Thematic focus on Theater for Young Audiences from Benelux and Skandinavia as part of the series "Play Time – Stream and discours Young Theatre"
One of the advanages of digital theater is the ability to view artistic events beyond one's own potential travel radius. The series "Play Time" dedicates the upcoming thematic focus "On Tour" to exploring European developments in theater for young audiences. We will present groundbreaking theatres, production houses and artists from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden in a discussion and five live streams starting from June 20th.
Program
Panel talk: June 20th, 6 PM – Live stream with chat
Discussion on Theater for Young Audiences in Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands
Featuring: Farnaz Arbabi (director and artistic director of Theater Unga Klara, Sweden), Veerle Kerckhoven (artistic director of Theater Bronks, Belgium), Jetse Batelaan (director and artistic director of Theater Artemis, Netherlands), Moderator: Elena Philipp – spoken language: English
Livestreams: June 20th, 7 PM to June 25th, 7 PM
"They will drown in their mothers' tears" – Unga Klara, Sweden
Based on Johannes Anyuru's novel "Sie werden in den Tränen ihrer Mütter ertrinken"
Directed by: Farnaz Arbabi
Duration: 2 hours 12 minutes, recommended for ages 15 and above
The livestream is limited to 80 participants, registration via email at: anmeldung@nachtkritik.de
The play is set two years after an attempted attack on a comic book store. It focuses on the young girl Nour, who did not carry out the attack as planned, but shot her partner in crime instead. She insists she comes from the future – a dystopian time in which anyone who refuses to sign the citizenship contract is declared an "enemy of Sweden“.
Unga Klara Theater was founded in Stockholm in 1975 and has played a significant role in shaping important developments in theater for young audiences.
"Us/Them" – Bronks, Belgium
Directed by: Carly Wijs
Duration: 60 minutes, recommended for ages 9 and above
A hostage taking in a school, told from the point of view of two students. In facing the inconceivable, the children's perspectives take on weight. The play is based on real events: In 2004, Chechen terrorists occupied a school in Beslan and took 1,148 people hostage. More than 300 of them, mostly children, died in the catastrophically failed rescue by the Russian military.
"Rita" – Bronks, Belgium
By Randi De Vlieghe, Jef Van gestel
Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes, recommended for ages 8 and above
Rita is an elderly woman and has a strong sense for great drama. Through her love of opera, she tries to escape from everyday life and the worries of old age. She gets lost in a maze of thoughts where the boundaries between fiction and reality seem completely blurred, trying to find her way like an elderly Alice in Wonderland
Bronks is the Dutch-speaking theater for young audiences in Brussels that caters to a broad audience with often humorous, contrasting, and multi-layered productions that reflect the world and aim to provide means to better understand it.
"The end of the beginning of the end" – Theater Artemis, Netherlands
Directed by: Jetse Batelaan
Duration: 1 hour 40 minutes, recommended for ages 8 and above
At the end of a show, this piece begins. It takes a bit to understand that everything runs backwards here. The actors are at home, all the equipment in the truck - ready to move on to the next stage. But what if, in the meantime, there is no theater at all? Might we be witnessing the end of an art form? Jetse Batelaan asks what would be left in a world without imagination and fantasy.
"Dance is moving nice and rhythmically to music" – Theater Artemis, Netherlands
Directed by: Jetse Batelaan
Duration: 50 minutes, recommended for ages 12 and above
This dance piece for a young audience claims not to be a dance piece, but still is one, of course. One in which strips of paper begin to raise from the floor and walls slide back and forth on the stage. The choreography of things then reaches out to the three performers, who are apparently waiting for their children.
The Theater Artemis, based in 's-Hertogenbosch, seeks new forms of theater, loves anarchy and comedy, and challenges young audiences with philosophical experiments to strengthen their trust in the unknown and in themselves. Jetse Batelaan has been leading the Artemis Theater since 2013. He is one of the most inventive and fearless directors of his generation. He gladly and productively disappoints expectations of what theater is. In 2019, he received the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale, and in 2020, he was awarded the International Theatre Institute Prize.
On Tour – Theater for Young Audiences from Benelux and Scandinavia
Curation and project management: Simone Kaempf, Elena Philipp. Conceptual collaboration and administration: Anne Peter. Disposition: Melina Eichenlaub. Communications & Social Media: Falk Lörcher. Project responsibility Kulturstiftung des Bundes: Teresa Darian.
If you want to stay in touch with "Play Time", you can subscribe to our (german) Newsletter Junges Theater:
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"Play Time – Stream and Discours Theater for Young Audiences" is a cooperation of nachtkritik.de and the Kulturstiftung des Bundes within the context of "Jupiter – Darstellende Künste für junges Publikum" . Sponsored by Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.
