Behold International theatre festival

Behold International Theatre Festival is an event created to showcase the work of up and coming theatre makers of Copenhagen whose work is profoundly cross-cultural in its themes, cast and/or execution. In a celebration of borders crossing creativity, the festival aspires to build a strong professional and multinational network of Copenhagen-based artists and spark more interest in the international, cross-cultural theatre and performance arts of Copenhagen.

The first edition of the festival was held as a two-day event in February 2022 in Teaterhuset’s Vox-stage at Huset KBH. Next edition of the festival is being planned for Spring 2023.

Platform for international artists

Behold International Theatre Festival was born out of a need for a platform that promotes the work of emerging, Copenhagen-based international theatre makers - such as myself. The end result was an intimate two-day event with 11 performances created by theatre makers, actors, performance artists and musicians.

In order to find artists and performances to the festival, we sent out an open call where we were looking for performances that were 10-60 min long. With fairly short performances we wanted to guarantee that we can bring in as many artists as possible to join the festival program. By the end of the open call period, we had received well over 20 applications from different artists and groups.

The eventual program consisted mostly of brief, 15-minute performances topped off with a couple of 45-minute shows. Shorter performances coupled with longer pieces created a nicely paced program that served the audience a wide variety of flavors and influences, without making a long-festival day too vexing.

Cross-cultural theatre

A major theme of Behold International Theatre Festival is cross-cultural theatre. With this wording we want to inspire artists to bring in work that isn’t only international, since that usually translates into performing in English. Rather, we wanted to find performances that profoundly crosses the borders between languages, nationalities and cultural influences.

As an example of this, my personal contribution to the first version of the festival was a two-actor rendition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, that mixed the original text with bits of Finnish and Lithuanian translations. The result was an interesting interplay with three vastly different languages, that reflected the relationship of the play’s titular character with his wife, lady Macbeth.

With over 120 sold tickets across two days, the first edition of Behold International Theatre Festival was a successful venture into creating a new theatre event in Copenhagen. Personally it was also an enormous learning experience in event creation, production and management, and an interesting attempt to investigatge the idea of theatre that isn’t bound to just one language and culture.

production details

Creator and executive producer: Karri Karjalainen

Developed and produced with: Emil Lietzin Houlind, Mia Juhl, Teaterhuset

Graphic Design: Minna Koponen

Photography: Deniz Kaya

Marketing, PR and additional graphic design: Kent Tonsgaard

Performances:

BREAK LINES by Adrian Montiveros, Gina Mobilia, Lars Pilsgaard Hansen and Rod Ceres

RED STORM by Marianna Minasova and Morteza Kasravi

THE MACBETHS by Milda Sutkevičiūtė and Karri Karjalainen, directed by Delya Messadi

REVENGE PARTY by Minna Koponen, Milda Sutkevičiūtė, Ina Raunio, Henna Mäki-Filppula and Kustaa Tuohimaa

THE STORY OF THE PANDA BEARS TOLD BY A SAXOPHONIST WHO HAS A GIRLFRIEND IN FRANKFURT by by Emil Lietzin Houlind and Lakeisha Salto

OUT OF WHALE by Troubadours21

😭😳😂 - WE CAME HERE TO TRY SOMETHING by Fanny Paananen, Patrick Torring and Jón Gunnar Vopnfjörð Ingólfsson

NEW NAME, NEW YOU - A T.. TALK by Aragorn Xavier Nikolei Damgaard, directed by Delia Trice

WORDS by Wanjiku Victoria Seest and Gathoni wa Wairura

THE DRAIN by Noora Vuorela, Julius Chávez, Sara Skei Munkner and Rasmus Skei Munkner

BIG BEAR AND THE COCKROACHES by Hildur Ýr Jónsdóttir, Heiðdís Hlynsdóttir and Hinrik Kanneworff

Behold International Theatre Festival took place on 25.–26.2.2022 in Teaterhuset’s Vox stage at Huset KBH. It was produced by Karri Karjalainen and Emil Lietzin Houlind in collaboration with Teaterhuset. The festival was supported by Snabslanten.