Category: News

The next edition of Step takes place from March 4–11 2026. We now have the great pleasure of announcing our three Artistic Curators that will make the selection for the upcoming edition of the festival!

Gabrielle Haga
Gabrielle Haga has since 2016 worked as a Senior Advisor at Scenekunstbruket, a national organization dedicated to providing professional performing arts for children and youth in Norway. Scenekunstbruket organizes the annual Showbox festival, Norway’s largest performing arts festival for young audiences. Gabrielle works with artistic development, cultural policy, and international projects aimed at strengthening the performing arts sector in Norway and abroad.

Annika Ostwald
Annika is Head of Operations and Artistic Director of Rum för Dans in Region Halland and has previously worked internationally as Project Manager and Dance Producer, for instance many years in Norway with Alan Lucien Øyen and his company winter guests. Since 2018, she is based in Sweden, also working as a Mentor, Senior Advisor and Producer, among other things with productions for young audiences.

Fiona Ferguson
This will be the third time around for Fiona who also worked as Curator for the 2022 and 2024 editions of the festival. Fiona works as Creative Development Director for Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, where her role includes initiating and leading projects and international initiatives.

In short, three amazing people that we know will make a selection that is inviting, inclusive, varied, surprising and challenging!

The selection will be presented to our regional partners at the end of January 2025, with a final and complete selection ready by the last of April. There are a lot of things that needs to fall into place until then, but it feels great to be at it again!

It may sound complacent, but this year’s edition of Step can’t be described as anything but a success in every way possible! All in all, 39 events at ten venues and locations in five municipalities in Regions Västra Götaland and Halland were presented. Children, youth, adults, and elderly from the municipalities Borås, Göteborg, Härryda, Kungsbacka and Lerum got the opportunity to experience performances from The United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

The selection for Step 2024 was done by our curators Fiona Ferguson – creative development director at Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, Adjjima Na Patalung – Festival Director of BICT Fest in Bangkok and Peter Sunesson – Producer at Helsingborgs stadsteater in Helsingborg. The staff at Producentbyrån were responsible for bringing in local, regional, and national performances and events to the program.

Our international professionals program gathered over 60 people from The United Kingdom, Thailand, Norway and Sweden. During three days – March 6-8 – industry professionals gathered at Kungsbacka Teater, House of Possibilitas and Folkteatern to network, mingle and listen to talks about collaboration between the independent dance sector and the institutions, the connection between performing arts and schools, work with international networks and festivals, artistic processes and much more. As part of Step Extended, we also presented five West Swedish dance artists and companies for the participating industry professionals.

New for Step 2024 was the collaboration with Rum för Dans and Kungsbacka Teater where we kicked of the professionals program and the entire festival on March 6. In addition to speeches by Step’s project manager Hanko Zell and Hanna Schölander, chair of Driftnämnden Kultur och skola in Region Halland, the grand opening also featured a dance performance by students from the Angered culture school.

We would like to thank the participating companies, our partners, presenters, and funders for believing in what we do and for doing this together with us. And finally – a massive thanks to everyone who attended the performances and talks during Step 2024!

Now the time has also come to present the professionals’ program for Step 2024 that takes place in Kungsbacka and Gothenburg on March 6–8.

The first day of the professionals’ program – Wednesday March 6 – takes place at Kungsbacka Teater in collaboration with Rum för Dans and Kungsbacka Teater. There will be talks with Rum för Dans, Kungsbacka Teater, Bobbi Lo Production and Sara Lindström Lindhe and Helena Lambert and the performances Träda Trassla Tråda… by Lambert & Lindström and UNTZ BABY UNTZ by MYKA. Here we’re also hosting the official grand opening of Step 2024 in the foyer of Kungsbacka Teater. There will be toasts, speeches and dancing! Thursday March 7 we will spend at House of Possibilitas in Gothenburg. We will present the performances Stor prick, liten prick by Memory Wax and Svansen by Danskompaniet Spinn. As part of Step Extended we have invited the dance artists and companies Minna Elif Wendin, Anna-Greta Himmer, PAx, Kompani Catapult and Cecee Rowland-Huss to present their artistry. There will also be a presntation by ASSITEJ Sweden on the connection between performing arts and schools. In the evening we’re heading into town to see the performance Stuntman at Folkteatern. On Friday March 8 we return to Folkteatern. Once again we have a presentation by ASSITEJ Sweden on work opportunities, festivals, networks and how Swedish groups can tour abroad. There will be presentations of Step’s Dance Club and Swedish Inheritance Fund project Community Art Lab Sweden, which is a digital stage for young artistry. We end the Friday with a relaxed mingle at FOLK!

