We then file through into a stark white empty room where Marie Topp performed her piece, ‘The Everyday Practice of Resistance’. The piece deals with Newtonian laws and our place within them. Quite fitting alongside a play being developed concerning the notion of ‘free will’. We see Marie go through a series of actions describing the effort of trying to overcome something immutable. A piece thoroughly embedded in the human condition.

Following on from Marie Topp we shifted on mass to another part of the deserted factory floor where Marie-Louise Stjenteberg awaited us stark lighting bouncing off her impeccable white shirt and pencil skirt huggin her figure. She uses a loop machine to build up layers of an absurd text. We are reminded of whether what the character is doing is within her own control as the layers of the text build with Marie-Louise’s ever increasingly frantic movement.

Saying goodbye to a building/ work in progress from Esther Wrobel on Vimeo.

Their final peice was altogether more humorous and again another ingenious use of space. We were lead out into one of the empty floors of the post industrial Ny Tap and treated to a selection of bouncing and echoey vocals accompanied by scurrying silhouettes as the girls took on a humourous and childlike group personality.

Engaging stuff!

Sam and I came up with this little scene roughly based on Tom Waitts’ song “What’s he building in there?”. The audience were kept outside a door inside which I was battering away at the walls and floor with various objects. Smashing things and making noise, throwing my body full force into the walls and all the while keeping people from seeing what was actually beyond this darkened port. Sam made a sound track of people shouting at each other in strange languages with dogs barking. It was probably the simplest

Finally we had Tenna Wig performing her dance and installation piece. Tenna lead us on a journey around Ny Tap as we were instructed to follow a red thread around the various floors of the building, through nooks and forgotten spaces until finally we were confronted by Tenna enmeshed in her cubic metal installation and many more lengths of the thread. An urgent and sincere performance followed. Is she helping point the way to something as Ariadne did to Theseus? Is she wrapping us further in an endless entrappment of confusion?

A promosing performance evening with lots of fresh ideas to talk about.

Last week Wunderkammer was busy with ‘IN PEACES’, Sam doing 3-D graphics and Wunderkammer putting together a series of after events to try out working in the Dansehallern bar as a way of platforming new work. Luke also spoke at ‘Performing Places – seminar on sustainabilty, space & performing arts’ organised by Teater Kunst. Both activities related to space for the performing arts and I will go into some of the issues which came out of both experiences for Wunderkammer in another post in this blog.

This week Sam and I are trying out an idea of having video installations back projected onto the office windows. There’s a picture of the 5 windows which make up the ‘video wall’ below. We’d like this to be a constantly changing space for video work viewed by the transient audience who walk past our office windows daily. If you’d like to use this space please e-mail luke@thewunderkammer.dk

Create Space 4# began with an introduction of the video wall idea. During the Summer months daylight means that this is something which will be turned on in the evening from about 8pm maybe due to sunlight bleaching out the image. During winter when it starts getting dark at around 3pm there will be extended exhibition hours.

Marie-Louise Stentjberg talked about text being used on the wall. That perhaps a story might be told to capture people’s attention while the story is being told. Sam and Luke will be showing their ‘little people projections’ recently made for the ‘IN PEACES’ after-show events.

Hildigunn Eydfinsdóttir was present for the first time this week. She has worked for many years with Michael Laub’s theatre company, Remote Control . Having collaborated with Wunderkammer towards the end of Drive-in she is currently working on her own performance and film installation which she will work on in Ny Tap and present as part of Create Space in the coming months.

Claudius Pratt is the lead singer of band, Reverend Shine Snake Oil and presented his ideas for a record launch for their new album in June. Wunderkammer will collaborate with them on the dramaturgy, direction and production of this event. Claudius has worked for many years in New York and Copenhagen as well as touring with the band in different European cities. The record launch will involve performances from various artists along a theme and take place in Ny Tap. Create Space will be the forum for presentations of these various performances.

Birgitte Skands is an accomplished dancer, choreographer and painter. Having trained and worked in New York as a dancer she returned to Copenhagen. Her work involves live performance and painting. She explained the visceral and instinctual nature of her work as well as the neccessity of setting up her canvases in a space where they can remain for some time while she experiements with them. She will use our space at Ny Tap to develop this work and also indicated an interest in starting to use video.

Luke and Sam concluded with a summary of ‘The Corridor’, their new work to be presented as part of KIT’s Metropolis this Summer. Wunderkammer will use Create Space as a forum to present various ideas which will feed into this show and as a way of gathering momentum for the networking and marketing of the project. Giving space and presentation possibilitites for the different ideas which will form the final piece is essential in order to give this low budget piece the possibility of developing towards it’s potential.

Meeting #1 – Group Therapy 04/03/11

Present; Luke Cooper, Emma-Cecilie Ajanka, Samuel Moore

This session was small and intimate and was entitled ‘Group Therapy’ by Sam and Emma-Cecilie as it had that kind of feeling to it…(‘Hello my name is Luke and I’ve been in performance for 7 years now…it’s been three months since my last performance’) We were all telling our back-stories regarding our creative careers in the theatre, dance and tv design industries.

