginning of cosmopolitan culture and globalisation often identified with the height of colonialism, which is traditionally described as beginning with the arrival of the Norwegian priest Hans Egede (1686–1758) in 1721.
Historically, “staged Greenland” was also rooted in an early form of “internationalization” and the transfer of Danish literary works to Greenland. For example, comedies by Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), the founding figure of Danish-language theater during the early Danish Enlightenment, were used to educate the Greenlandic population. Thus, for over two hundred years, theatre and performance have played vital roles in the relationship between Greenland and Denmark, but until recent years, this has had not been officially included in Danish theatre historiography.
Today, this historical background is being renegotiated through theatre and performance productions that address current political questions, which again refer to a domestic relationship in Denmark. One may say that “innocent and neutral” staged storytelling in Greenland hardly exists today. The historical context of these performances is often provided by Danish national and political ideas, encountering the realities of Greenland, whereas only fewer contexts seem to be defined by theatre performances in Greenland. However, staged Greenlandic topics are related to this dissolving glacial territory, in connection with an understanding of theatre. One can say that the landscape of performances in and about Greenland is coloured by a dyad of environmental and climate concerns, depending on the gaze directed at this topic.
The Role of the Tuukkaq Theatre in Denmark
The Tuukkaq Theatre existed from 1975 to 1994, located on a former farm in Fjaltring near Lemvig, at the North Sea shore, in Denmark. Norwegian born Reidar Nilsson (1945–2024) had set out to join Odin Teatret from 1972 to 1974, and shortly after, he founded the Tuukkaq Theatre with the vision of giving artistic education to young Greenlandic people, to professionalise Greenland’s theatre and performance traditions.
The Tuukkaq Theatre represented one part of the early group theatre of Denmark, as seen, for example, in seminar reports on the Nordic Group Theatre Festival, held in Odense in 1974–75 (Auken; Langsted). Unlike quite a few of the group theatres in Denmark at the end of the 1960s, the Tuukkaq Theatre was not based on a utopian idea of a socialist society but a search for the roots and values that could contribute to strengthening the Greenlandic actors’ expression and opportunities to make a difference in the theatre landscape in Greenland. The Tuukkaq Theatre’s most prominent performance remains Inuit (1976), staged by Reidar Nilsson. Today, this performance is part of the repertoire in National Theatre of Greenland, Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisarfia, in Nuuk.
Greenland has left traces in Denmark’s theatre, offering a still different perspective. My focus on the selected performances in this article delivers a diverse context, against the background of which I want to explain in greater depth in the following sections, bringing in one solo performance and two group productions. It has not initially been my purpose of this essay to focus primarily on female performers, but it seems that Greenland as theatre and performance context is highly dominated by women performers, directors and poets. Some would, perhaps, argue that this field of performances carries a gender perspective of its own kind. Nonetheless, the choice of my performances resonates strongly with matters of my article. Equally, this choice shows how the performances engage with the urgent political problems of power over internal colonization in society both as themes and in artistically diverse ways.
Case Studies
The selection of case studies for this essay covers three types of performances, one solo performance with installation art and two different group performances. The solo performance represents the neo-avantgarde performer Jessie Kleemann (born 1959). I would have liked to also include the performance Uannut Inissaqarpoq (Belonging to, 2023) by younger performer, Kuluk Helms (born 1991), whose performance questions the transnational struggle of belonging to both Greenlandic and Danish cultures; however, limited space for this publication unfortunately demands restrictions.
In this essay, the mentioned group productions are represented by one of the bigger international performances that took up a Greenlandic theme, ±0 (Plus – minus – zero, 2011), staged by the Swiss theatre director Christoph Marthaler (born 1951). I chose this case, because I see it as a very important international contribution to the theme of climate crisis and treatment of indigenous peoples, in particular emphasizing the Greenlandic and Arctic situation.
The other group production is Angutivik (The Greenlandic Man, 2017), staged by Danish woman Hanne Trap Friis (born 1963), who has produced several theatre performances connected to Greenland, performed by actors from Greenland and from other countries. Other Hanne Trap Friis’ works, related to Greenland topics, include smaller performance productions like The Arctic Summit (2024), Our Stories (2023), The Wound of our Souls (2023), The Shaman and the Priest (2022), The View (2019).
