Author: Dag Rosenqvist

We warmly present once again a performance for Step 2022 – Freestyle Sensation, a brand new performance with the dance group Freestyle Phanatix! Not only that, but the premiere of Freestyle Sensation is also the grand opening of the festival at Mölnlycke Kulturhus the 2nd of March! Stay updated at our website and on Facebook for the whole program of the festival, which will be released shortly.

About Freestyle Sensation
Peace, Unity, Love & Having Fun are the foundations of hip hop. In Freestyle Phanatix’ new performance Freestyle Sensation, that motto is just the start! It’s a performance that blends breakdance, rap, beatboxing and streetdance with interactive scenography, projections and sound and lighting design. This is a meeting between different styles and expressions where tradition meet the present and with a stage that’s just as much alive and vibrant as the artists in the performance are.

Read more about Freestyle Phanatix here!

After a short time of Christmas break, we are now ready to kick off! It is time to present to you our coordinator in the project group, Hedda Gullander. Hedda has been working at Producentbyrån since 2020 and are also freelancing as a theater teacher and as an actress.

What does the job as regional coordinator mean?
It means planning a tour and mainly having contact with the presenters and companies. I am like an intermediator in between presenters and companies and provides much of the information needed to carry out the performances. Like for instance accommodation, contracts and information about the venues. I am also involved in the festival’s environmental work.

Tell me more about your exciting environmental work Performing Green!
It is an initiative by the organization Assitej, a platform and community to bring out Swedish performing arts to children and young adults internationally. Also, to offer performing arts to Sweden. Performing Green is a workshop series of six meetings. Everyone contributes with a case and from Producentbyrån we have chosen the Step festival. With the festival, the travel is the most critical part. The practical measures are important to pin-point, and the long-term goals with the sustainability plan of the Step festival can be a role model for others. For the festival we have four areas in which we are working active: food, traveling, accommodation and printed matter.

What are you looking forward to with the festival?
To see all the performances live together with the children! It is such a boost when you have been working with a project for a long time and then experience it with the audience. That I am looking forward to!

Click here to check out our environmental policy!

We are so excited to share the news that four additional performances are now confirmed to Step 2022! Like an early Christmas present we present to you:

Frock
Six striking dancers collide in an uplifting dance riot! In this quirky dance performance, watch playful observations of the yesteryears explode into a punkish celebration of individuality and difference. English Stopgap Dance Company create exhilarating dance productions for national and international touring. They employ disabled and non-disabled artists who find innovative ways to collaborate.

Read more about Frock here!

An encounter
A tender, adventurous and passionate meeting between two persons. An Encounter is a willful and dynamic performance that combines floor acrobatics, dance and physical theatre.

Adventures in planet love
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? Step 2022 marks the Scandinavian premiere of this fantastic performance! The Jordi L. Vidal Company produces performances that combine dance, theatre and circus, for indoor and outdoor settings. With over 600 performances, their shows have been presented at numerous venues and festivals around the globe.

Read more about An Encounter here!
Read more about Adventures in planet love here!

5°
In 5°, mankind is on the brink of extinction. The climate threat has come true and it’s fuming from gases and billowing smoke. The earth trembles under mankind’s rampage. Through powerful dance vignettes, the audience is invited into a street dance-based performance dealing with one of our time’s most pressing issues – climate change. Twisted Feet is a Gothenburg based dance company founded in 2003 based in street dance culture. They run a successful dance school and have produced a large number of stage productions.

Read more about 5° here!

Today we’re finally opening the registration for the 2022 Step professionals program! The program takes place in and around Gothenburg on March 2-5 and is filled with goodies that all share the common theme – dance for young audiences.

The professionals program offers talks about everything from masculinity norms, access to performing arts and representation. Among the participants are dancers and choreographers from the festival program, researchers and our beloved three curators! The talks program will take place at Folkteatern in Gothenburg, something that we are very happy about. In addition to this there will be dance performances around the region and there will also be opportunities to mingle and socialize together!

The talks, mingle and other activities that takes places during the professionals days in Gothenburg on March 2-5 are all free of charge. Please note that this does not include the performances that are presented in connection to the professional’s program. Reservation of tickets for these performances is done at the same Google form where you register. There is a limited number of tickets for each performance, so it’s first come first served!

The program will continue to fill up with even more fun as we go along, so keep an eye out for more exciting news and updates!

Read more about the program, the participants and register here!

photo: Faramarz Gosheh

The year is coming to an end but the preparations for Step 2022 is in full swing! We have also the great joy to announce that the professional’s program of Step 2022 has expanded with one day and will take place in and around Gothenburg, Wednesday to Saturday 2-5 of March. We can also announce that the registration for the program opens next week, Tuesday December 7 – do not miss this!

The professional’s program begins the second of March and kicks off with a full day, focusing on regional practitioners and initiatives for young audiences. The themes further revolve around questions like queer perspectives and masculinity norms in performing arts; in a conversation with Peter Sunesson and dancers Tony Tran and Knut Vikström Precht, who participate during the festival with the performance Jakob. Apart from this there will be conversations about representation with for instance Sandra Grehn, who holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a focus on Theatre Studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, as well as conversations with our curator Fiona Ferguson from the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival about how teachers, festivals, programmers and artists can work together, with help of the performances talk about the big questions with children and youth.

