Tour pilot gave more young people access to performing arts 

The pilot project where performances from our repertoire toured in cultural center tours is now over. How did it go? 52 cultural centers applied to participate, and three tours with a total of 16 houses were selected in collaboration with Norwegian cultural centers : in Finnmark and Troms, Vestland and Agder.  

Three tour loops – three unique performances 

The three cultural center troupes each chose a performance from Scenekunstbruket's repertoire based on what they wanted to offer their audience. In the north, Katma hit the road with the children's performance Ritsj in September 2024. In the new year 2025, the youth performance Emma went to Western Norway, while Feil Teater toured Southern Norway with Jorda rundt på 80 dagen . 

Full halls and extra performances in Finnmark 

Four cultural centers in Finnmark were visited by Katma with the performance Ritsj , which is aimed at the youngest children under school age. Several of the screenings quickly sold out, and extra performances were put on! 

Ritsj is a performance with tape that gives the audience room for wonder and participation, and after the performance the children get to join in and play with the tape. In 2020, the performance won the Hedda Prize for best children's performance. Katrine Strøm in Katma says that they are proud and happy that the cultural centers in Finnmark chose them for the first tour: - Of many great moments, one stood out. A child who had seen the performance in Finnsnes wanted to see it again. The next day the child appeared again with his father when we played in Målselv, an hour and a half drive away. 

Photo Credit: Dánil Røkke

Pizza, theater and youth in Vestland 

Emma is a youth performance by Sacha Slengesol Balgobin and Elg Elgesem, with musician Maria Sahba on stage as DJ and vocalist. The performance deals with the struggle between drugs and love and is aimed at youth and young adults. Emma was shown at five cultural centers in Vestland county. 

Youth can be a difficult target group to reach, and the culture center manager in Stryn says that they planned a holistic experience with food, songs from the culture school and prizes: – We made a bit bigger out of it and got a collaboration with the environmental supervisor in the municipality. They sponsored pizza for everyone who picked up a ticket before the screening, and we had chocolate cake afterwards. 

This lowered the threshold for coming, and Sacha says that they received a lot of good feedback from the audience. The youth health center, the municipal addiction service and the organization Voksne for Barn were also present, so that those who needed it could have a chat with them afterwards. In Stryn, they ended up with 140 audience members at Emma . 

Sacha says that many of the young people they met on the tour were not very used to theatre, perhaps especially not a performance that is so open to interpretation, and that they therefore felt an extra responsibility to give them a good experience and to be available after the performance. Kåre Bruvoll Alme at Stryn Cultural Centre confirms that the company was on hand. – It was a very nice production to visit. The Emma gang were incredibly kind and welcoming, and they delivered brilliantly on stage. Sacha, for her part, hopes that the arrangement will be established, they would like to tour the cultural centres more. 

450 audience members in Arendal – Feil Teater excites 

Photo: Eilif Fjeld Teisbo

The last group out was Feil Teater, who performed the performance Jorda rundt in 80 days in Sørlandet. The performance, which is aimed at children of primary school age, played for an audience of 450 at Arendal Culture House, among other places! Feil Teater is committed to making performing arts accessible to everyone and says that with a touring arrangement like this, the culture houses can charge lower ticket prices: – This was a fantastic opportunity both for us and for the audience, and it is great if such a dissemination arrangement can help make more theater experiences at culture houses around Norway cheaper and thus accessible to everyone regardless of income, says Mathias Augestad Ambjør from Feil Teater.

The companies tell of cultural centers that have welcomed them well and that they have played in halls of different sizes on their tours. They think it is great to show that their performances are so flexible that they can be played in gyms and in small and large halls at cultural centers. Feil Teater believes that this type of tour is an opportunity for productions that often play in alternative spaces to also lift their performances into cultural centers. 

The way forward – what have we learned? 

We in Scenekunstbruket We believe that through the pilot we have proven the potential of our dissemination scheme. Here, fully produced and quality-assessed performing arts productions by experienced, professional and award-winning companies are also given an arena at cultural centres, which in turn can program based on local conditions and wishes.  

We will now evaluate the pilot further to see how we can take this further. Also to be able to convince politicians and funding authorities of the potential and opportunities. 

The tour pilot has confirmed that the cultural centers want the opportunity to program more performing arts for young people, and that there is an audience that is hungry for these experiences. With the existing arrangement and systems that Scenekunstbruket and the cultural centers together hold, little is needed to implement a sustainable model with organizer support for cultural centers. Organizers, artists and the public alike benefit from strengthened organizer support for cultural centers!