All talks during the professional’s program are moderated by Sandra Grehn. The professionals’ program is free of charge, apart from the performance of UNTZ BABY UNTZ at 17:00 on March 6 and the performance of Stuntman at Folkteatern at 18:30 on March 7. Please note though that you have to register to attend the professionals’ program. Registration for the 2024 professionals’ program can be found here.

The professionals’ program in its entirety can be found here!

The time has finally come to present the performances that make up Step 2024! This year we have the great joy of presenting a total of seven performances from Belgium, Scotland, Denmark and Sweden. There are performances about masculinity norms and entertainment violence, infant techno and balancing acts that challenges the boundaries. There are also performances inspired by classical children’s games, that contemplate the big picture in the small things, that takes us on a journey into space and that more resembles a dance installation.

All in all, we are presenting seven performances for all ages between Wednesday to Saturday March 6-9. There is the Scottish mini performance Peekaboo Poncho. Inspired by the game of peekaboo and hide and seek, it is a fun, immersive, dance piece for babies and toddlers. Shall we together by Belgian company tout petit, a performance in which two dancers challenge each other to push boundaries. Malmö based Memory Wax’ new performance Stor prick, liten prick is a performance about the small things in the big picture and the big picture in the small things. Yet another performance from Scotland comes in the form of Stuntman, which is an intensely physical, funny, and tender duet by two men wrestling with their relationship to violence – both onscreen and off. Danskompaniet Spinn’s latest performance Svansen is about friendship and curiosity, but also about consideration and how we together take care of that which surrounds us. Träda Trassla Tråda… by choreographers Lambert & Lindström is an interactive performance in the borderlands between dance and art installation welcoming audiences of all kinds. Last but not least, Danish company MYKa’s UNTZ BABY UNTZ which is an interactive dance performance where bass and techno meets children’s parties.

In other words, and just as it should be, the festival program is a sprawling and altogether wonderful palette of performances for anyone interested in dance!

Read more about the Step performances here.

The third of spring’s five meetings of Step’s Dance Club takes place at Mölnlycke kulturhus as part of International Dance Day on April 29. There will be a program that’s open to the public and a parallel program for the participating teachers.

During the day, Step has the immense honor of presenting the performance of Kompani Catapult’s new dance performance Konsekvens! The performance raises issues like the choices we make and how we interact with eachother. It’s a performance where the answers lie as much in what happens on stage as with the audiences’ interpretations. The performance is for children ages 12 years and up and families. The day also feature Gustaf Jönsson, who was the municipality choreographer in Varberg during 2021. Gustav and Kompani Catapult with host a discussion lead by Sandra Grehn about the respective processes as municipality choreographer in Varberg and Tjörn. In addition to this, Gustaf will hold a dance workshop inspired by Kompani Catapult’s performance Konsekvens. There is no need to bring a change of clothes for this, but wear comfortable clothes that you can move in. The workshop is also for children ages 12 years and up and families.

Schedule for the public program
11:00-11:45 – the dance performance Konsekvens by Kompani Catapult
12:30-13:15 – talk about the work as municipality choreographer
13:30-14:15 – dance workshop with Gustaf Jönsson
Location: Mölnlycke kulturhus

All of the above events are free of charge, but you have to register in advance.
Please register by filling in this Google form!

International Dance Day ay Mölnlycke kulturhus is presented in collaboration with Härryda kommun.

Photo: Nena Segerbrand, Anepe Photo

This week it’s time for the second of five teacher’s meetings that are part of the project Step’s Dance Club this spring.

The theme for the upcoming meeting, that takes place at Konstkollektivet in Mölndal, is how we can analyze and talk about performances. During the day our teachers will see the performance Förvandling by Big Wind. The day also contains a lecture on how to interpret performing arts – including practical tools on performance analysis – lead by the ever-amazing dramaturge Anna Berg.

Anna Berg
Anna Berg works as a freelance dramaturge, lecturer and course leader and is currently working as a dramaturge at Göteborgs Stadsteater. Educated at Dramatiska Institutet as playwright/dramaturge. Has worked at Regionteater Väst, Riksteatern, Dramaten, Backa Teater, Den Nationale Scene in Bergen, Teater Halland, Hagateatern and Teater Jaguar. Has also worked with development issues at Göteborgs stad kulturförvaltning and is since 2014 the course leader for Lärare ser på scenkonst at Backa Teater alongside Erika Isaksson.

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.