Production – Exhibition – Performance
The seminar tackles dilemmas in the work of co-creation in performing arts processes.
How do we balance ideals, power and responsibility when we invite children, young people – or people with minority experience – into research for and co-creation of a performances?
Through dialogue with subject experts and practitioners, we will together examine:
- Pitfalls, ideals and power structures in connection with involvement
- Differences between forced and voluntary involvement processes
- Questions in relation to ownership of artistic products
- The necessity and for whose sake we work in an inclusive manner
- The balance between giving voices to the participants or exploiting and exhibiting them
Program:
13.00: Welcome
13.05: Co‑Creating with Children Beyond a Single Ideal of Participation // Nora Rinne (Fi)
Children as participants, experts by experience, co‑artists, and audience members in intergenerational performance. A reflection on negotiating collaboration, artistic agency, and ethics in performance‑making.
13.35: Shared reflection
13.55: Break
14.10: Dialogue between Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt and Nanna Bøndergaard Butters
Youssef and Nanna zoom in on dilemmas, considerations and experiences in their work with directing the performances: JEG INUK – jeg et menneske, Fædre og sønner, Håbets koloni og Vand-skabninger, all of which are to some extent co-created and involve personal stories from the performers.
14.40: Shared reflection
15.00: Break
15.15: Involvement and co-creation/participation // Nora Rinne, Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt, Nanna Bøndergaard Butters, Anna-Kathrine Madelung Fries, Ditte Felding and Anne Burup Nymark,
16.00: Thank you for today
Moderator: Amalie Ørum Hansen
The seminar is mainly in English.
About the participants
Nora Rinne, Performance maker, actor, PhD researcher and associate professor
Nora’s artistic practice and practice-based research centre on performance-making in collaboration with child participants, exploring children, childhoods, and intergenerational relations in contemporary performance. Informed by childhood studies, she engages the “child question” through dramaturgical strategies and embodied methods such as imitation and verbatim, drawing on approaches from ethnographic fieldwork.
Youssef Wayne Hvidtfeldt, Actor and director
Youssef is a Danish actor, graduated in 2014, with experience from film, television and theatre. He had his breakthrough in the DR drama Huset. In addition to acting, he has directed two performances at the Edison Theatre under C:ntact. As he himself is half Danish and half Moroccan, his work often revolves around identity, relationships and belonging.
Nanna Bøndergaard Butters, Theatre educator and director
Nanna has extensive experience working with inclusion in performing arts projects. She is, among other things, a director at Vand-skabninger and Håbets koloni at ZeBU, with people with functional variations and children on stage, respectively.
Ditte Felding, CEO of Teaterhuset Filuren
Filuren is a professional children’s and youth theatre in the heart of Musikhuset Aarhus. The theatre house also houses Aarhus’ cultural school for theatre and dance, a three-year Talentlinje SGK, the opportunity to take a youth education and at the same time strengthen your theatre talent and last but not least a CompetenceCenter, which puts the performing arts on the school curriculum in schools.
Anne Nymark, Dramaturg and theatre educator
Anne works as a dramaturg and theatre educator at Teater ZeBU, especially with the development of the theatre’s Borgerscene and as a dramaturg at Teatret Masken. The focus of the work has been, among other things, artistic research and co-creation with children and young people to create various dramaturgical concepts and art productions, which often involve interactive, autobiographical and interdisciplinary formats.
Anna-Kathrine Madelung Fries, Project Manager & Eco-manager at Teater Hund & Co
Anna-Kathrine is a co-creator of the theatre’s children’s board and in her thesis as a cand.mag. has investigated intergenerational value creation in artistic organisations. Since 2019, Teater Hund & Co. has worked purposefully to create space for the children’s board as an integrated part of the organisation. Here, co-creation and equality are at the centre through play, conversations and creativity, where the children’s perspectives are the basis.
Amalie Ørum Hansen, Head of Secretariat for ASSITEJ Denmark
ASSITEJ Denmark works for the right of children and young people to meet, experience and participate in the performing arts – and this work is done through seminars, projects, knowledge sharing and learning networks for professionals working with the performing arts. Amalie has many years of experience as a consultant specializing in DEI in the field of arts and culture and has for a number of years run a Nordic network for arts and culture leaders.