Jessie Kleemann’s performance installations in the crossover field between art museum and performance articulate environmental problems, referring to the ephemerality of snow, ice, flesh, and to diverse sorts of abuse, alcoholic, sexual, political and social. Hanne Trap Friis’ production straight-forwardly questions the oppression of men’s right to their own emotions when being confronted with hegemonic “hidden” structural racism of institutions and in daily life. Christoph Marthaler’s production delicately frames the condition of living on the edge, which as metaphorical expression also refers to a position far from all central decision makers. The geographical and temporal distance creates challenges for communication between Greenlandic peoples and the wider world due to their multilingual context.
In the performances, the distance has been interpreted as being something to revolt against. The materiality of the performances obtains yet remarkable artistic dimensions through the outspoken questions. Some questions are raised directly, almost as a sort of agit-prop style documentary, some are more indirect in a poetic subtle way. I shall comment on these qualities along the given examples.
Jessie Kleemann Running Time
Jessie Kleemann is a multi-visual artist and a writer, born in 1959 in Upernavik, Greenland. She began her performing career in Denmark at the Tuukkaq Theatre in 1977–78. Later, Jessie Kleemann started at the Graphic Workshop in Nuuk and was the school’s director from 1984 to 1991. Since the 1980s, Kleemann has established contacts with various artistic communities among indigenous peoples, through travel and collaborations in places such as Pannertooq, Pangnirtung in Baffin Island, Canada, now Nunavut, and in Sápmi (Sámi Community/ Swedish Lapland), Canada and Alaska. More recently, she has exhibited at various venues, including Nordatlantens Brygge, Copenhagen (2018 and 2023), the Anchorage Museum (2016), the KNIPSU Gallery, Bergen (2014) and the Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt (2014).
Jessie Kleemann published a collection of poetry, Arkhticós Dolorôs (2021), for which she was nominated for the Nordic Council’s literature prize in 2022 (the “little Nobel Prize”). Kleemann had her first big solo performance installation, Tiden Løber Løber Tiden (Running Time, 2023), at the National Galleries in Copenhagen (SMK), which is the case for my paper. This crossover event of both exhibition and performance drew massive attention, which also resulted in a symposium dedicated to Jessie Kleemann’s work and the context in which her work is situated. During the symposium, both environmental issues and internal colonization were mentioned as clear references in her work, as Jessie Kleeman deals with the environmental problems faced by Greenland, which have a global impact. She addresses not only the changes in nature over time but also how identity and culture change. Nature is referenced in The Sledge on the Way (2023). Its giant size not only hyperbolically represents the traditional, functional, dog sledge, which may no longer be possible to use in a changing climate, but artistically draws our attention to a larger problem behind such as exploration of nature in vulnerable climate areas of the world. The multicoloured bindings on the sledge also may hint at a broadening of its topic.

While the exhibition was up, Jessie Kleemann gave some performances, among which was the new work, Lone Wolf Runner (2023), interacting with the sledge installation. Running is perceived as freedom, catharsis and oblivion, attained through the act, the struggle and exhaustion of running. Running also presumes that one runs away, escapes, at least from an imaginary starting point. The visibility of cultural heritage is investigated through a changing mindset, from the perspective of the runner. The typical dog sledge becomes a gigantic figure, which responds to the stereotype and the dream of an idyllic, stable Greenlandic landscape, where the sledge’s tracks leave the impression of movement, leaving traces, which will disappear with climate changes.
Another example is Kamiit (2023), imitating the traditional kamiks from the traditional Greenlandic folk costume. They are presented here as a remnant of a recollected identity, which seems to have left its original landscape. Usually, kamiks are either black or white, referring to either man or woman, but in Kleemann’s universe they are multicoloured and refer to an understanding of a multitude of gender and identities associated with all the beautiful colours of the rainbow. Kamiks and sledge exist in a colourful relationship.

In a new video, Running Time (2023), with her performance flowing continuously across four large screens, Jessie Kleemann expands the visitor’s perception of transgressive space and transforms her body expression into a statement about individual human existence, which no longer can be captured in a single frame or picture. “No existence” seems to be a reflection in the work.
