terra nova interactive and physical theatre

terra nova
interactive theatre

terra nova interactive theatre performances pictures video links contact

news		terra nova
April 2010 The 24^th of May Jens Bäckvall will be creating a Babel experience for Vesterbro Church. It is a one time experience, happening on Vesterbro Torv from 15.00 – 15.10. TIPS (The Institute of Parallel Science) will be re-staged in a new version at The Stage That Wasn't There. It's at Københavns Musikteater on the 11^th of September this year. July 2009 On the 24th and 25th of July we will be performing at the G! festival in the Faroe Islands with the interactive performance TIPS which we performed at the Urkultfestival in Sweden in August 2008. Whilst in the Faroes we will be doing research for the project On the Edge of the World which is planned collaboration between Terra Nova and Faroese performing-artists. We are planning to perform in the Faroe Islands and Denmark during the summer of 2010. The trip to the Faroe Islands is made possible thanks to Kultur Kontakt Nord who have supported Jens Bäckvall, Karl Sørensen and Mette Guldborg Hansen with travel grants. On the 28th of July at 16.00 we will be hosting an informational meeting about On the Edge of the World at Sjónleikarhúsið. See the information in the right hand column of this screen for information and to sign up for the meeting. Jens has finally gotten a home-page of his own which will be up and running during September of this year at www.jensbackvall.dk. 2009 2008 was an exciting year and Jens, Karl and Mette used most of the summer and autumn in New York working on Atomic City which opened on the 11th of September 2008. AC ran for 3 weeks, playing for a lot of audience and receiving some good reviews. In August 2008 we were back in Europe for a month and performed the interactive performance TIPS at the Urkult festival in Näsåker in northern Sweden. During the first half of 2009 we won't be performing very much, being too busy with other projects outside of Terra Nova. But during the summer and autumn things start moving again. We are going to the Faroe Islands to perform TIPS and to research for a 2010 performance project. We will also be collaborating with Valby City Council, creating the framework for Valby Cultural Days and starting work on a possible collaboration with the cultural institution Prøvehallen for autumn 2010. August 2008 ATOMIC CITY is opening the season at LaMama ETC in New York After a long summer with hard work at the Watermill Center and LaMama ETC, the performance ATOMIC CITY is getting ready for opening night. We open the season 08/09 at LaMama ETC , one of New York's oldest experimental theatres with support from, amongst others: The Danish Arts Council, Robert Wilson, The Danish Consulate in New York, Molo Design, Syn Lawn, and the kind people who have supported our artistic work. March 2008 - II (updated 18th of March) Let Me Count the Ways that I Love Thee plays at festival in Germany This June, Karl Sørensen and Kristi Hughes will be restaging the 2006 performance Let Me Count the Ways that I Love Thee at the Ruhrfestspiele festival in Recklinghausen, Germany. The festival has bought a 6-show run from June 3rd to June 8th. Festival link: ruhrfestspiele Support from the Danish Arts Council and Tuborg Fondet We are extremely happy to be able to announce that the Danish Arts Council has chosen to support the Atomic City project with 20.000 DKK for travelling expenses during our residencies in New York. Tuborg Fondet has also been very generous and are supporting the Mobile Interactive Labyrinth with 33.000 DKK for purchasing special tents that are to be used for scenography. This is a new project and it will be touring Denmark, Sweden,Norway and the Faeroe Islands during the Spring and Summer of 2009. More information on the project will be available soon. Cooperation with Amnesty This April we will be cooperating with Amnesty twice. The first time is Saturday the 5th of April, where we will be kickstarting a campaign against Diplomatic Assurances. This will be done by Karl Sørensen, Stine Ruge and Robert Savi who will be performing Jens Bäckvall's short piece The Debate on Gammeltorv. The piece lasts approximately 10 minutes and will be performed 3 times between 12 noon and 1 p.m. Be there, enjoy the performance and support the campaign! For more info (in Danish) click here The second time is on the two Saturdays the 19th and the 26th of April, where we will perform som small events around søerne in