Public Performance
C/O Adelaide Bentzon
Engelstedsgade 16, st
DK-2100 København Ø
mail@publicperformance.dk
Artistic Direction
Erik Pold
erik@publicperformance.dk
+45 2683 0726
Adelaide Bentzon
adelaide@publicperformance.dk
+45 2291 0378
“… innovative performative political theater with meaning”
Casper Koeller / Sceneblog
In PUBLIC PERFORMANCE we investigate what constitutes a public space today and what it means to be public. Who is the audience and who are the performers when we take both performers and audience out on a boat trip in the harbor, by bus around the city, or guide them with headphones around a park.
Our vision for PUBLIC PERFORMANCE is to create surprising performing arts experiences, across fiction and reality, in different physical contexts, and through digital spaces. Performing arts that challenge our understanding of relationships and create unexpected connections between people.
Our mission is to be a performance group that creates performing arts experiences for both adults, children and young people. Which engages in direct and active dialogue with its audience, and presents different proposals for where the choreographic, participatory and site-specific performance theater is going in the 21st century, with the involvement of digital media, social platforms and other new forms of public space.
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE is engaging, experimental and humorous performings arts that creates space artists and audiences to wonder about the world together.
The artistic leadership of PUBLIC PERFORMANCE is shared by Erik Pold and Adelaide Bentzon. We also share our love for the performing arts and believe it as a social and collective art form. It is our belief that the times we live in call for collaboration.
Adelaide Bentzon
I work as a choreographer, director, producer and teacher.
Recurring collaborations in many variations characterize my artistic working life. You could call it a form of freelance ensemble work. LIMINAL, now PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, has been the anchor in this work since I graduated from the School of New Dance Development in 1998, and it has shaped my relation to performing arts both artistically and organizationally. For me, art is a necessary space that offers reflection and realization for all ages, where topics can be treated with complexity, polyphony, and contradictions. It is a space for everyone, and I believe in art as a collectivist project, which has also become a stronger thread in Liminal’s work over time.
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE is the natural conclusion to the work we have developed: a play with fiction and reality, where the surroundings play with and against. I love what happens when you bring a performative grip into a lived public space, even when it creates friction.
In addition to LIMINAL/PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, my work has also reflected that I like many genres and expressions; I have been a choreographic partner for the musical theatre Livingstones Kabinet for many years. I have collaborated regularly with Daniel Norback/NORPOL and I have worked for other companies and artists as a choreographer, stage director or collaborative partner.
Twelve years ago, I staged my first performance for a young audience. A performance lecture about the body made in collaboration with Secret Hotel. Since then I have directed several performances for children and youth, taught workshops, artist-in-residence courses, and had collaborations with various institutions.
Working with a younger audience gave me an unexpected and renewed energy for performing arts at the time. It reminded me that the live experience of performing arts offers a profound and important place to be human together.
That is also why I applied for a part-time position as programmer for Horsens Theatre Festival for Children and Youth, where I will finish “my” fifth and final festival in the fall of 2025.
I am a board member of C:NTACT and MYKA, which for me is also a way to learn about other people’s work with children and youth, and contribute to the field. In addition to PUBLIC PERFORMANCE I will be staging performances at Det lille Teater, Syddjurs Egnsteater and Teater Hund in the coming year.
Erik Pold
In my work within the performing arts I take on many different roles and functions. I work both as a director, writer, choreographer, performer, artistic director, producer, curator and, in recent years, also as an assistant professor at the Theater Academy in Malmö.
The different roles and functions are an integral part of my ambition to renew, investigate and challenge the performing arts as an art form. When I choose a new approach to theatremaking or try a different angle than last time, it often requires me to assume a new role and have to reconsider what exactly this project requires me to do. That way, I’m a beginner every time I work on a new project.
I hold a Bachelor in Fina Arts from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam and over the years have collaborated with many talented and inspiring artists both in Denmark and abroad. Among other things, for a 10-year period I was a guest performer with the Berlin-based performance group Gob Squad. I have also collaborated intensively with Daniel Norback in NORPOL and from 2017 – 23 I was part of the artistic leadership at Selected Works festival (Det Frie Felts Festival). I have also held a wide range of positions of trust and board positions, including as a member of the Danish Arts Council’s Performing Arts Committee, as a reference person at the Nordic Culture Foundation and on the board of Odense Theatre.
For me, the performing arts are a good place to reflect on who we are as people in the world and how we function as social beings. My desire is to create space for dialogue and thoughtfulness by combining investigative performing arts experiments with humor, depth, recognizability and political bite.
Back in 1999 we established LIMINAL as a free group and over the years we have created more than 30 productions. All in different investigative performing arts formats, with body, humor, political bite and existential themes. From guided walks, performances in public squares, interactive video works to time travel by bus and most recently by tour boat around the Copenhagen harbour.
In 2024 we will end the liminal phase and become PUBLIC PERFORMANCE.
Bestyrelse
Ida Leisner,
cand. mag. in art history and museology
Stine Tange,
cultural and urban life consultant at Refshaleøens Ejendomsselskab A/S
Søren Friis Møller,
part-time lecturer at Copenhagen Business School
Kunstnere vi har samarbejdet med
Alberte Minor
Amia Miang
Anton Hjejle
Daniel Norback
Daniel Wedel
Ellen Kilsgaard
Erik Christoffersen
Frederikke Krogh
Gob Squad
Gry Guldager
Helene Kvint
Helle Lyshøj
Henrik Vestergaard Friis
Henrik Øvad
Hesselholdt & Mejlvang
Jacobus Flynn
Jens Berents Christiansen / Rumpistol
Jeppe Kaas Vad
Jes Brinch
Johannes Lilleøre
Jupiter Child
Kaja Mærk Egeberg
Kasper Daugaard
Kristian Hverring
Kristina Stoltz
Lisbeth Burian
Magnus Bruun
Malik Grosos
Malle Madsen
Marie Louise Heger
Martin Butler
Merete Byrial
Nina Kareis
Oak and Shaw
Pelle Skovmand
Pernille Koch
Peter Sloth
Rasmus Månsson
Rebecca Arthy
Rikke Juellund
Seimi Nørregaard
Sigrid Husjord
Søren Knud
Thomas Lagerman Lundme
Tobias Shaw Petersen
Tobias Stål
Tomomi Yamauchi
Troels Hagen Findsen
Wauhaus