The exhibition also revisits several of Kleemann’s earlier performances and displays traces of significant, intimate costumes such as Oil and Amulets (2019). This is the title of a work that consists of a black bra decorated with teeth, which seem as though they could bite if someone were to come too close. A piece with a statement of threaten and resistance.

There is not only one performative side to this exhibition, where memories reflect a struggle with the surrounding, somehow structurally abusive, forces. It also incorporates embedded political statements regarding the female body and, more broadly, the rape and abuse of indigenous peoples by colonial powers. In this context, the female body symbolizes vulnerability, which, in a Danish setting, may reference the internal colonization experienced by Greenlanders living in Denmark.
Jessie Kleemann’s background in the Tuukkaq Theatre resonates with her history of cultural identity with physical gestures, which are transformed in her newer performances, recycling the use of time and of slow motion. Part of this history stems from a period during the 1970s when group theatre culture was strong in Denmark and the other Nordic countries. This historical period prefigured the process of independence that took place in Greenland.
There is increasing political motivation related to, and interest in, the highly topical themes that the staged Greenland brings along. However, there is still a non-Greenlandic dominance in the performative features of the staging, where we see perceptions of various dramaturgical, theatrical and performative solutions to how today’s Greenland is presented, from what would be interpreted as a postcolonial perspective if it was not for the coloniality of the present life condition, which many peoples from Greenland experience in Greenland as well as in Denmark.
The Danish dominance in this theatre field is not so striking, as there are very few theatre groups in Greenland, a country with a population of approximately 60,000 peoples, comparable to the size of an average, midsize provincial Danish town. But in Denmark, this picture is characterised by a growing artistic and activist interest in making visible not just theatre in Greenland but also a range of concerns linked to a shared history. Therefore, postcolonialism may not be the most accurate term, as colonial attitudes often endure today, largely due to a lack of awareness stemming from cultural insensitivity—particularly evident in the actions of some Danish politicians and citizens regarding equal human rights. For example, Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, one of the two North-Atlantic members of the Danish parliament from Greenland, recently (May 2023) spoke in Greenlandic from the lectern. She did this not because she does not know how to speak Danish but to make apparent that the part of the Greenlandic population who does not speak Danish will not literally have access to the democratic debates in the parliament of the Danish Commonwealth. Thus, Greenlanders become excluded from the political society. Her action received a rather rude response even from left-wing members of the Danish parliament because they realised that they were unable to follow what she said. Immediately, they had forgotten their vision for a broader and more inclusive society, and the mirroring effect of the Greenlandic speech was perceived as a demonstrative provocation—not as a wakeup call from current realities.
“The ice is melting….,” and protests come to the surface.
Christoph Marthaler’s ±0 (Plus – Minus – Zero)
Swiss director Christoph Marthaler premiered ±0 (Plus – Minus – Zero) in Katuaq, The Cultural Centre in Nuuk, May 2011. It was a co-production with Bergen International Festival, the Royal Danish Theatre, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Wiener Festwochen, Kampnagel Internationale Kulturfabrik Hamburg, London 2012 Cultural Olympics, Stockholm Stadsteater, Théàtre de la Ville, Paris, and the Royal Danish Theatre.[1]
I attended a performance at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen in November 2011, and it remains one of the most impressive productions I’ve ever seen. Even after 13 years, it continues to resonate with me. While the performance isn’t solely focused on the relationship between Denmark and Greenland, it certainly incorporates a distinctly Danish perspective on Greenlandic realities.
Christoph Marthaler had created a performance that used the image of Greenland as a metaphor, which revealed ambient mechanisms while presenting a cultural climate on the brink of melting down. Various textual sources fill out the structure of the performance. Fragments from Alfred Döblin’s science-fiction novel Mountains, Seas and Giants (1924) and Jorge Louis Borges’ The Book of Sand (1975) thematise an infinity in relation to what is the edge of the narrative. The edge of the narrative also refers to the shape of the edge of the melting ice, of civilisation and of culture. These narratives are interwoven in the performance with music, mostly by classical composers, like Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem (1867), among several others. This piece, especially the 6th movement, sung by the actors, is based on the biblical text “Denn wir haben nie keine bleibende Stadt” (“For here we do not have a permanent city”), emphasises the instability of the climate change, which is also alluded in the title of the performance, ±0. Simultaneously, it underscores the sense of “homelessness” experienced by a population within the Daish Realm, which is often stereotypically depicted in national costumes.
