Two Norwegian artists selected for the next PUSH lab

The next laboratory in the EU project PUSH will be held in September. The theme this time is "(over)protection", and performing artist Jarl Flaaten Bjørk and set designer Ida Grimsgaard are participating from Norway. The organizer of this lab is Cultuurcentrum Hasselt/Krokusfestival, and a total of 14 performing artists from Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark and Norway will work together for 8 days in Hasselt. Here are all the artists who will participate in the lab: http://www.pushproject.eu/artists/

Jarl Flaaten Bjørk is the artistic director of Flaatenbjørk kompani. Since the company was founded in 2006, they have produced six performances for children and young people. They reflect and explore socially relevant themes and have involved the audience in various ways. Jarl has also worked as a freelance actor, playwright, dramaturge and director and is educated at the Academy of Performing Arts.

Ida Grimsgaard has a bachelor's degree in scenography from the Academy of Performing Arts, and she often focuses on the personal, physical experience. Ida is interested in the performative; both in terms of space and object. She uses costumes and a visual language to animate objects, giving them life and personality. She has worked in film, theater and performance art, and has shown her work at several international festivals.

The lab will focus on "risk", playing outdoors and how to work with these ideas in performing arts for children and young people. Among other things, the artists in the lab will spend time in the woods at Dommelhof, a cultural center that works with circus, street art and trans-aesthetic art, and at SPOTS Festival, a site-specific art festival in Hasselt.

The laboratory is led by performing artist Sara Vertongen, choreographer and dancer Jasper Dzuki Jelen and director of the Krokus Festival; Gerhard Verfaillie.