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SEAS Helsingborg/Helsingør & Copenhagen

4 - 18 August 2009

The final scene of Monday in the Sun in Copenhagen.

In a similar way to the SEAS Coastal event, SEAS presented its Danish edition in collaboration with another country – Sweden. As in Varna and Istanbul, SEAS was hosted by festivals – Passage 09 and KIT’s Metropolis Festival. Passage is a festival of street theatre or performance in the public space –a perfect fit with SEAS’s interests. Metropolis is one of Europe’s leading festivals of urban art and performance.

The Place

Helsingør and Helsingborg face each other across the Øresund Strait, the narrow sea between the two countries. There are longstanding historical links between the two places and in modern times they collaborate on Passage, a festival of street theatre, which hosted the SEAS programme, the first event of the North Sea tour.

Helsingør, also known as Shakespeare’s Elsinore, is a small town of about 46,000 people. Swedish Helsingborg is a conurbation which is twice the size of its Danish neighbour. The third venue in Denmark was the capital Copenhagen within the framework of the Metropolis Festival. It presented over 100 performances and installations (by international and local artists) in Copenhagen throughout the month of August 2009. Nearly all the work presented in or using public spaces.

Main partners and setting

The main Danish co-producer and host was the Copenhagen International Theatre (KIT), one of the SEAS coorganisers. They brokered a partnership with Passage 09, Helsingør Theatre and Dunkers Cultural House in Helsingborg, and with the City of Helsingborg Kulturforvaltningen (Cultural Services Department) and Helsingør City. Passage wanted develop their international street festival programme with contemporary art. Artists and cultural workers in both Helsingborg and Helsingør wished to raise the status of culture within the political life of the two cities, especially in connection to tourism: artistic director Chris Torch’s previous visits and meetings had already started a debate even before SEAS arrived, which was welcomed by SEAS partners.

Funders and cultural relations, marketing

Venues and more partners

Adam Jeanes Facebook diary: 6 – 18 August
Previously at SEAS have invaded the seaside, the streets, harbours, nightclubs, churches, lighthouses in Romania, the Potemkin steps in Odessa, tramways in Istanbul and castles in Bulgaria: we have tried everything we can in 3 dimensions. Now we try the 4th dimension – time. Simultaneous SEAS. We already tried it out with SEAS Balchik, Varna and Mangalia last year.