Author: Dag Rosenqvist

From Friday February 17 to Tuesday the 21 we’ll be visiting Hasselt, Belgium for this year’s edition of the Krokus festival.

All in all, we’re hoping to see around ten performances, naturally focusing on dance, and we will also be attending talks and other goodies that the festival offers.

With the aid of some extra funding from the Swedish Arts Council, we have also been able to invite our Swedish artistic curator Peter Sunesson. As a wonderfully unexpected and nice bonus, our international curators Fiona Ferguson from Imaginate, Edinburgh and Adjjima Na Patalung from BICT-fest in Bangkok will also be there. We will take this opportunity to discuss some general ideas for the next edition of Step. So great!

Due to the pandemic, it has now been a few tears since we visited the festival, and we are really looking forward to come back and see both performances and meet new and old aquaintences. Perhaps we’ll see each other in the crowd?

On Thursday February 9 we kick-off Step’s Dance Club with the first of five meetings occurring throughout spring 2023!

During these five occasions, the teachers will get the opportunity to delve deeper into dance for young audiences. There will be performances and talks, introduction to tools for talking about dance, there will be time for reflection and some movement. What is dance for young audiences and what regional and local structures surround it? How can we learn to interpret and discuss what we experience during a dance performance and what can the artistic process look like? Part of the course also include a visit to the dance and theatre festival Imaginate in Edinburgh, where the Swedish teachers get the opportunity to meet representatives from both the festival and from Teachers’ Theatre Club.

The group consists of fourteen representatives from preschool, elementary school and special schools in the municipalities Falkenberg, Göteborg, Mölndal, Halmstad, Kungsbacka and Lerum. The course has been developed by Step and is led by Sandra Grehn.

Sandra Grehn is a performing arts researcher who teaches Theatre Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Gothenburg, Stockholm University and Linnæus University. She is also a freelance lecturer and moderator as well as a performing arts critic at Göteborgs-Posten. Her dissertation revolves around three plays at Backa Teater in Gothenburg, and she has been working with questions concerning performing art’s role in society, development of professional performing arts for young audiences and participatory perspectives.

We look forward to starting the work with our teachers’ group!

Our three curators Fiona Ferguson, Adjjima Na Patalung and Peter Sunesson are done with the first selection for Step 2024!

In terms of artistic expression, this first selection consists of dance for infants, location independent outdoors performances, reflections on masculinity, meeting between children and senior citizens, participatory performances, questions revolving around sexuality and performances created specifically for neurodiverse audiences.

We are incredibly happy with the curator’s selection, and we look forward to presenting this to our regional presenters and collaborators in mid-March. After this, the presenters make their choices, forming the basis for the body of performances that will be presented during Step 2024. All in all, the idea is to present somewhere around 8-10 different performances during the next edition of the festival. In addition to this, we’ll most likely add some smaller events and of course workshops for children, youth and adults!

In order to find and be able to also include performances that are premiering during spring 2023, a second selection will be presented in May. This will give us an even broader palette of performances for the next edition of Step.

Step’s Dance Club is a free-of-charge competence development program for teachers in preschool, elementary school, special school, and high school. The aim of the project is to strengthen the ties between teachers, dance artists and presenters in order to promote children’s self-evident access to culture. Through five physical gatherings from February to June 2023, a shared platform to meet around dance for young audiences is created. We have taken inspiration from Edinburgh based dance and theatre festival Imaginate’s initiative Teachers Theatre Club and Backa Teater’s course Lärare ser på scenkonst. The program also consists of a visit to Edinburgh and Imaginate!

Step’s Dance Club is about strengthening the ties between teachers, dance artists and presenters. It about inspiring to see more dance for young audiences, to find a common language to discuss performing arts experiences with young audiences and to jointly develop and test one’s critical thinking. What is it that makes a performance interesting and relevant?

Would you like to know more?
Please e-mail Step’s Project Manager Hanko Zell at: hanko@producentbyran.se

Step’s Dance Club was initiated and is run by Producentbyrån and is carried out with funding from the Swedish Arts Council.

It has now already been a week since the festival ended with a magnificent party at Ale Kulturrum.

We are so incredibly happy for the fantastic response we have received and the wonderful energy that has been spread from everyone involved. Without you all it would not have been possible! Now we’re putting away all the roll-ups, balloons and other merchandise for this time and look forward to the next festival.

A big thank you to all children, young people and adults who have been involved and put a sparkle on Step 2022! See you again in 2024.

