Solo Artist 4

Jakop Ahlbom

Jakop Ahlbom is a swedish performer and specialises in horror theatre. He graduated in 1998 and was  recognised for his great talent at choreographing and poetry.  

Jakop Ahlbom

'Jakop Ahlbom's work revolves around people's often strained relationship with themselves and the world around them'. (Ahlbom, 2015) Ahlbom's work meant that it could be related to the audience and therefore attracted audience members from around the world. The genre of his work suggests that he incorporates the internal frustrations that people have with themselves and he has the ability to portray these feelings well through the genre of Horror. 'They cross boundaries of the everyday and step, willingly or unconsciously, into a world in a world that eludes all conventions as we know them.'  (Ahlbom, 2015)  Ahlbom is seen to vastly explore the obstacles that naturally exist and he experiments with the individual boundaries that people face everyday. His work combines the natural and un-natural world to create a 'dreamlike reality' (Ahlbom, 2015)

                  'Horror'

Ahlbom was very much into his horror films in his younger years and was fascinated by the special effects and the suspense that horrors create. He was inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft who said 'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.' (Lovecraft, 1925) Therefore the basis that Ahlbom created the performance 'Horror' was 'How should you deal with a traumatic past? Should you face up to it so you can get on with your life? and how does a victim deal with a sense of guilt?' (Ahlbom, 2014)

The performance has a sense of "How do you put the past behind you when it, in a way, is a big part of yourself?" This piece makes you think about what you should take with you into the future, and it also explores how the past can haunt you both mentally and physically. 

Ahlbom wanted to create the same special effects used in cinematic horror and recreate it on the stage in-front of live audiences, this in its self is a great challenge but Ahlbom wanted to achieve an equally scary and thrilling experience for the audience as they do watching a screen horror. 

Ahlbom was greatly fascinated by the different aspects of horror, this includes that slap stick and the surreal imagery. Therefore, when watching these types of performances by Ahlbom they contains black humour to add more depth and to create a different and unique sense of horror. 

Ahlbom creates performances that relate to audiences like many other artists and performers that are spoken about everyday. Meaning that many of the relatable performances we see today are proper performances and can be classed as so.