Vendepunkt* (Turning Point)

At the website of the production the following, among other things, is written about Vendepunkt* (Turning Point):

"The turning point is the point of a new direction, when change is inevitable, when there is no way back. At all times it has been like this: At the turning point the consequences of your choice or other people's choices become clear. But what influences you to make the choices you make?

The theatre production Vendepunkt examines the power of change in youth. From the Dora archives we have found stories about humans facing different life choices. In addition youth from all over Trøndelag have contributed texts and ideas to the performance. It has become a story about turning points throughout the ages. Through making theatre based on past events we wish to focus on the archives as a cultural and democratic resource.

The production builds on the idea of connecting real events from lives of youth in the past, the findings in the archives, and the experiences and life perspectives of today's youth, often to a large degree focusing on the present and future. The production gives an understanding everything is connected and that today's youth is connected to and is part of our history.

(...)

The production is an independent work of art, but also stimulates learning and can easily be connected to the curriculum of social studies, history and Norwegian.

The production has been created with contributions from the target group through 13 writing workshops arranged through The Cultural Rucksack and through participation from a reference group during production. The contribution has made sure the performance is relevant in the eyes of the target group, but this way the pupils have also contributed to the very expression of the performance, and some of their texts are quoted word by word in the performance. The historical scenes of the performance have been found in local history (Mid-Norway), creating recognition and identification with the pupils."

The project Vendepunkt (2010-2012) was a three-year long effort to develop innovative dissemination channels for cultural heritage, for youth (13-19 years). In the meeting between archives, literature and theatre new ways of conveying and new methods were created. The documentation of the youth's participation underway was a significant principle, to create new cultural products through knowledge of the target group. The three phases of the project were workshops (2010), theatre production (2011) and book (2012). All the phases had turning points and change as a thematic angle, in a historical as well as contemporary perspective. Through this the project aimed to create artistic expressions affecting the target group, while pointing at a collective connection between their own stories and the stories from the archives.

In 2010 The Cultural Rucksack offered the workshop to lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools in all of Trøndelag. Here the pupils got the chance to examine source material and stories from their own lives through drama methods and creative writing. This was documented in expansive degree, something which in turn became the foundation of the development of a theatre production. In 2001 the production Vendepunkt toured with The Cultural Rucksack, and a new tour is planned for 2013. In 2012 a leaflet documenting the results of the project has been developed, and this is planned for publishing the spring of 2013.

Vendepunkt was nominated for The Cultural Rucksack's award Gullsekken (literally: The Golden Sack) for 2011, nominated by Arts Council Norway.

Source:

The archive centre of Dora, arkvisenteret.no, 09.11.2012, http://www.arkivsenteret.no/nettutstillinger/vendepunkt/

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

• Gullsekken 2011 - Beste produksjon