HOTEL PRO FORMA
Visual Performance
Artistic direction: Visual Artist Kirsten Dehlholm & Architect Ralf Richardt Strøbech
Friday October 6 at 9–11.15am & Saturday October 7 at 11.30am – 13.45pm
PERFORMANCE ART AS AN INVESTIGATION OF THE WORLD
Hotel Pro Forma is a production company of performances and exhibitions. Every production is a new
experiment and contains a double staging: contents and space.
The architecture and the traditions of the venue are part of the performance as a co-player. Perception,
perspective and themes from the world today intertwine with each other in a conceptual, visual work of art.
Each production is the result of a close collaboration of professionals from many disciplines: the visual arts,
architecture, music, film, literature, science, and digital media.
Performers are carefully selected with a view to the qualities and qualifications required by the concept and the
nature of the performance.
The productions by Hotel Pro Forma are characterized by immense diversity, as the space, concept,
collaborators, and performers change from one work to the next.
As a “nomadic” theatre Hotel Pro Forma is in perpetual motion and always approaches reality from another
angle. Reality is staged.
Hotel Pro Forma has created performances for museums, town halls and public buildings as well as for
theatres in Europe, Asia, Australia and USA.
Hotel Pro Forma was established in 1985 by the artistic director and visual artist Kirsten Dehlholm.
Hotel Pro Forma will present its studio in Copenhagen for invited guests on 6 and 7 October from 9.00 to
11.15. The open house includes an installation from its next performance, SAND CHILD, which premieres in
February 2007. THEREMIN, THE ALGEBRA OF PLACE, and OPERATION: ORFEO are featured as part of a
video exhibition.
The artistic directors Kirsten Dehlholm and Ralf Richard Strøhbech and the manager Bradley Allen will be
present.
www.hotelproforma.dk
Visiting programme
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CANTABILE 2
Physical Performance
Artistic Direction: Nullo Facchini
Friday October 6 at 10-11.15am + 11.30am – 12.45pm
Cantabile 2 is an international performance theatre based in Vordingborg, Denmark, under the artistic direction of
the Italian Nullo Facchini. The company, which was founded in Italy in 1983, moved to Denmark in 1984, and was
based in Copenhagen for six years, before becoming Towns theatre in Vordingborg in 1990.
Through the years, Cantabile 2 has established itself as one of the most important Scandinavian performance
theatres, on the basis of its extraordinarily vivid visual language: often combining poetic and humoristic moments
in a frame of unique, sensual imagery. Cantabile 2 has been producing theatrical performance in two different
ways: Indoor productions and site specific productions.
Cantabile 2 organizes a biannual theatre festival called Waves, which gathers performance- and street theatre
companies from around the world, in the city of Vordingborg. Waves Festival takes place in the last week of
August in odd years.
Cantabile 2 also runs School of Stage Arts, which is the major Danish school for performance theatre, training
and educating young performers to different disciplines in physical and visual theatre.
www.cantabile2.dk
Visiting programme
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HOLLAND HOUSE
Contemporary opera & music drama
Artistic director: Jacob F. Schokking
Friday October 6 & Saturday October 7 at 9.30am – 11.15am
Turning digital stage technology into tools of both great precision and organic sensuality has become our
trademark. The company Holland House creates, produces and stages contemporary opera and drama. The
company both commissions new work and creates new stagings of existing repertory.
Holland House provides Jacob F. Schokking and invited collaborators with the necessary platform on which
they can create and develop the strongly visual form for theatre Holland House has become renowned for.
Most Holland House productions are characterised by the use of advanced electronic imaging techniques,
such as 2D and 3D computer graphics, live and pre-recorded video, integrated lighting systems and electroacoustics.
Internationally Holland House finds venues, festivals and other platforms, who want to use one of our staging
concepts on their local stages, working with their actors or singers. Holland House brings director designer
Jacob F. Schokking and a small specialized technical crew to co-productions abroad.
www.hollandhouse.dk
Visiting programme
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DANISH DANCE THEATRE
Contemporary dance company
Artistic direction: ChoreographerTim Rushton
Friday October 6 at 10.15 – 11.15am & Saturday October 7 at 11.30am – 12.45pm
Danish Dance Theatre was established in 1981 and has since then been one of the major forces in
contemporary dance in Denmark. The company has its own venue and is now the largest modern dance
company in Denmark.