Friday 25 March at 18.00, the Step 2022 festival ends at Ale Teater and you are warmly welcome to a festive evening!

The program consists of local elements such as the samba orchestra La Bateria from A Bunda in Gothenburg and the performance Adventures in Planet Love with the Belgian dance company Jordi L. Vidal Company. There will be a mingle afterwards, so the party will continue also after the program!

Adventures in Planet Love explores the diversity of romantic encounters in order to bring to light our own prejudices. But how do we overcome these prejudices and build bridges to other people? In the end it’s about finding a better way of living together.

Time: 18.00 with doors at 17.45
Location: Ale Kulturrum, Vitklövergatan 1, Nödinge

Ticket can be found here!

The festival is now in its third week and dance has been presented around the region for children and youth! The dance month with Step is soon in its last week and a festive end awaits.

On Thursday 17 March, two school performances of Vind, blås mig! by Big Wind, will be shown at Världskulturmuseet.

The festival’s remaining public performances
An Encounter by Jordi L. Vidal Company
Saturday 19 March at 12.00, stage by the café, at Mölnlycke Kulturhus. Free entrance!
Monday 21 March at 19.00, Dergårdsteatern in Lerum. Tickets can be found here.

Adventures in Planet Love by Jordi L. Vidal Company
Tuesday 22 March at 19.00, Floda Lada, in Floda. Tickets can be found here.
Friday 25 March at 18.00 Ale Kulturrum, in Ale (grand finale of Step). Tickets can be found here.

Friday 25 March, Step closes at Ale Kulturrum and you are warmly welcome! The program consists of local performances, closing mingle and the dance performance Adventures in Planet Love!
Time: 18.00 (entrance 17.45)
Location: Ale Kulturrum, Vitklövergatan 1, Nödinge

There are spring feelings in the air, and we are now in the second festival week!

This week Danish company Aaben Dans plays their performance Hvad er det? at Folkets hus, in Vänersborg. They will also play a public performance at Folkets hus, on Thursday the 11 at 4.30 pm. On Saturday 12 March, Aaben Dans continues their tour to Borås and has a public performance at Regionteater Väst at 13.00. Hvad er det? then visits Frölunda Kulturhus where they play a public performance at 14.00 on Sunday 13 March. On Tuesday 15 March, they will play school performances at Kulturhuset Vingen in Torslanda. Tickets and dates for all venues can be found on our website.

In Gothenburg, Kvinnostaden is played by Kompani Catapult on Järntorget, on Saturday at 15.00. It’s also the only time they play during the festival, so do not miss this! Free admission – keep an eye out around the square for red clothes.

On Monday 14 March, you who are a dancer and over 18 years old, can participate in an exclusive dance workshop led by the choreographer and dancer Jordi L. Vidal! A free dance and physical theater improvisation and composition workshop. Read more about the workshop here.

Time: 18:00-20:00
Location: Ale Kulturrum

Register here!

Jordi L.Vidal Company will play the performances An Encounter and Adventures in planet from next week, check out our website to see all the dates and venues! Next week, the company will play at Ale Kulturrum and Göteborgs stadsbibliotek.

The festival is now in full swing and several performances have been played and moved its audience, all around the region. Now we want to present an addition in the further selection of the festival program called Step Extended! Step Extended is our initiative to showcase both dance companies and innovative dance projects from Region Västra Götaland. It is also an addition to the festival’s curated program.

We are therefore now proudly welcoming Kvinnostaden by Kompani Catapult to Step 2022! Kvinnostaden is playing Saturday 12 March at 15.00, at Järntorget in Gothenburg. Look out for dancers in red clothes at Järntorget – hope to see you there!

About Kvinnostaden
Kvinnostaden is a movable dance performance where Kompani Catapult paints the city with their dancing. Where the city statues are embodied and tell their own story. Some see the entire performance, some discover it along the journey and stay until the end, while others only encounter the dancers for a brief moment.

Read more about the performance here!

About Kompani Catapult
Kompani Catapult is based on feministic and democratic values and explore a way of working without an artistic leader but with a shared artistic direction. They strive to tell socially relevant stories that can be both touching and provocative at the same time.

Read more about the company here!

Welcome to experience the performance Frock by English dance company Stopgap, in the middle of the crowd of Nordstan on Friday the 4th of March at 16.00!

In Frock, six striking dancers collide in an uplifting dance riot! In this quirky dance performance, playful observations of the yesteryears explode into a punkish celebration of individuality and difference. Read more about the performance and show dates here.

Hope to see you!