Knutepunkt 2005 Report

         Here's my pictures from Knutepunkt 2005. See also Marthe's pictures from Night Fever and the Knutepunkt 2005 Gallery at laiv.youhei.net.

Jaakko Stenros and I get up in the cozy accomodations for "A Week In Norway", care of Aksel Westerlund and Martine Svanevik.

The tent in Viubråtan where the largest events and parties were held, aka "Delirium". It was fairly well heated through a number of large humidified heating pipes, and had some fancy audio-visual setups for a few of the events.

The Viubråtan Activity Center itself, billed (by KP05) as being in "the middle of the most beautiful Norwegian countryside". Alas, many of the participants did not avail themselves much of the outdoors experience -- though there was some sledding. However, Martine and I and eight hardy others did a collectively-organized mini-larp for an hour or so outdoors.

Morning drama exercises as part of the KP05 program. These sort of exercises (i.e. breathing, visualization, concentration) were common for me in acting classes. However, I rarely encountered them in American LARPs.

Mikael (?), from the Church of Sweden, poses with two of his parishioners who participated in and organized LARPs within the church youth groups. He was in my group at the theory cabin, and described one of his favorite experiences was playing a blind man in a LARP which the youths organized (including one of the above -- sorry, forgot your name). It was a real-world power reversal and apparently a very interesting one.

The crew from Tobias Wrigstad and Olle Jonsson's freeform mini-larp "The Upgrade!" We played contestants in a mock reality TV series where we were bribed into 'upgrading' from our current partners. I played Arne, domestic husband of Suzanne (Sofia Nordin) who was matched up with Simone (Anna Westerling). Other characters included the money-grubbing "bad" couple Josie (Tova Gerge) and Tommy (Markus Montola); both of whom picked on Johan Söderberg's timid character whose name I forgot. Kudos to other players including Kristoffer Lindh and Stina Almared and the three others whose names I forgot.

Excellent live music circa 1943 in the "Bar Libre" party -- not really related to role-playing except as little peek into the mood of the "Casino Libre" larp. I am on the right dancing with Martine. Ryan Hansen is on the left, with Natasha Isaksen in the background.

Drinking and a bit of discussion in the tavern afterwards, where I'm chatting with I think Audun Moss (the back of the head with the KP05 tshirt) and Natasha Isaksen (the beautiful one in the foreground), who was talking about her LARP organizing experience.

The participants from another mini-larp, this one an experiment in collective LARP organizing initiated by Martine Svanevik. We played a bunch of boy scouts lost in the woods in a collectively-created scenario and characters -- and then tromped back to the cabin for debrief and theory discussion. I was playing Johnny, the annoying younger brother of Jay (Håkon - not shown). Others characters included Peter the rebellious leader (Aksel Westerlund), Helen (Martine), Fredrick the pessimist (Thomas), Chris the knot-geek (Egil Engen), Molly (Natasha Isaksen), Mike (Audun Moss), Helen's boyfriend Abraham (Kristoffer), and Sarah the whiner (Marthe Munch-Møller).

David Olsson and Tova Gerge pose for me. David played Butler in another mini-larp, Club Felis, where I played the now-infamous Lola. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the Club Felis event or decent ones of the Eurolarp song contest where I reprised my role as Lola.

Partying begins in earnest...

and on...

and on...

In a somewhat disheveled state after post-Eurolarp song contest dancing, I pose with Ada Fredelius and Malin Neuman. Ada was one of the organizers of Club Felis and thus partly responsible for Lola and her antics.

The next and final day of KP05, I pose here with Emma Wieslander, organizer of Mellan Himmel och Hav -- which one the "Best Scandanavian Larp Ever" award in the prior night's ceremony. The final day I was in a workshop on her famous "Ars Amandi" method.

Posed with Anna Westerling of the Swedish role-playing magazine Fëa.

Post-KP05, I was with a group of survivors searching for food back in Oslo. Here we are following the directions of Claus Raasted to a vegetarian restaurant "just around the corner" from the central train station. Mike Pohjola is pointing, while Sampo Koistinen questions the sanity of following a Dane in Oslo. Meanwhile, Eetu Mäkelä and Sanni Turunen hang back for the rest of us to hash it out.