Our conversations centered around our different experiences in making performance, the places where we’ve done this and our different ways of arriving at working in a live medium.
We talked about more organised house parties as a means of platforming artists, one example being a band, Left With Pictures creating their own ‘bedroom tour’ playing in the homes of their friends. We also talked about spaces in Copenhagen for the performing arts, like the mighty Illutron.
We talked about urban regeneration and the creative company’s role in this in terms of opening up space. Understanding the language and position of developers, fire departments and forming partnerships with those who know about this.
We also talked about our educations and how this shaped the performance/dance industry and our relationship to it.
We also talked about shared spaces, meeting points and how being in the same room as other like-minded people can help.

Meeting 2# – More People 11/03/11

Present; Luke Cooper, Emma-Cecilie Ajanka, Gry Raaby, Jacky Hughes, Alice Martucci, Marie-Louise Stentjberg

Still in Luke’s flat this week numbers increased. All involved were from the dance scene here in Copenhagen and most had been present at the Dansehallern Open Space so the session had this slant to it. We talked a while and then started to think about how we could activate the conversations into useful/available information. It was also in the space between this and the last meeting that Wunderkammer found out about their new office and rehearsal space in Ny Tap. (A temporary solution to the need for space as we will be able to stay there until the end of December 2011).

Create Space 2#

Here’s what we talked about;

* Platforms for artists and the question of this being for professionals or amateurs.
* ‘The open stage’ as a studio, venue or space without equipment.
* Can you do anything without the arts council being involved in some way?
* Bars are important at cultural venues
* Facilitating other events in order to diversify audiences and understanding how other artistic scenes work.
* Mobility within smaller spaces
* How can institutions work in co-operation with smaller spaces?
* Happy spaces- diversifying the creative process. we talked about the importance of people being happy and excited to turn up to a creative space
* Forsøg Stationen on Sønder Boulevard 43 is a space to check out
* Luke to research the existence of ‘scratch nights’ in Danish performance institutions

Meeting 3#  – At The New Office 18/03/11

This was the first meeting to be had in the new communal offices of Wunderkammer, RISK, The Mob, Esther Wrobel and Yeray Lopez. We began getting a bit more practical about how we could make space available to our network and others in the performing arts, linking the knowledge that we have;

Here’s what we talked about;

• Having a blog on the wunderkammer website to lay down the meeting notes each week – CHECK, that’s now done
• As part of the blog making a list of events, spaces, resources for people to find out where they can do things. This can perhaps form a mailout of ‘What’s on’ on the alternbative performance and arts scene in Copenhagen.
• Luke to look into Visiting Artists funding and see whether this would be possible to establish in ours or another performance space.
• Starting a regular open rehearsal/Fredag bar at our office space so we can start a creative exchange
• Widening the pool of creative people we invite to this event to start off more collaborations
• Filmstation in Norrebro are a group of pro-active people which would be a good possibility for creating work in collaboration with

‘Create Space’ is a weekly discussion group and presentation forum for the performing arts. It is presented by Wunderkammer at our offices in The Old Carlsberg Breweries. I’ll be posting summaries of the meetings we’ve had and various other information about creating spaces for performance in Copenhagen. As creative professionals we all need space to make new work. Wunderkammer is offering the use of their space at Carlsberg for rehearsals and the development of new work to other artists and companies. We are also facilitating the presentation of this new work to our network within the performing arts industry. This is an opportunity to develop and receive feedback to your work in an open, yet respectful environment.

If you are interested in coming along to Create Space join our mailing list by e-mailing luke@thewunderkammer.dk to confirm your attendance. Put ‘Join Create Space’ in the message subject. Or call Luke on, 50 59 93 76.

Create Space meetings happen weekly at 12 midday every Friday unless otherwise notified via the mailing list. Feel free to drop by our offices if you are interested in taking part. Adress; The Office, Ny Tap Carlsberg, Pasteursvej 48, 1778 København, Gl. Carlsbergs. Click here for a map.

Some of the spaces at Ny Tap can be seen below:

About Create Space…

This all started about a month and a half ago when I got invited or more like ‘muscled in’ on an Open Space meeting at Dansehallerne. I’ve been to Open Space meetings before and they’re a great forum for getting things done. (The one I went to was called ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’, run by Improbable- an amazing London-based British theatre company. You can read more about Open Space there)

The question I posed was, ‘How do we create smaller spaces for performance in Copenhagen?’ Emma-Cecilie Ajanki asked’What is the ‘underground’ performance scene in Copenhagen?’ Inspired by these questions I decided to host a continuation of the discussions of these questions in an informal meeting event. The aim is to meet other artists interested by the questions posed and see where the event leads. The focus in on how we can actively address issues that arise in a positive manner, empowering ourselves as oppose to simply discussing matters. The event now takes place at the Wunderkammer office space which we are sharing with six other members of the dance and performance community. These groups and individuals are, RISK:RECLAIM:ENTERTAIN, The Mob, Esther Wrobel. As the meetings develop we will also begin to present our creative work to each other in informal presentations enriching the creative practice of those attending and giving a chance for us to receive feedback from other professionals.