ROCK + FOOTBALL = SPEKTAKEL

Rock + Football = Spektakel

In our (still) liberal and more or less secular part of the world, there are not that many arenas for mass worship left. One is the football match, another is the rock concert. The Barents Spektakel 2018 Opening Show fuses these two expressions of fandom, collective energy, group identity, and tribal instincts into one.

Legendary “engineers of human souls” (and the first rock group ever to perform in North Korea) Laibach will be the high priests of the evening, delivering their sermon from a monumental 100-tonne ice stage.

This altar to team spirit is designed and constructed by Peder Istad, also the creator of last year’s spectacular Trial of the Century ice arena, and bears references to the monuments of socialist movements as well as the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

The music from the ice-altar will be augmented with football dance-matches choreographed by Sigurd Johan Heide (Tromsø). Under his supervision, girls’ football teams from Murmansk and Sør-Varanger will march and dance, compete and test one another, as a gentle reminder of where we are geographically and of how football can be both border-free and border-challenging.

"From north and south, 
we come from east and west, 
breathing as one, 
living in fame or dying in flame."

Concept and production: Pikene på Broen and Traavik.Info
Music and animations: Laibach
Choreography: Sigurd Johan Heide
Football players: Дюсш-10 (Murmansk) and Hesseng/Bjørnevatn Jenter 17, Bjørnevatn Jenter 15 (Sør-Varanger)
Ice architecture and design: Peder Istad
Assistant ice engineers: Marius Engan Johansen, Emil Olofsson, Aiman Esber, Taibola (Ilia Kuzubov, Aleksei Maklakov, Nikolai Terentev, Daniil Vlasov), Ivan Epikhov, Konstantin Korobov.
Machines and equipment: Svein Karisari
Lighting design: Torbjørn Thrane Sandnes
Laibach costume design: Lena Thorsmæhlum
Laibach costume seamstresses: Hilde Petersen and Marte Synnevaag
Venue cleansing ritual: Ronald Kvernmo
Coordination: Guro Vrålstad
Graphic design: Valnoir
Pyrotechnics: Maxi Pyro Team / Jens-Viktor Steinsund
Direction: Morten Traavik