Danish Dance Theatre presents approximately 100 performances a year in Denmark and abroad, enjoying
acclaim throughout Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East.
The vision of the Danish Dance Theatre is to push the borders of the perception of dance. Award-winning
artistic director Tim Rushton creates dance at the cutting edge between tradition and innovation. His work is
characterized by its ability to combine an abstract language with strong physical images of sensuality and
sincerity, strengthened by his interest in other contemporary art forms like the visual arts, poetry, film and
video- and of course music, leading to collaborations with artists from these art forms.
The gap between contemporary and classical dance is the signature playground of the company, presenting
performances that exist of modern dance, while capturing human and emotional dimensions. The
performances entertain without being populist, by attracting the best dancers, the best composers, the best
set- and light designers and by creating partnerships across international borders.
Over the years, Tim Rushton has choreographed ensemble pieces as well as solos, lavish productions and
simple duets. What could have been a controversial crossover from classical ballet to modern dance has
proved to be a fruitful amalgamation, making Tim Rushton one of Scandinavia’s leading choreographers of
today.
“So entirely original they cannot be compared to anything from the American modern tradition" Boston Herald,
US
“Supremely elegant and intelligent” The Australian, AU
“In Tim Rushton’s dances meaning often emerges out of darkness and melts back into an ongoing stream of
existence. Rushton’s characteristic choreographic signature is dancers flinging themselves into space and
returning to brief spells of balance in their own small areas, creating in their own bodies what T.S. Eliot once
called the ‘still point of the turning world.’ Where Shadowland and Kridt build on existential loneliness,
companionship warms the space of living in the evening-length Silent Steps.” Debra Cash, American dance
critic
www.danskdanseteater.dk
Visiting programme
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DAS BECKWERK
Multidisciplinary
Artistic Director: Werkführer
Friday October 6 at 11.30am – 12.45pm
Das Beckwerk is a trans-national company that governs the life and work of Claus Beck-Nielsen (1963-2001).
Through a variety of actions and initiatives Das Beckwerk seeks to popularize this gesammt Beckwerk which
includes novels, poems, journals, plays, one-man shows, performances, photography, installations, concerts,
records, videos, Internet events, and interventions on the world stage in Iraq, Jordan, USA and Iran. Mutual for
all the Beckworks is the demolishing of the notion of boundaries between reality and fiction.
In the year of 2001 the author, playwright, performer, musician and artist Claus Beck-Nielsen, was declared
dead. In memory of him, a theatre and arts house was opened in a former reactor on the outskirts of
Copenhagen. It was named Das Beckværk, and for nearly four years the house produced Beckworks for the
Danish market. But due to the unbounded globalised world and the nature of the world market Das Beckværk
needed for expand in order to survive. On the 1st of January 2006 Das Beckværk therefore merged with the
trans-national net-based Das Beckwerk. As a result Das Beckværk had to leave the permanent theatre-reactor
and become a more flexible nomadic reactor.
As a nomadic reactor Das Beckwerk will, from Now and until the End of History, incarnate Eurotopia, being a
Eurotopian embassy within and outside Europe. Through performances, interventions and reflection-throughaction, Das Beckwerk will pose the European solutions-through-questions all over the world. Das Beckwerk
will never perform the role of cultural ambassador, but rather as an ever present risk of the “china syndrome”,
the threat of new links between us and the absolute Other.
www.dasbeckwerk.com
Visiting programme
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HALF MACHINE
Live Art Installations & Sitespecific Performance
Artistic direction: Pipaluk and the Half Maschine Group
Friday October 6 at 11.30am – 13.45pm
Interactive art, dance performance & concert event - electronic playground & evolving collaborative
experiments. HALF MACHINE is inspired by the theme "meltage man and machine", site-specific installations
featuring aerial dance, body/technology experiments, water & light installations, film & video art, sound
installations & live electronic music. The performances are designed as a space of discovery and interaction,
the audience taking an active part.
