Mike, Who the F*ck is my father? celebrates art-making without rules and retraces a personal history where dream and reality transgress. It captures how parents and children choreograph their lives around each other’s stories. My father doesn’t only represent himself in this piece. His story opens a window into a certain era of the European art world from the sixties and seventies. Art was then a practice for survival for many artists, overcoming their traumas with humour and self-care, as it was for my father. Through him, we get a glimpse of the historical fables of this era.

It is also a piece about the impossible task for children to connect the dots of their parent’s life; the traumas, the absurdity and the difficulties of diving into memories

With simple structures and means, Mike’s story lies in a sort of suspended room where dream, reality and memory can meet. Using a ‘minimalist’ and hand-made approach, subtle anecdotes are told with voice, gestures, small dances, short films and photographs, letting humour, authenticity and imagination seep out and blend on stage.

"A poetic and sensory performance (..) Mike, Who the f*ck is my father? is not just about a daughter and her father. It is also about how impossible it is to grasp a human life as a coherent narrative. (..) The choreography is simple, but precisely for that reason, moving. The two bodies fumble around each other, find rhythms, lose them again, support and observe each other. There are moments where it almost looks as though they are trying to teach each other how the other's body works."

Review in Shakespeare Tidsskrift

Choreography: Orfee Schuijt, Performance: Mike Schuijt, Orfee Schuijt, Light design: Shiva Sherveh,Music and sound design: Kim Myhr, Outside eye: Bara Sigfusdottir, Set design/Scenography: Orfee Schuijt and Mike Schuijt, Costumes: Calypso Schuijt, Co- produced with:  DansiT Tronderlag, Supported by: Norsk Kulturrådet

Photo: Sandrine Cnudde