Copenhagen. This is done to get participants for a run in support of human rights in China in relation to the Olympic Games. The run itself will be held on the 4th of Maj. Read more (in Danish) by clicking here Short film Winter exhibited in Beijing Jens Bäckvall's short dance film Winter will be shown at the Today Art Museum in Beijing from June 6th till June 28th amongst selected one-minute films from 100 countries. March 2008 TheAtomic City project is skyrocketing!!!! We have been granted 2 artist residencies in New York this June. The first one is 2 weeks at the Watermill Centre and the second one is an additional 2 weeks at the LaMama theatre. LaMama has also axpressed that they would like us to open our performance there. This will be in the winter of 2008-09. Also: Jens Bäckvall has just finished a manuscriptige for Amnesty. The manuscript will be used in a campaign on Diplomatic Assurances. Read more about this on Amnesty's homepage: Amnesty February 2008 2008 is here, and because of technical problems and lack of time, this is the first time we update the homepage. Lots of exciting things have happend during the last part of 2007 and here are short decriptions of some of them: Copenhagen Cultural Night We were artistic leaders on a gigantic interactive scenario in Prøvehallen, Valby. The scenario had everything, from poetry and kung-fu to a gigantic football game/painting, live soundscape and a wheelchair labyrinth. Hundreds of people came to see it during the evening, which also had two guest appearances by the dance-theatre groups Dancing At My Parents' and A-Kompagniet. The success will be repeated in october this year with a new scenario. Amnesty campaign on laws on immigration into Denmark On behalf og Amnesty, Jens Bäckvall taught interactive theatre and wrote and directed a big event in Århus. Children Prohibited The festivalen was a success with lotsof visitors. Huset i Magstræde had Terra Nova, poesi and music on the agenda. July 2007 We are very happy and extremely thankful because this month we have have been given support from two generous donors. They are: Carlsbergs Idé Legat who have supported us with DKK 15.000,- for building special parasol-tent-scenographies for use in the performance Folket which will be performed at Helsingør Street-theatre Festival and at the Urkult Festival. They will also be used in Forbudt for Børn which will be performed in Huset i Magstræde in September. Zepto Computers who have supported us by giving us a special discount when buying a laptop for video and sound editing. Once again Thank You to both our sponsors!! June 2007 Terra Nova will be performing at the following venues in the not so distant future: Roskilde Festival. We will be performing the interactive performance Nothing is Fair. The performance is about Fair Trade and will be playing from Thursday the 5th of July until Sunday the 8th of July. The performance is a cooperation with the musicians Nis Bäckvall from Sweden and Juan and Anna-Katrin from the band Valravn. Urkult Festival. We will be performing the interactive performance Folket. It consists of 6 solo-performances for solo-audience, playing in special rolling parasol-tents that we have designed. Each interaction takes approximately 5 minutes. The Festival runs between Thursday the 2nd of August and Saturday the 4th fo August in Näsåker in northern Sweden. Helsingør Street-theatre Festival. We will be performing Folket here during the weekend between the 10th and 12th of August. Forbudt For Børn. We are creating some intimate interaction-based installations for this festival which is set in Huset i Magstræde, Copenhagen between Thursday the 13th of September and Saturday the 15th of September. Kulturnatten. We are orchestrating all of Prøvehallen in Valby with a gigantic interactive installation-game called Olympiske Prøvelser where approx. 