Potato Country @ Dance Base

Potato Country plays with stereotypes and double-bluffs its audiences’ expectations from the word go. Made up by an almost entirely Swedish cast, there isn’t a river-dancer in sight, and the last thing that this production is, is Irish.

This sense of irony, perhaps, stems from Swedish choreographer Gunilla Heilborn’s influences. She admits to being influenced by many things, but “seldom other dance pieces”.

 "I can like them and enjoy them and sometimes envy them," she notes. "But the only time they influence me is when they are boring and I can sit there in the dark and think about other things."

Wrapping up Sweden’s "love of potatoes, love of melancholy, love of despair and love of life" in a unique blend of text and dance showered with warmth and humour, Heilborn says that Potato Country, quite simply, is: “Sweden.”

“In my home we always ate potatoes. It was like a base for all food. In a way it was like nothing - or completely normal or usual and grey - like Sweden on a February day. And, like a good, staple food, the simplicity of ‘happiness’ is the base for Potato Country, as a group of people walk and talk, and wonder about what’s important in life.

Heilborn’s own wish is to make her audience happy and to remind them that every cloud has a silver lining: “I want everybody to love us and laugh,” she says. “And to maybe feel a bit melancholic and think about happiness. And also be impressed by the performers that, I think, are fantastic.” 

With an abillity to transcend cultural borders and evoke a different reaction from every audience, The Heilborn experience is distinctive.  Production Manager Magnus Nordberg comments, “You will have laughed, but at things you wouldn’t normally encounter as funny, you will be moved, but not by strong outbursts of emotions or characters but rather of a mood of inclusiveness and human touch.”