TEACHING
Teaching portfolio
I have been responsible for teaching in various areas such as research, reflection, documentation, context, scenic documentarism, text analysis, concept development, artistic response, knowledge sharing and individual guidance. My students have given me positive feedback and recognition for my engaging teaching style and ability to create a stimulating learning environment.
I believe in the importance of continuous professional development, attending conferences, workshops and seminars to stay up to date with the latest research trends and methods.
Teaching research methods
In my previous role as line manager for directing and as a lecturer in staging with responsibility for independent projects, BA project, and MFA individual projects at DDSKS, I have had the opportunity to develop my skills in teaching, supervision and research.
This teaching is a subject area I have developed in parallel with the development of KUV (research) at DDSKS.
It is the preparatory teaching that enables the student to independently approach a research assignment that has both an artistic work and knowledge production as its goal
TEACHING THROUGH THE STAGING PROCESS
When working on a performance with students where I am the director, I involve the performers and co-creators and create situated learning through the challenges the students encounter along the way.
My extensive artistic practice forms the basis of my work and I can document more than 40 years of professional experience as a stage director.
I began my professional career as a director in 1989, and I have since directed more than 70 works for theater, opera, radio, etc. I have considerable knowledge and experience working in professional theaters in Denmark. I have a broad experience in staging new drama and classical works and have worked with many genres and forms from opera and musicals to radio drama. In recent years, I have worked with scenic documentary and I have been a driving force behind C:NTACT’s work with outreach.
I have worked at Det Kgl. Teater, Gladsaxe Teater, Holbæk Teater, Bådteatret, Radioteatret, Kaleidoskop Teateret (now Blaagaards teater), Aalborg Teater, Aarhus Teater, Husets Teater, Folketeateret, Team Teatret, Odense Teater, Betty Nansen Teatret, Jomfru Ane Teatret (now Nordkraft), Mungo Park, C:ntact and Teater V.
Internationally, I have participated with performances at the Bonner Biennale and at the monologue festival in Stockholm
MFA&BA PROJECTS/KUA / INDEPENDENT PROJECT/
Artistic research work (KUA) or independent project is for all students at the school and is a subject area that I, together with colleagues, have developed alongside the development of KUV (Artistic Research)
The course focuses on formulating the field of investigation and defining the experiments associated with the project. The teaching also includes knowledge of the context (performing arts and other fields of knowledge) associated with each project. The students are taught various forms of documentation (multimedia) and reflection (1st and 2nd order). In addition, knowledge of working methods (team formation, feedback, process design) and ethical reflection in connection with the implementation of the project. The teaching has been applicable to all students for all the school’s students in the theater programs in and set up experiments, with a special focus on laboratory activities, and describe the project. This includes defining working methods, contextualizing the project, documenting in innovative ways, reflecting on the research and presenting it in artistic ways, e.g. by thinking of their reflection presentation as a performance lecture or as a work in itself.
An artist’s practice gives rise to various preoccupations that you either wonder about, are challenged by or want to delve into. This leads to questions of inquiry, either thematic or methodological. By setting up different experiments/investigations in the form of workshops or similar, new knowledge is derived through reflection and documentation of the work. This new knowledge often leads to a change in practice.
TEACHING IN OWN RESEARCH AREAS
My teaching is often based on my research is primarily focused on co-creative performing arts and the development of the narrative layer both in the project “Human Migration I & II”, as well as “Imagining the future”, and in particular in my work on developing “Artistic Response”, where I have contributed with significant results. I am committed to bridging the gap between theory and practice, and I see it as a key component to broaden and deepen the reflexive horizon of my students. Through the many documentary processes, I have also become preoccupied with the question of representation.
HUMAN MIGRATION
Some of the main themes in my research are :
- Power structures in performing arts:
- What does it mean to decide in an artistic process? –
- Does it belong to one person or is it a series of decisions made alternately by individuals or in groups?
The Human Migration project explores how the performing arts can create and communicate new themes and perspectives in the debate on the great migration currently taking place in Europe. In order to offer a new approach to the themes that dominate the mass media and political debate, the project will combine an artistic and a scientific investigation of migration. The investigation of the migration question focuses on how to put the personal narrative in dialog with geogenetic research – specifically human migration, which deals with the genetic evidence of humanity’s movement out of Africa and the genetic composition of populations. The project explores whether the coupling of an artistic inquiry and a scientific perspective can expand our understanding of migration and ethnicity.
IMAGINING THE FUTURE
Journeying towards new workspaces and future narratives is a joint Artistiv research project involving teachers and students from the Master’s program in Performing Arts at DDSKS. The aim of the project is to investigate, stretch and challenge the role of performing arts in a historical momentum where the possibilities and limitations of the future are defined.