In ±0, the Greenlandic characters stood in stark contrast to the elegantly dressed European peoples, as if attending a funeral for a civilization on the brink of extinction, all while being confined in a modest provincial gymnasium.
Even the national costume, which was often reproduced as the only recognizable marker of Greenlandic identity, would be confronted by an exaggerated global outfit of a beau-monde. Such examples would leave the trait of a twice colonized situated destiny.
Danish theatre critic Anne Middelboe Christensen reviewed this production when it was presented at the Bergen International Festival in Norway:
“±0 is about Greenland. But since the accusation against Western supremacy and the climate burden of consumerism is arguably globally obvious, Marthaler approaches his subject much more delicately: He makes the criticism into the implicit factor that the spectator constantly grumbles about in belated self-insight. And so instead he creates an insider’s portrait of a Greenland, as it might sail away in a melted state on a shrunken island, on a March day in the year 2150.” (14)
With a distancing technique around the freezing point, colonialism may appear as subtext, as the end of the landscape similarly refers to the end of time, which also means our affect in responding to the interpretation of a freezing point (see Thisted). In relation to internal colonialism, the theme of infinity has a special resonance, which gives rise to a critical understanding of Marthaler’s message, that the longue durée as a term, connected to historiographical representation of migration, has to be recaptured according to contemporary challenges of social and environmental crisis (see Gold and Nawyn). What has been taken for granted as cultural identity would be confronted with its dissolution.
The form of the performance ±0 is also reflected in a narrative edge, which assigns to the myth about Greenland a form of meaning about a society located at a place that has been colonially and conventionally considered the edge of the periphery, at distance from the central metropoles, where European key decision-makers and authorities are typically located, close to institutional powers. With its scenic design, the performance ±0 uses a kind of anti-aesthetic, which in its own low-key way fuels a critical statement about consumerism as applied by colonial powers.
Even the formal shape of ±0, with its imbedded layer of meaning, calls for an identification with prejudices about a raw and “peeled” reality. However, ±0 was not (only) restricted to the crimes of Danish colonialism. One senses this in the meaningful layer that also appears in the performance as an undercurrent stream in the way how Europeans deal with Greenlandic citizens. Linguistic alienation became a reality for the Danish audience in Copenhagen, since some parts of the performance were performed in Greenlandic without subtitles. In addition to two Greenlandic speaking actors, Gazzaalung Qaavigaq and Nukâka Coster-Waldau, the actors spoke various languages like Danish, German, French, English and Swiss German; in other words, the performance presented a multilinguistic picture of a multicultural world where diversity was evident as a new realism of life connected to Greenland, but also as tool to show how official language can exclude other people’s language in the same society and, therefore, appear as colonial practices within a society.
Hanne Trap Friis Angutivik (The Greenlandic Man, 2017)
“The Dane is generally not interested in the Greenlandic person. A Greenlander—it’s just ‘a Greenlander.’” This is what Greenlandic-born author Mâliâraq Vebæk (1917–2012) stated one generation ago in connection with the publication of her book Bussimi naapinneq (Navaranaaq and Others. The History of Greenlandic Women) (Holmberg 1991). Vebæk, a significant collector of orally transmitted stories of southern Greenland, was also the first Greenlandic woman to write a novel about peoples in Greenland and to obtain teaching qualifications. According to Vebæk, the position of women in Greenlandic society is strongly linked to Greenlandic myths and legends, such as Sassuma Arnaa (Mother of the Sea), a legend about how Greenlandic animals remind us of human responsibility in the world.
This literary and educational context for understanding the maternalistic culture in Greenland resonates with the response given by the performance Angutivik (The Greenlandic Man). (In Greenlandic, angutivik means “a real man.”) Against this background, I shall dive into the performance Angutivik. The legend of Mother of the Sea profoundly relates to the perception of the Greenlandic woman. It was on the top of this connection that the performance Angutivik (The Greenlandic Man) created a counterpoint to the history of Greenlandic women.