The venue is transformed into a cross connected laboratory, a crazy and surreal eco system in the midst of an
electronic playground. Objects and dancers are suspended from the ceiling, interactive installations and
workstations shattering the ground in open formations. The dancers and the audience move freely, interacting
with robots, art and technology, dancing to live concerts in water and light. You can touch everything and talk
to the artists, stay for as many hours as you like.
HALF MACHINE is an international artist collective. Events are directed/curated by Danish artist and
choreographer Pipaluk Supernova. HALF MACHINE will engage in dialog with local communities creating
events inspired by available recycled materials and in collaboration with local artists. Based on that material
the HALF MACHINE artists will create a specific work for your space or theatre.
www.halfmachine.info
www.copenhagendreamhouse.com
Visiting programme
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HOUSE OF DANCE
Contemporary dance
Saturday October 7 at 9.30-11.15am
House of Dance is the centre for the modern and contemporary dance in Denmark. It houses regular classes
and sessions, developing project, information, courses, seminars, rehearsal studies and international
collaborations etc. Some of the choreographers working in the House of Dance are invited to present their
work: Anders Christiansen (based in his company Stillleben) and Priscilla Rasmussen. During the visit
choreographer, Kasper Daugaard (based in his company Club Fisk) from Aarhus will also present his work.
www.dansenshus.dk
Choreographer and dancer Anders Christiansen graduated from the European Dance Development Center
in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in 1993. Upon his return to Denmark, his performances instantly attracted
interest, and in 1995 the company (stillleben) was established to produce and present his work.
Christiansen is one of a kind on the Danish dance and performance scene. Throughout his career, he has
always followed his own path and has created a series of ground-breaking solo performances, as well as
several ensemble works. His highly visual work represents a unique combination of contemporary dance
Christiansen has created more than 25 dance works, which have been presented at venues and festivals in
Denmark and abroad. He has also choreographed for The Royal Danish Ballet (1995), Åben Dans (1998),
Danish Dance Theatre (2003) and Mancopy – Odense Dance Company (2006 – see evening programme).
www.anderschristiansen.dk
Priscilla Sepuya Rasmussen works as an independent choreographer in the area of dance video,
performance and contemporary dance. She holds a BA in physical education, dance and cultural politics from
Copenhagen University and graduated from the Danish National School of Contemporary Dance in 1999. She
created her first professional production at the exhibition Explore Europe as part of Copenhagen European
Cultural Capital 96. Merges dance as an art form with various visuals, reinforcing and refining the boundaries
of artistic expression. Commissioned to choreograph for Open Dance Productions, Dansescenen’s junior
company, and BOZCO. Has danced with the choreographers Bo Madvig, Stuart Lynch, Kenneth Kreutzmann
and Rui Horta. In 2002 she produced her first dance film My Mother’s Hand. Has created the video pieces
Walk and Miss Butterfly and edited the dance film Roadrunner. In 2005 she created her first full length
choreography SWOP - silent ways of picturing life as well as she’s on her way with a video version of
Stringens by Mancopy.
Club Fisk is established in 2003 by dancer and choreographer Kasper Daugaard Poulsen with the aim to
create own productions. Club Fisk’s productions are strictly movement based and away from story and
narrative, to make the story, that anyhow always emerges, as open as possible for the audience to
experience. The choreographic interest remains focused on the process of reception, and on how much
content, story and meaning is in the body and the abstract work.
Club Fisk also has a pedagogical goal which aims to broaden the general knowledge of the modern dance as
art form. This is achieved in collaboration with Dance In Education, who assists in organising special
performances of Club Fisk’s pieces and workshops to schools, high schools, universities, and others. Club
Fisk also communicates its work and experiences through articles, seminars and in collaboration with other
choreographers and institutions.
www.clubfisk.dk
Visiting programme
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