100 artist and volunteers create a bombardment of the senses with sound, light, theatre, sport, painting, sculpture, poetry and philosophy. The evening's climax is a fireshow. Come and experience it at kulturnatten, Friday the 12th of October. March 2007 In August we will be performing at the Urkult festival in northern Sweden. We will present a small interactive performance. Read more about Urkult at www.urkult.se. Also check out Jon Morris' workshop on the 21st and 22nd of April in Copenhagen. It's a workshop called Play True, teaching students about stage presence and stage awareness. The teaching level is for professional stage-artist, but you are not required to have professional experience to attend it. Read more about the workshop at our blog on (www.supportstageart.com), or write us an e-mail at terranova.teater@gmail.com for more info. February 2007 Felix Grimm is now also a part of the Atomic City project (www.supportstageart.com). See examples of his work on his homepage www.joggernaut.de. January 2007-II Vi have started a cooperation with the American actor/dancer/acrobat Jon Morris and the Swedish musician Nis Bäckvall; the goal being to create an international stage-art collaboration between USA, Denmark, Sweden and (maybe) Germany. The performance bears the projectname Atomic City and is expected to open in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2007. It will then be staged in Los Angeles and later it will come back to Europe. As something completely new, the performance wil be part-financed by potential audience from all over the world who have the opportunity to buy stock in the performance. Stockholders will have the chance of winning a trip to either Copenhagen or Los Angeles( the choice of city is up to the winner) to see the local opening of the performance. Read more about the project and buy stock at the homepage www.supportstageart.com, which will be up and running by the end of January or the beginning of February. You can read about Jon at www.jonmorris.biz, and about Nis at www.nismusik.se January 2007 Terra Nova will write and perform an interactive performance for Roskilde Festival, working with the humanitarian focus of this years festival; Fair Trade Rights for Sierra Leones sugar farmers. The festival will take place between the 5th and the 8th of July 2007. 11th January 2007 Jens Bäckvall has, in cooperation with Amnesty, devised and directed a Happening to mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo prison. It is performed between 10.00 am and 11.00 am in front of the American embassy on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé, Copenhagen. The newspaper Politiken wrote about it here:Politiken article November 2006 On Saturday the 18th of November between 11.00 and 13.00 , we will perform "Lemon Pie country..." on Gammeltorv, by Strøget in Copenhagen. On Saturday the 25th of November between 13.00 and 13.30, we will perform "The Great X-mas Feast" on Rådhuspladsen in Copenhagen. The date is chosen to celebrate Adbusters Buy Nothing Day. Read more about Adbusters at www.adbusters.org/home/ October 2006 We have just started our new street-theatre forum, hoping to put some new theatrelife into the streets of Copenhagen. We've had our first two meetings, and the first street-happening will be on Højbro Plads on Tuesday 31st October from 15.00 to 17.00. Autumn 2006 - Summer 2007 Terra Nova will be performing several Happenings for Amnesty concerning the prisoners at the US Guantanamo prison in Cuba September 2006 We would like to thank Tuborgs Grønne Fond for supporting us with the funds necessary for buying a guitar with an amplifier and some juggling equipment. Thank You!! monday 26th-wednesday 28th june every day between 12:00 and 17:00 Terra Nova is performing at the Roskilde Festival, Agora M Speakers Corner with the interactive event The Whites, concerning cultural differences and the conflict between "us" and og "them" thursday 11th - monday 22nd may Mette Guldborg, Karl Sørensen og Jens Bäckvall have performed hidden theatre for Mute Comp.'s Propaganda at Dansescenen in Copenhagen. We have, amongst other things, held left/right extremist discussions, left "bombs" in the reception/café, read weapon-magazines etc friday the 19th of may at 22:00 Jens Bäckvall's short dance film Winter will be shown at Multimediepoesi at Literaturhaus: Møllegade 7, 2200 København N january - june 2006 Terra Nova is working on a 15-30 minute long physically expressive/dance film. The production is a cooperation with film artist Anders Bøtter Møller and is supported by Kulturministeriets Udviklingspulje		Terra Nova is a theatre group, working with the development and spreading of interactive theatre. Our goal is to deliver relevant and up-to-date additions to the Danish stage-arts and socio-political debate. We often perform for NGO’s, such as RCT (the Rehabilitation Centre for Torture-victims), Amnesty and Denmark against Landmines, in addition to performing at various theatre-festivals. We have existed in our current constellation since 2001. We also work within our international network, with contacts in Scotland, Germany, France, Romania, Poland, Finland and USA.