The artistic question is:
- How can the invention of new workspaces allow us to reinvent our art, creative relationships and the future?
The purpose of the project is:
- contribute to the existing artistic research field on new forms of collaboration and
invent new workspaces - to carry out artistic research collaboration between teachers, students and researchers
- Jointly developed in new workspaces where the individual or small groups set up a framework for each study.
This means that each sub-project has many smaller studies embedded within it. In the different workspaces, we imagine the radical potential of the future, which can have different artistic expressions such as text, improvisations, installations, video, interventions, performance-lectures, exhibitions and the like. These can take place on both physical and digital platforms. The reflection on the developed potential is an integral part of each investigation.
TEXT READING, RESEARCH METHODS & ANALYSIS
In the various processes that work towards a performance or a finished project, I create a framework for conversations and offer tools that can support and express the artistic concept and the process that supports the path towards it, both for the director and other collaborators on the staging team. It is essential to plan and provide space for all the phases in order to develop an in-depth work around the project. In my experience, dynamic teaching that alternates between individual sessions and classroom teaching is optimal.
In the subsequent guidance of students, we have a common frame of reference based on what has been developed in the four phases, which guides our dialog. In addition to this, I also teach rehearsal structures to performance managers and directors. This can create the basis for a strong partnership. Below is a four-phase process that systematizes the development of a concept for a performance based on either thematic foundations or exiting material.
Artistic conversations
What’s on your mind? Which topics? Why does a certain material interest you?
What personal/references do you want to share with the outside world? What do you see in the world around you that
reflects that?
Sharing inspiration that doesn’t need immediate explanation: photos, videos, movies, music, art experiences, ted talks, books, poetry, philosophy, spirituality, etc. Collecting an intuitive portfolio, followed by reflection on the discoveries the material provides.
Based on the previous conversations, Formative thoughts, loose conceptual ideas, thoughts play style, processing, analysis begins, text deepening, development of multiple
possible versions of the material.
A concept that can “soak” all parties involved in the work. Both procedurally and artistically. It is developed by further
concretization of the previous, development of process design, analysis and final concept including description of functions of the space, and other media are developed simultaneously with a parameter awareness of the roles each parameter has, which is in accordance with the concept.
CO-CREATIVE PRACTICE
I am keen to participate in interdisciplinary collaboration and contribute to research projects across different disciplines. I believe that it is through a diversity of perspectives that we can create the most innovative and holistic solutions to complex societal problems.
I am open to collaborating with colleagues and students on research projects that can enrich the reflective artistic experience and the associated knowledge production for all involved.
Both in my teaching at The Danish National School og Performing arts and in my professional work with C:NTACT projects, I am interested in co-creative practices and the processes that underlie them. I am interested in investigating which frameworks are experienced as truly co-creative and at the same time lead to new and distinctive expressions. Below is a model I have developed that combines time and methods in relation to artistic content and processes
PROCESS DESIGN
Process design can be thought of as a conversational tool to describe the process an artistic team goes through. It is divided into four main categories: Preparation, Concept Development, Concept Realization and Editing. My experience with it is that it becomes a precise tool for setting expectations for a team. It can also be used as a tool for reflection on processes you have been through. I have developed it into a card game that allows an artistic team to agree on what happens when and for how long. Process design is also essential for the other areas I have developed. It becomes the umbrella framework for any process approach. It can be used for both hierarchical and collaborative ways of working.
It is also a great tool for aligning expectations between collaborators and can be used to evaluate processes.
COLLEAGUES AND STUDENTS REFLECT ON OPPORTUNITIES IN *PROCESS DESIGN
ARTISTIC RESPONSE
Instead of thinking people in a hierarchy, one can adopt the perspective, that it is important , there is no hierarchy in the theatre between the different processes and media materials when these need to change. We must move toward a place where the text is not seen as paramount, or the law. The only thing that matters is that all media, all theatrical means, lighting, the space, the play, the text, the sound – that all theatrical means are developed simultaneously and in this way simultaneously strengthen one another, and can be made strong by the performer. It is a process that is being carried forward by the team as a whole, in that each person is trying to strengthen his or her area. Maybe only then is it possible to bring all of these things together; everything that comes later has only an illustrative role. It can only have a structural role, if it is included from the start.
DOCUMENTARY THEATER
Along the way, they work with a linguistic/sensory development of their stories to strengthen them and give them dramatic power. During the actual staging period, we work with authentic communication of the words and inclusion of other participants to support the narrative through roles in the story, songs and physical expression.