The professional’s program is for anyone working with dance, performing arts or culture for young audiences in general. Come meet other professionals and let yourself be inspired by four days filled with dance. The professional’s program also consist of a mingle and hopefully a lot of other things, so keep an eye out for more exciting events and don’t forget to register!

Last week, it was finally time for us in the project group to meet some of the organizers who together with us, makes sure that Step 2022 will happen!

We met at Mölnlycke Kulturhus and talked a lot about all the practical details with arranging a festival together, but also about how we can make a whole in the festival; about the closing party and how we can make a common action in the work with the festival from a sustainability perspective. We are now very excited to spread dance all over Västra Götaland! See you in March 2022, right?

/Hanko Zell, Project leader Step 2022

In the picture you can see Sofie Pheiffer Rittfeldt (Ale kommun), Hedda Gullander (Step), Lena Torquato Lidén (Lerums kommun), Hanna Uddenberg (Härryda kommun) and Hanko Zell (Step).

It is finally time for us to share the first program release! We are so excited to present all the amazing performances in the program of Step 2022. Keep an eye out for more information about the program of the festival and upcoming dates!

Jakob
In Jakob, two male performers depart into an intense journey that gradually reveals the destructive intimacy and love between two human beings. Through a playful choreography, the performance investigates why we limit our capacities to open up, support and accept each other. Jakob is the continuation of Tony Tran´s ongoing research on power and identity in human relationships. How does the person we relate to take part in the choices we make? How does this shape our behaviour, our individual actions and how we meet others?

Tony Tran is a Norwegian-Vietnamese choreographer and dancer. In his artistic work, he focuses primarily on embodied traits of human relationships and the diverse expressions and gestures of social togetherness.

Read more about Jakob here!

Hvad er det?
Curiosity is the strongest drive as a small child discovers the world. A drive that can last for a lifetime. Through movement, the dancers explore both the body and the space without taking anything for granted. Hvad er det? was created by the renowned choreographers and directors Thomas Eisenhardt and Kamilla Wargo Brekling, in collaboration with dancers Antoinette Helbing and Ole Birger Hansen. The performance also features music composed by Fredrik Lundin, in a scenography created by design duo KASPERSOPHIE.

Aaben Dans is a theatre in Roskilde working with dance, who make cross-aesthetic and innovative performing arts. Collaborating with various guest artists, they often work interdisciplinary to both renew and challenge their own expression, creating unusual experiences – labelled by themselves as “popular avant-garde”. Aaben Dans provides experiences for people of all ages and has a wide range of inclusive performing art activities for people in all phases of life.

Read more about Hvad är det? here!

Work on Step 2022 moves on with undiminished force. As of fall we now have our new project manager Hanko Zell in place for the coming festival. Hanko has previously worked as school and culture coordinator and with Skapande skola in Varberg municipality and was also producer at Hagateatern in Gothenburg between 2016-2018.

But who is Hanko then?
“Ha ha! How do you even respond to that? This isn’t even about me, but something much bigger! But as project manager for Steo I get the opportunity to tie together my experiences, interests and my competence – while simultaneously getting a chance to work for my favorite target group. That’s happiness!”

What does work with Step look like?
”At the moment there are a lot of practical issues that needs to fall into place, and we’re working relentlessly in finishing the programming so that we can announce the program. At the same time we’re focusing on further establishing the festival in the region, with the audiences and the dance sector. To increase and to implement. Even though there are still some months to go, it’s clear that this is a Step-year.”

What are you most looking forward to about the festival?
“That it actually starts! To feel the charge before the festival’s performances, to meet the children and be a part of spreading dance throughout Västra Götalandsregionen!“

We can hardly believe it ourselves, and there’s still a long way to go, we now have the great pleasure of announcing that the Step 2022 professionals program takes place in Gothenburg on Thursday to Saturday, March 3-5!

The themes for the 2022 professionals program are yet to be decided. But right now, topics that are all bouncing around here at the office are sustainability, representation, inclusion, accessibility and the eternal question of why it’s so hard for adults to talk to children and youth about a performing arts experience. We have initiated dialogues with a number of people that we’d like to welcome to Gothenburg to share their wise thoughts on some of the above topics. What we can say is that this will be an opportunity to discuss topics concerning dance for young audiences, meet colleagues from both Sweden and hopefully from other parts of the world and see a number of the festival performances, in Gothenburg and in the region.

We will share more information about the program and the registration during fall, but pencil in the dates March 3-5 2022 in your calendars, and we hope to see you all in Gothenburg!

It was amazing to meet both previous Step presenters as well as curious new presenters and collaborators during the regional presenters meeting that was hosted on March 11!

We were met by 21 happy participants from 11 municipalities throughout the region, which is an increase from the previous festival. We presented Step in general, but the main focus was of course to present the selected performances for Step 2022, a selection that was done by our three amazing curators in collaboration with us. Deadline for choosing what performances they want to present is Friday may 14. Naturally we hope for a big interest in booking a whole bunch of performances and be part of Step 2022.

More information about next year’s edition of Step to come!