news

terra nova

April 2010

The 24^th of May Jens Bäckvall will be creating a Babel experience for Vesterbro Church. It is a one time experience, happening on Vesterbro Torv from 15.00 – 15.10.

TIPS (The Institute of Parallel Science) will be re-staged in a new version at The Stage That Wasn't There. It's at Københavns Musikteater on the 11^th of September this year.

July 2009
On the 24th and 25th of July we will be performing at the G! festival in the Faroe Islands with the interactive performance TIPS which we performed at the Urkultfestival in Sweden in August 2008.

Whilst in the Faroes we will be doing research for the project On the Edge of the World which is planned collaboration between Terra Nova and Faroese performing-artists.
We are planning to perform in the Faroe Islands and Denmark during the summer of 2010.
The trip to the Faroe Islands is made possible thanks to Kultur Kontakt Nord who have supported Jens Bäckvall, Karl Sørensen and Mette Guldborg Hansen with travel grants.
On the 28th of July at 16.00 we will be hosting an informational meeting about On the Edge of the World at Sjónleikarhúsið. See the information in the right hand column of this screen for information and to sign up for the meeting.

Jens has finally gotten a home-page of his own which will be up and running during September of this year at www.jensbackvall.dk.

2009
2008 was an exciting year and Jens, Karl and Mette used most of the summer and autumn in New York working on Atomic City which opened on the 11th of September 2008.
AC ran for 3 weeks, playing for a lot of audience and receiving some good reviews.
In August 2008 we were back in Europe for a month and performed the interactive performance TIPS at the Urkult festival in Näsåker in northern Sweden.

During the first half of 2009 we won't be performing very much, being too busy with other projects outside of Terra Nova. But during the summer and autumn things start moving again.
We are going to the Faroe Islands to perform TIPS and to research for a 2010 performance project.
We will also be collaborating with Valby City Council, creating the framework for Valby Cultural Days and starting work on a possible collaboration with the cultural institution Prøvehallen for autumn 2010.

August 2008
ATOMIC CITY is opening the season at LaMama ETC in New York
After a long summer with hard work at the Watermill Center and LaMama ETC, the performance ATOMIC CITY is getting ready for opening night. We open the season 08/09 at LaMama ETC , one of New York's oldest experimental theatres with support from, amongst others:
The Danish Arts Council,
Robert Wilson,
The Danish Consulate in New York,
Molo Design,
Syn Lawn,
and the kind people who have supported our artistic work.

March 2008 - II (updated 18th of March)
Let Me Count the Ways that I Love Thee plays at festival in Germany
This June, Karl Sørensen and Kristi Hughes will be restaging the 2006 performance Let Me Count the Ways that I Love Thee at the Ruhrfestspiele festival in Recklinghausen, Germany. The festival has bought a 6-show run from June 3rd to June 8th.
Festival link: ruhrfestspiele

Support from the Danish Arts Council and Tuborg Fondet
We are extremely happy to be able to announce that the Danish Arts Council has chosen to support the Atomic City project with 20.000 DKK for travelling expenses during our residencies in New York.

Tuborg Fondet has also been very generous and are supporting the Mobile Interactive Labyrinth with 33.000 DKK for purchasing special tents that are to be used for scenography. This is a new project and it will be touring Denmark, Sweden,Norway and the Faeroe Islands during the Spring and Summer of 2009. More information on the project will be available soon.

Cooperation with Amnesty
This April we will be cooperating with Amnesty twice.
The first time is Saturday the 5th of April, where we will be kickstarting a campaign against Diplomatic Assurances. This will be done by Karl Sørensen, Stine Ruge and Robert Savi who will be performing Jens Bäckvall's short piece The Debate on Gammeltorv. The piece lasts approximately 10 minutes and will be performed 3 times between 12 noon and 1 p.m.
Be there, enjoy the performance and support the campaign! For more info (in Danish) click here

The second time is on the two Saturdays the 19th and the 26th of April, where we will perform som small events around søerne in Copenhagen. This is done to get participants for a run in support of human rights in China in relation to the Olympic Games. The run itself will be held on the 4th of Maj. Read more (in Danish) by clicking here

Short film Winter exhibited in Beijing
Jens Bäckvall's short dance film Winter will be shown at the Today Art Museum in Beijing from June 6th till June 28th amongst selected one-minute films from 100 countries.