Angutivik was written by Niviaq Korneliussen, born in 1990. Korneliussen was awarded the Prize for literature by the Nordic Council. Her novels, HOMO Sapienne (2014) and Blomsterdalen (The Flower Valley 2020), represent newer voices in Greenland, addressing topics like homosexuality, identity and love. The Greenlandic Man was based on a concept, prepared by dramaturge and former manager of the National Theatre of Greenland, Susanne Andreasen, together with stage director, Hanne Trap Friis from Teater Freeze Productions.[2] Korneliussen’s script can be seen as a renewal of the path that Vebæk had paved much earlier, an act of endurance and liberation from colonializing sociopolitical power structures, which had been jeopardized as “wild peoples’” ways of living in the far north.

The performance would not have evolved into a staged, almost documentary-like reality without the cultural anthropological research conducted beforehand in preparation for the theatre production, which engaged men in dialogue. The performance was created drawing from workshops, interviews and meetings with Greenlandic men’s groups in Greenland (and in Denmark), and it used a theatrical language that negotiated a topic of social reality in a grotesque setup where reality balanced on the edge of reliability and a sort of “simplifying” dark humour.
In Greenlandic society, it is (or was) taboo to talk about what the Greenlandic man feels and thinks. Against this background, the performance reveals a complex world that perhaps few people really know about, at least in Denmark. One could identify the performance as a parable on life conditions situated in a Greenlandic semantic framework. As performance, it had a strong educational tone in its confrontational style.
Angutivik premiered at The National Theatre of Greenland in Nuuk, on 8 September 2017, as a co-production by Teater Freeze Productions and Nunatta Isiginnaartitsisiarfia/The National Theatre of Greenland. The cast was Klaus Geisler, Kristian Mølgaard, Miki Jacobsen and Hans-Henrik Suersaq Poulsen. After the opening night, the production toured in Greenlandic on the west coast of Greenland and was performed in Maniitsoq, Sisimiut, Aasiaat, Ilulissat, Nanortalik, Qaqortoq and Paamiut.
A Danish-language version was shown in Denmark in 2018, in cities like Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense. Since then, it has also been staged in Greenlandic with English subtitles at the CPH STAGE festival and on the Faroe Islands. Angutivik has been nominated for several awards, such as the Audience Award in Aarhus (2018) and the Award for Outstanding Theatre Performance of the Year at CPH Culture.
The actors are almost constantly on stage throughout the performance, where emphasis is placed on the challenges faced by the modern Greenlandic man, whereas the mythological side takes on an exciting and almost invisible position in the performance. The performance is framed by Simon Lynge’s song, The Future, with its characteristic melodious line in the chorus, “Praise the man, the mountains and the sun.”[3] In Miki Jacobsen’s version in the theatre performance, it goes against the outworn cliché about the Greenlander and the landscape of beautiful icebergs, as it shows that the Greenlandic man is at least as multifaceted in his way of being as modern men from other parts of the world.
Dramaturgically speaking, the environment may be defined by the term “landscape dramaturgy” (Fuchs and Chaudhuri). The scenography was created by sculptor Camilla Nielsen, born 1972 and educated at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Canada. In a lighthearted comedy show the four Greenlandic men are dressed in pleasant, medium-blue suits, black T-shirts and shoes, standing in front of some feather-light, mobile “tipi-icebergs,” alluding both to a symbolic reminiscence of an iceberg landscape and to cabins, which also function as wardrobes.
The play deals equally with internal landscapes, explaining the man’s understanding of himself and of the reactions of surrounding peoples, but at the same time, the play also presents places that pave the way for a kind of promenade through Greenlandic sociopolitical realities. It is this route that the spectator conjures up in his/her co-creative imagination. This gives an effect of shared realities not only as a performance situation but also as a Greenlandic-Danish encountering of the present status of the hegemonic power structure, which is stressed as the hindrance for Greenlandic men.
