SceSam

The management group writes the following about SceSam:

"SceSam will challenge artists and scholars to work purposefully with artistic issues, in workshops and productions, connected to creating and performing for children. SceSam is to promote creative work through offering assistance from necessary expertise, whether that is a director, a dramaturge, a culture scholar doing research on culture for children, or a playwright.

We are convinced that uniting good, artistic powers and academic expertise in concrete projects will provide the ability to develop innovative and challenging performing arts productions communicating well with their audiences of children, at the aesthetic terms of the target group, whether the children are spectators or more active participants.

SceSam also provides a network of possible collaboration partners for interested artists. At the same time SceSam is to make sure that the experiences learnt from each project are accumulated and made available to the general public through professional seminars, viewings of work, academic articles, audio visual documentation and websites, (Sceneweb.no, dramatikkenshus.no).

The intention is that SceSam every year shall include:

·      Two practical-theoretical two day seminars (October 2012, April 2013), in which practical work in dialogue with theoretical competence will be the foundation for the professional discussion and reflection

·      Two development workshops for and with artists who normally do not create performing arts for children. The plan is to let different, personally invited artists meet and work in pairs throughout a whole week, with the purpose of finding possible projects for future productions.

·      Two weeklong workshops every half year, all together four, in which selected projects can test their ideas in practice. The projects are recruited from the abovementioned seminars and development workshops.

·      Three separate research projects connected to the fundamental issues of SceSam.

The background for SceSam is faith in knowledge about children's perception of performing arts as an important dimension in creative work.

The autumn of 2009 Dramatikkens hus hired Lisa Nagel to lead its work with the project Three Episodes for Children. The aim was production of performing arts for children at a high artistic level. The winter of 2010 Dramatikkens hus, in collaboration with SEANSE - centre for art production, participated in the development of four different productions, of which one was fully funded by Dramatikkens hus and three were co-productions. In November 2010 an open seminar on performing arts for children was arranged at Dramatikkens hus in collaboration with Østfold Theatre. In September 2011 one of the texts, Under barnehagen* (Under the Kindergarten) by Eirik Fauske, nominated to The Ibsen Prize (The National Ibsen Award).

The spring and autumn of 2011 SceSam co-produced Anne Mali Sæther's production Av dyr er du kommet* (From animal you came) (text by Ingeborg Arvola).

The fundamental issues of the project, as of now, are as follows: [1]

1. How can one dissolve linear storytelling for the benefit of dramaturgy on a more equal footing, while actively involving the audiences of children; sensory, emotionally and critically/reflectively throughout the performance? (Guss, 2011) How can the audience's dynamic processes of attention be productive in relation to dramaturgy on equal footing?

2. How can one create real dialogue with the audience of children, in which the children are maintained as meaning-seeking, co-creating subjects, while artistic quality is upheld? How can the children's and the artists' competence in game-playing strengthen and develop the performing arts expression?

3. How does performing arts in which children are incorporated as co-creators relate to the so-called performative turn in arts (Fischer-Lichte 2008), and in which ways (to what degree) is the relationship between spectator and performer discussed/made an issue in different performances?

The issues have been phrased in collaboration between Lise Hovik, Faith Guss and Lisa Nagel, springing out from their respective research projects. Central elements are from:

Faith Gabrielle Guss (2011): Destabilizing Perception and Generating Meaning-seeking: Modeling theatre for young audiences on the dramaturgy of children's imaginative play drama.

In Manon van de Water (ed.): TYA, Culture, Society: International Essays on Theatre for Young Audiences. ASSITEJ International Journal. (In press)

Parallel to this work the project's own scholars (Guss, Hovik, Nagel) will in different ways contribute to artistic research and academic reflection. The group already has significant competence within the field of performing arts for children.

As early as 2000 Faith Guss defended her thesis Drama performance in children's play-culture: the possibilities and significance of form (NTNU, 2000). Lisa Nagel wrote her master (2008, UiO) on the relationship between children playing dramatic games and theatrical theatre in Suzanne Osten's work with theatre for children in Sweden, and has since then written about theatre for children in the book Teaterkompaniet (literally: The theatre company, published by Thalia forlag, 2011) whereas Lise Hovik works as a director and scholar (artist/researcher) writing her Ph.D. thesis on performing arts for the very youngest, planned completion the autumn of 2013 (DMMH/NTNU)."

SceSam is also involved in a larger, planned collaboration with Assitej Norway and Propellen Teater.

Source:

The archives of SceSam, donated by SceSam by Lisa Nagel, 18.01.2012

*Not yet translated into English. The title within parentheses is the Norwegian title's literal meaning.