March 2008
TheAtomic City project is skyrocketing!!!! We have been granted 2 artist residencies in New York this June. The first one is 2 weeks at the Watermill Centre and the second one is an additional 2 weeks at the LaMama theatre. LaMama has also axpressed that they would like us to open our performance there. This will be in the winter of 2008-09.

Also: Jens Bäckvall has just finished a manuscriptige for Amnesty. The manuscript will be used in a campaign on Diplomatic Assurances. Read more about this on Amnesty's homepage: Amnesty

February 2008
2008 is here, and because of technical problems and lack of time, this is the first time we update the homepage.
Lots of exciting things have happend during the last part of 2007 and here are short decriptions of some of them:

Copenhagen Cultural Night

We were artistic leaders on a gigantic interactive scenario in Prøvehallen, Valby. The scenario had everything, from poetry and kung-fu to a gigantic football game/painting, live soundscape and a wheelchair labyrinth. Hundreds of people came to see it during the evening, which also had two guest appearances by the dance-theatre groups Dancing At My Parents' and A-Kompagniet. The success will be repeated in october this year with a new scenario.

Amnesty campaign on laws on immigration into Denmark
On behalf og Amnesty, Jens Bäckvall taught interactive theatre and wrote and directed a big event in Århus.

Children Prohibited
The festivalen was a success with lotsof visitors. Huset i Magstræde had Terra Nova, poesi and music on the agenda.

July 2007
We are very happy and extremely thankful because this month we have have been given support from two generous donors.
They are:
Carlsbergs Idé Legat who have supported us with DKK 15.000,- for building special parasol-tent-scenographies for use in the performance Folket which will be performed at Helsingør Street-theatre Festival and at the Urkult Festival. They will also be used in Forbudt for Børn which will be performed in Huset i Magstræde in September.

Zepto Computers who have supported us by giving us a special discount when buying a laptop for video and sound editing.

Once again Thank You to both our sponsors!!

June 2007
Terra Nova will be performing at the following venues in the not so distant future:

Roskilde Festival. We will be performing the interactive performance Nothing is Fair. The performance is about Fair Trade and will be playing from Thursday the 5th of July until Sunday the 8th of July. The performance is a cooperation with the musicians Nis Bäckvall from Sweden and Juan and Anna-Katrin from the band Valravn.

Urkult Festival. We will be performing the interactive performance Folket. It consists of 6 solo-performances for solo-audience, playing in special rolling parasol-tents that we have designed. Each interaction takes approximately 5 minutes. The Festival runs between Thursday the 2nd of August and Saturday the 4th fo August in Näsåker in northern Sweden.

Helsingør Street-theatre Festival. We will be performing Folket here during the weekend between the 10th and 12th of August.

Forbudt For Børn. We are creating some intimate interaction-based installations for this festival which is set in Huset i Magstræde, Copenhagen between Thursday the 13th of September and Saturday the 15th of September.

Kulturnatten. We are orchestrating all of Prøvehallen in Valby with a gigantic interactive installation-game called Olympiske Prøvelser where approx. 100 artist and volunteers create a bombardment of the senses with sound, light, theatre, sport, painting, sculpture, poetry and philosophy. The evening's climax is a fireshow. Come and experience it at kulturnatten, Friday the 12th of October.

March 2007
In August we will be performing at the Urkult festival in northern Sweden. We will present a small interactive performance. Read more about Urkult at www.urkult.se.

Also check out Jon Morris' workshop on the 21st and 22nd of April in Copenhagen. It's a workshop called Play True, teaching students about stage presence and stage awareness. The teaching level is for professional stage-artist, but you are not required to have professional experience to attend it. Read more about the workshop at our blog on (www.supportstageart.com), or write us an e-mail at terranova.teater@gmail.com for more info.