The performance unfolds as a series of small episodes, each of which recounts a chapter of the history of the Greenlandic man. There is the grotesque story of a visit to the hospital that ends in a botched vasectomy. And there is the depressing story of the chronically alcoholic Greenlander who, in Greenland, encounters a health care system at the hospital that, because of its Danish staff, needs a Greenlandic interpreter! This scene was played by Klaus Geisler.

Sentimentality and parody are intricately linked in this production, navigating a challenging, distancing line that intentionally steers clear of irony regarding the man. This receives sympathy from the audience. At one point, he turns into the “wild” man from the north, who performs an animalistic mask dance with references to early Inuit culture. The folklore version of the Greenlandic mask dance appears as a scenic development of the mask dance, striking the touristic image of Inuit performance culture. This scene addressed also the Danish perception of the Greenlandic man as if inferior to Danish men. The open parody becomes clear when the factory manager in a sea fishery fictive Salmon Greenland A/S raises questions of natural resources. In this situation, it is more probably a Danish prejudice about the Greenlandic man’s professional mentality being exhibited. The men’s reaction ends in the line “The time when you can just whine in unison is over,” referring to a rejection of the scarifier’s position in the context of internal colonization. The whole perspective on which the performance draws indirectly considers Denmark’s colonial history. It is as if the icebergs in the performance leave the impression of hiding much more of the social and nationally embedded tragedy of the narrative.
Finally, the performance includes very emotional stories, such as the adult man’s recollection of how, as a 6-year-old, he embraced his mother’s warm body. This recollection contrasts with the trauma in the account of a 21-year-old’s suicide attempt, and the scene results in one, immense violent situation, where the actors collectively react to a suicide that took place in the harbour:
“What have you really gained by taking your own life? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!! We are all losers in this game! Committing suicide is not a solution! Committing suicide is a loss. You must fight for life, even if it’s hard! If you had come to us for help, we, your family, would have helped you and given you the opportunity to live with us!” (Angutivik)
Nowadays, suicide is not a heavy taboo subject as it used to be, although, sadly, most people in Greenland have had family members, friends or acquaintances who took their own lives. The difficult thing is that this concerns everyone. This collective voice from the stage was so gripping and emotional that several in the audience cried. Feedback like this from spectators is rare when attending tragedies in Danish theatres today. In theatrical terms, such a response raises the question of who tragedy belongs to in society. The audience’s sense of identification was unmistakable, but it was unclear whether it stemmed from a cathartic response to the current stage situation, a sense of nostalgia, or if it had a broader impact, potentially influencing societal structures that perpetuate internal colonization. What I felt was a quiet, emotional protest.
Korneliussen’s play does away with all kinds of “holy cows” to such an extent that the raw reality is literally what remains. The production is unpretentious and includes good vocal performances that resonate with the hearts of the audience members.
Angutivik has been received in various ways. In the Greenlandic journal Neriusaaq Eqqumiitsuliorneq Kulturilu (Art and Culture), reviewer Hans Peder Kirkegaard was concerned with the fact that the play addresses contemporary problems in Greenland: “But why must there always be problems? Such really, heavy problems? Suicide, violence, death? It was especially the monologues that didn’t work” (Kirkegaard). However, he praised the actors highly.
In some reviews of the tour in Denmark, focus was on the moving parts of the performance. In Aarhus Stiftstidende, reviewer Kirsten Dahl, wrote:
“The Greenlandic Man slams with theatrical art and a heart that knocks open the door for a strong and touching look into the soul of the Greenlandic man, so that it flares with general humanity. . . . Strongly, movingly and even with humour, the performance lets us feel the costly brutality and cynicism with which the state of Denmark acts and believes itself to be better than the Greenlanders.” (translation by Kuhlmann)
What remains is the question of what Angutivik signifies for a Danish audience as a theatrical performance—what impact it has or whether it primarily serves as a means for the Greenlandic audience to find recognition. In my view, this performance is strong not so much aesthetically but because of the honest and naked compassion of this almost documentary testimonial. I got the impression that one purpose would be to make not only a Danish but also global audience feel bad and guilty about the situations in the performance. The pretext to Angutivik had a layer of understanding based on the broader notion of culture, and more specifically theatre history, with examples of how the complexity of the internal colonization relates to how theatre was woven into social aspects of the life of Greenlandic peoples.

