Plast is an exploratory circus performance interwoven with live music. 

Melting ice is balanced on the head. 
A person hangs from the hair floating above waves of plastic.
Two aerial acrobats embrace each other in a single hanging rope.
Synthesizers, violin and voice flow through and fills the room. 
Improvised contemporary secular sacred music based on ancient Scandinavian tradition. 
The slow meditative pace is broken by sudden events in the exploration of objects, the audience, bodies and the room. 

Light and darkness. 

Sound and silence.


During the autumn of 2017, the Norwegian circus artist Hege Eriksdatter Østefjells worked on her final project at the Dance and Circus University in Stockholm. Hege is one of the first in the world with a master’s degree in circus with the discipline rope as her artistic foundation.

To complete the work, Hege invited Finnish contemporary circus pioneer Ilona Jäntti as mentor, rope artist Karoline Aamås and musician Love Kjellsson. Plast is a development of the material created during this final presentation of Heges master degree. The show will tour internationally at theatres and contemporary circus festivals. In September 2018, the first step of the process was presented at the Circus Village in Sandvika, Norway. In February 2019, Plast was selected by an international jury to appear at the contemporary circus fair Subcase. November 3rd, 2019, Plast will have its pre-premiere at Sundsvall’s Theatre.

Plast – minitrailer

Artistic vision

Through a minimalistic and poetic contemporary-circus expression, we work with moving images that poses big questions. The melting ice is balanced between the bodies in the rope. Waves of plastic appears like the sea on the floor. Drawing the thoughts to the melting polar ice and the impact on nature, humanity and the oceans. The grand live music underlines the graveness.

Above the billowing plastic, a person floats, feet gently touching the waves beneath. Hanging from her hair, she slowly floats upwards followed by the plastic seemingly drowning the person underneath. Through physical communication, a story, or fragments of many, is told. There are no questions or answers given but rather opens the unfolding of personal visions, thoughts and reflections. We live in a time when we see our nature change. Do we take care of our nature? Do we remember to take care of each other?

We work with the contrasts between the calm and the powerful, the cold and the warm, dark and light.

How do we experience a moment of a rope circus-act in darkness? How does it affect us as an audience?

As artists and creators, we ask ourselves questions in the artistic process to explore what interests, stimulates and drives us. These are questions that form the basis of the reflections we open for in the audience. To them directly we do not ask questions but create an experience beyond the ordinary.

The music, which is an equal part of the project as the circus bodies, is a modern blend of synth, violin and voice. It is strongly inspired and characterized by old Scandinavian music tradition.

Jordi var aud og tom, og det var myrkt!
Men gjenom lange tider vart jordskorpa avkjøld.
Ho la seg i rukkor.
Ho vart endå meir avkjøld, og der la seg nye rukkor. Regnet fall og heimshavi la seg.
Skylagi kvarv.
Det vart ljos, og det vart liv!
Urtidi på jord var tilende.

The performance is created for touring internationally.

Hege Eriksdatter Østefjells

On stage: Hege Eriksdatter Østefjells, Karoline Aamås, Love Kjellsson

Colleagues/Collaborators: Circus Xanti, Mari Stoknes, Ilona Jäntti (Ilmatila), R.E.D, Sundsvalls Kommun, Swedish Arts Council (Kulturrådet)

Duration: 45 mins

Audience: 50-500 depending on space.

Space: Black Box or similar. Can be adjusted to different spaces. Needs rigging points for aerials.