February 2007
Felix Grimm is now also a part of the Atomic City project (www.supportstageart.com).
See examples of his work on his homepage www.joggernaut.de.

January 2007-II
Vi have started a cooperation with the American actor/dancer/acrobat Jon Morris and the Swedish musician Nis Bäckvall; the goal being to create an international stage-art collaboration between USA, Denmark, Sweden and (maybe) Germany.
The performance bears the projectname Atomic City and is expected to open in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2007. It will then be staged in Los Angeles and later it will come back to Europe.
As something completely new, the performance wil be part-financed by potential audience from all over the world who have the opportunity to buy stock in the performance. Stockholders will have the chance of winning a trip to either Copenhagen or Los Angeles( the choice of city is up to the winner) to see the local opening of the performance. Read more about the project and buy stock at the homepage www.supportstageart.com, which will be up and running by the end of January or the beginning of February.
You can read about Jon at www.jonmorris.biz, and about Nis at www.nismusik.se

January 2007
Terra Nova will write and perform an interactive performance for Roskilde Festival, working with the humanitarian focus of this years festival; Fair Trade Rights for Sierra Leones sugar farmers.
The festival will take place between the 5th and the 8th of July 2007.

11th January 2007
Jens Bäckvall has, in cooperation with Amnesty, devised and directed a Happening to mark the fifth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo prison. It is performed between 10.00 am and 11.00 am in front of the American embassy on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé, Copenhagen.
The newspaper Politiken wrote about it here:Politiken article

November 2006
On Saturday the 18th of November between 11.00 and 13.00 , we will perform "Lemon Pie country..." on Gammeltorv, by Strøget in Copenhagen.
On Saturday the 25th of November between 13.00 and 13.30, we will perform "The Great X-mas Feast" on Rådhuspladsen in Copenhagen. The date is chosen to celebrate Adbusters Buy Nothing Day. Read more about Adbusters at www.adbusters.org/home/

October 2006
We have just started our new street-theatre forum, hoping to put some new theatrelife into the streets of Copenhagen. We've had our first two meetings, and the first street-happening will be on Højbro Plads on Tuesday 31st October from 15.00 to 17.00.

Autumn 2006 - Summer 2007
Terra Nova will be performing several Happenings for Amnesty concerning the prisoners at the US Guantanamo prison in Cuba

September 2006

We would like to thank Tuborgs Grønne Fond for supporting us with the funds necessary for buying a guitar with an amplifier and some juggling equipment. Thank You!!

monday 26th-wednesday 28th june
every day between 12:00 and 17:00
Terra Nova is performing at the Roskilde Festival, Agora M Speakers Corner with the interactive event The Whites, concerning cultural differences and the conflict between "us" and og "them"

thursday 11th - monday 22nd may
Mette Guldborg, Karl Sørensen og Jens Bäckvall have performed hidden theatre for Mute Comp.'s Propaganda at Dansescenen in Copenhagen. We have, amongst other things, held left/right extremist discussions, left "bombs" in the reception/café, read weapon-magazines etc

friday the 19th of may at 22:00
Jens Bäckvall's short dance film Winter will be shown at Multimediepoesi at Literaturhaus: Møllegade 7, 2200 København N

january - june 2006
Terra Nova is working on a 15-30 minute long physically expressive/dance film. The production is a cooperation with film artist Anders Bøtter Møller and is supported by Kulturministeriets Udviklingspulje

Terra Nova is a theatre group, working with the development and spreading of interactive theatre.
Our goal is to deliver relevant and up-to-date additions to the Danish stage-arts and socio-political debate.
We often perform for NGO’s, such as RCT (the Rehabilitation Centre for Torture-victims), Amnesty and Denmark against Landmines, in addition to performing at various theatre-festivals.
We have existed in our current constellation since 2001.

We also work within our international network, with contacts in Scotland, Germany, France, Romania, Poland, Finland and USA.