Walk the Plank Norway

Salford based organisation Walk the Plank held an event in Bodø, Norway during the summer with an event called ‘Midsummer Mysteries.’

Walk The Plank attempted to bring their production to life on the small island of Breivikia in Bodø, Norway as part of its year as European Capital of Culture.

The story is based on a sea captain that is stranded in the Artic Circle with the captain being stranded in Arctic circle, as he deals with encounters from creatures of the ocean.

The group Walk the Plank, held the project on the small island with the plan being headed by Creative Director, Liz Pugh along with Designer, Jenny Hall.

The group Walk the Plank aimed to bring the story to life with the group building a beacon that was raised and then burned for the performance.

Walk the Plank Norway
Image of the Captain from the event photo via David Engmo, Bodø2024.

With the ship being supported by local vessels in the area, with the intention of bringing the story to life for the locals on the island.

The event was held in Norway and was a massive challenge for the Artistic Director of Walk the Plank, Liz Pugh.

As she said: “Well we’ve worked with UNESCO before we did work with them in Liverpool in 2008, Turku in 2011, and in Cyprus in 2017.

“So obviously they’ve seen and know our work so we got the opportunity to do it.”

With it being a difficult task for those involved, she continued to speak on the challenges that come from events like this.

With one issue being the “language barriers” and the weather.

However, they did mention that the issues of the event, were all worth it due to the sites that the island showed.

Walk the Plank Norway
Image of the beacon being set alight image via David Engmo, Bodø2024

With the performance being held on the island, it was considered a community success with many locals turning out to watch the event happen live.

As Liz Pugh pointed out that the community were happy to get involved with the show, with the locals helping pull up the tower ahead of the performance.

With the limited time to organise and prepare the event, Liz continued to speak about how they couldn’t rehearse beforehand.

As she shared her excitement of being able to do the show successfully on the first try, which supposedly made it even better.

With the success of the performance Liz shared that there are plans for future events for a show in North Sweden in the next four to five years.

As they look to continue from the fantastic time that they had it seemed that it was a fantastic opportunity to share with the community, and produce a show on the small island of Breivikia in Bodø, Norway.

You can watch the behind the scenes of the perfromance here.

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