To show how the connection between Sassuma Arnaa/Mother of the Sea refers to not only Angutivik/The Greenlandic Man, but also to the problem of internal colonization, the famous sculpture in red granite of Sassuma Arnaa (Mother of the Sea, 2004) by sculptor, Christian Rosing (born 1944) became reference point for this topic. The sculpture is located at the Colonial Harbour in Nuuk, as if looking towards the huge statue of the missionary and priest Hans Egede.
Symbolically, the sculpture of Sassuma Arnaa in 2023 “witnessed” a new production of Jappa, staged in Nuuk by Tormod Carlsen (born 1984). The show had the character of the baron as colonial power and ended with the imitation of the blowing up of an allusion to the statue of Hans Egede. One of the reasons why this was important to the Greenlandic audience is that Jappa refers to the protagonist in Ludvig Holberg’s comedy, Jeppe på bjerget (Jeppe on the Hill, 1723). Jappa is a comedy about an alcoholic, echoing the stereotype of the Danes’ perception of the Greenlandic man in the street. In the middle of the play, Jappa wakes up in the baron’s bed, under the illusion of being a man of power in the village. This mirroring of power structure in the play doubles the question of power in society.
The play is a national comedy in Denmark and has been performed multiple times in Greenland, even before 1965, when Hans Lynge adapted it for a Greenlandic audience in Nuuk (2011). In a version of the play , premiered on 12 October 2016, Jappa (Jeppe) appeared as a cultural adaptation of the Greenlandic man, who wakes up in the colony manager’s bed. The play was premiered as a political colonial comedy, rewritten for the Greenlandic context by Svenn B. Syrin, former head of the National Theatre of Greenland (Sommer 2016). Thus, the idea of the Greenlandic man transformed into a portrait of the stigmatized individual within the context of internal colonization, as the play’s dramaturgical mise en abyme challenged the colonial authority of Denmark.
Towards Conclusions
In this essay, I have examined how theatre performances can throw light on the environmental problem that concerns both climate crisis and human relations in internal colonization perspectives. Practices in theatre and performance negotiate directly in front of their audiences about how to not forget about history in this context. This history not only belongs to the past but to our present problems of climate crisis and postcolonial matters. Theatre makers urge us to respond to the crisis in which we are immersed. This means that the internal colonization is a life condition and that theatre performs the relationship between Greenland and Denmark, which can help to dissolve, affectively and to respond to human environment.
The content of notions like centre and periphery (or edge) is constantly shifting these years, and modernizing cultural narratives plays a part in the way how theatre historiography can find new and hopefully more adequate ways of representation without applying new hierarchical structures. The storytelling about Greenland as being exotic icebergs far away will not last, and in theatre performances as in society, this is not restricted to mechanisms or metaphors of how to deal with internal colonialization. Icebergs may not last, while the social iceberg problems will get to the surface.
Strawberry fields not forever.
Note: I am grateful to comments and intellectual support from Professor Yana Meerzon during revisioning this article. A portion of this article was written while I was a guest at the University of Ottawa in December 2023.
Endnotes
[1] For photos and reportages, see here (accessed 25 Aug. 2024); Volksbühne Berlin (adk.de) (accessed 25 Aug. 2024).
[2] See here (accessed 20 May 2023).
[3] See Simon Lynge performing his song in 2009, here.
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*Annelis Kuhlmann is an Associate Professor in the Department of Musicology and Dramaturgy at the School of Culture and Communication, Aarhus University, Denmark. Since the 1990s, she has extensively published on the themes of cross-border performance as cultural heritage and theatre. Her recent works include “Bartering and Cross-Border Embodied Performances,” featured in Performing Memory: Corporeality, Visuality, and Mobility after 1968 (edited by R. Dieter and L. Passerini, Berghahn Books, Making Sense of History, vol. 47, 2023), and “Hamlet and Its Danish Double: The Historical Performance as a Medium for a Utopian Monarchy – A Crooked Mirror of Local Political Realities” (Nordic Theatre Studies, vol. 34, no. 2, 2022). She also co-edited and contributed to Grønlands Teaterhistorie – på vej (Greenland’s Theatre History—On Its Way, 2019).
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Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
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