Bibliotek-Karen has changed its name to La Bibliothé-Claire and Martijn Jolding's "A tribute to me" has been nominated for the festival's junior award.

Every year, a number of international delegates come to Showbox to see Norwegian performances for a young audience. Many of them are part of our network, and several of them return every year. It has become a tradition to arrange an afternoon mingle at Dansens hus in collaboration with Assitej and Performing Arts Hub Norway for performing artists and organizers from Norway and abroad. This has proved to be a good meeting place to get in touch and get to know each other better, and we often find that performances shown at Showbox, or artists who have made contact with organizers at the festival, get tours and festival jobs afterwards.

In 2022, Guandaline Sagliocco attended a mingle and got in touch with Nicolas Jeanniard from the French festival Momix. Jeanniard was invited through Performing Arts Hub Norway's visitor program to Showbox, funded by the embassy in Paris. Momix has existed since 1989, and annually shows around 40 performances for a young audience. Sagliocco was already familiar with Momix, but it was only at Showbox that she came into contact with Nicolas, and she says that this opened up the possibility of playing at the festival in 2024. "The performance 'Bibliotek-Karen' hadn't been made yet, but Momix showed confidence in my work, which is incredibly wonderful," says Guandaline Sagliocco, who hopes this can inspire others.

During the winter of 2023/24, Sagliocco has been working on a translation of the production Bibliotek-Karen into French, which for the occasion is called La Bibliothé-Claire. In January she tested it out on students at the French School in Oslo and in February it will be performed 11 times at Momix.

Two performances from Showbox at this year's Momix festival 2

In 2022, we also presented the dance performance "A tribute to me" by Martijn Joling with Amy Pender. The performance is described as a dance concert that explores the boundary between fame and status, our private and public side, objectification, self-promotion and the confrontation between a digital and actual identity. The target audience is young people, and this was also picked up by Momix and will be shown twice during this year's festival. It is nominated for the Momix Junior Award 2024.

We can't wait to hear about the French audience's response to these great performances!

Both performances are part of Scenekunstbruket's repertoire.

Photo: Antero Hein and Dag Jenssen. Poster design Showbox: Halvor Bodin