Live Arts, worldwide

WHILE WORKING in Salt Lake City a few years ago, Norwegian director/choreographer Jo Strømgren chanced upon the Scandinavian Shop, a small storefront that had his favorite chocolate from home displayed in its window. Strolling in, he stunned the young blond woman behind the counter by speaking to her in his native tongue.

"She backed up and stared at me," recalled Strømgren. "And she said [in English], 'Wow, are you a real Norwegian?' She was so thrilled to see me. I've never felt so special in my whole life."

Strømgren's travels have taken him to more than 50 countries, and he's always fascinated by how each culture amplifies its own and others' idiosyncrasies to create a sense of national identity. That tendency is one of the inspirations behind "The European Lesson," which will have its world premiere at this year's Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. The festival starts today and continues through Sept. 13 at sites around the city.

"The European Lesson" is just one of several partnerships between Philadelphia artists and their international counterparts in this year's Live Arts Festival. The piece is the festival's first international commission and, according to producing director Nick Stuccio, embodies Live Arts' growing international reputation.

"As a city, we're interested in becoming a first-tier cultural center," Stuccio said. "That entails opening up and seeing what's happening out there and bringing to Philadelphia the best and most interesting work available. And it works both ways - it also means exporting some of the great thinking we're doing in culture."

"Lesson" features a cast of actors in Philadelphia whom Strømgren enlisted for the festival-commissioned project - a bizarre lecture by an American anthropologist presenting a Slovakian family as a sociological spectacle.

"I feel all countries, all cultures, all nationalities, emphasize their specialties up to a point where you start to forget that people are actually the same anywhere you are," said Strømgren, sitting on the risers in a warehouse at 5th and Fairmount, in Northern Liberties, that Live Arts has converted into a temporary bar and theater space.

"Through this performance, I'm giving the finger to people who want to be so special and want to withdraw from the common society," Strømgren said. "It's a major tendency in contemporary times, and it's especially interesting here in the States, where everybody has roots from somewhere, and very often people identify strongly with those roots.

"If you're born in the U.S.A. and grew up in Philadelphia, you have nothing to do with your old country. It's just a myth. But I know Norwegians living in the Midwest who've never been to Norway, but they're more Norwegian than me. There's something wrong here."

Americans have "put ourselves in a position to be the butt of some jokes and the object of some rancor," said Jeb Kreager, one of the local actors collaborating with Strømgren. "It would be really easy to dismiss the show as being, 'Look at the funny Americans talking about Europe,' but I really think it's more of a human tendency to be fascinated with strange customs - the semaphore or the smoke signals of a distant culture.

"I've also been on backpacking trips in Europe where all anyone was interested in at that given moment was finding a McDonald's. So we're trying to play with anthropologizing the idea of discovering all these strange truths while holding on very tightly to what we already know, and how willing we are to step outside of our comfort zone."

For several years, Philly's Pig Iron Theatre Company has been exchanging ideas and techniques with Sweden's Teater Sláva, a process that has resulted in "Sweet By-and-By," making its American premiere in the Festival. Director Dan Rothenberg of Pig Iron describes the piece as "American eyes looking at Swedish eyes looking at America."

"Sweet By-and-By" is essentially a one-man show in which Sláva's Daniel Rudholm explores the life and legend of singer/songwriter Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant to America who became a folk hero as a labor activist. Hill was executed in 1915 and his ashes distributed to union locals across the country in envelopes. Rudholm parallels Hill's story with that of his own great-grandfather, whose letters from America play a part in the piece.

For Rudholm, the current European image of America contrasts greatly with his great-grandfather's perception of the States as a promised land where he could find freedom both financial and, as a Seventh-day Adventist, religious.

"The image of America from Sweden's point of view is that you're a pretty right-wing, religious bunch of people," Rudholm said. "So this has been an exploration for me to find the other side of America. It was the opposite for my great-grandfather and Joe Hill when they came here, because there were pretty radical things going on back then politically. The story is really religion and politics, and can they blend. I don't know if they belong together, and I don't know where to look for the answers."

While Pig Iron and Teater Sláva initially united around some of their shared characteristics - ensemble works created from scratch, an interest in sound and visual art - Rothenberg said that their collaboration has resulted in something outside the typical work of either company.

"I feel like the play that we made is not like either of our existing plays," he said. "We pushed on each other and ended up at a third point, which I think was kind of important to us. We wanted to do something different from what we usually do."

Creating something out of the ordinary was also a motivating factor for Strømgren in working with a Philadelphia cast rather than his own company.

"Perhaps the most important thing in theater is to create an atmosphere on stage, a new logic," Strømgren said. "If you do that, the audience will feel that they've entered a room they haven't been in before, and they open their senses and are ready to take whatever text or action there is.

"I don't want to do something trendy, or good work in a certain method. I just want to make the actors get into my world. If they manage that, then automatically we will become original or new, in a way. That's something I often miss: personal work in theater or movies. I want to see that there is a sick mind behind things."

While interested in the way that international dancers interpret his work, French choreographer Jérôme Bel, whose renowned piece, "The show must go on," will be performed by a Philadelphia cast, had a much more practical reason for leaving his company at home - global warming.

"When the cast of 'The show must go on' travels," Bel said via e-mail, "we are 24 people making some long flights around the world. In the past two years, the issue of climate change became very intense to me; that is why I started to think about how to go showing this piece without spending so much energy and producing CO2. I decided this piece should be given to companies around the world so we will save some energy."

Of course, American culture in many forms has found its way outside of our borders, which is another attraction for some of these artists.

"Here, I can make use of all my American references," said Strømgren.

"I can explain a scene by recalling an episode of 'Seinfeld' and they get it. And finally I get to work 'Leave It to Beaver' into a piece." *

Send e-mail to bradys@phillynews.com.

Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe: Today through Sept. 13. Tickets $10-$25, with discounts of 20-25 percent for multishow purchases. Some shows are free. Box office, 113-131 N. 2nd St. (National Showroom lot), 215-413-1318, www.livearts-fringe.org.