This new Copenhagen biennale is created on the notion of METROPOLIS. This concept has existed for 100 years and currently is more significant than ever – in Copenhagen and everywhere. Once again the identity of the city is avidly being discussed, just as 2007 proved to be a crucial turning point: From this year onward more than 50% of the world’s population lived in cities.
Cities change and are identified as creative cities, hybrid-cities, event-cities and much more. Whenever public spaces are given focus we are obliged to examine phenomena such as place, identity and time. What can we do to prevent the city from turning into a characterless, transient adventure park?
With METROPOLIS Copenhagen International Theatre has chosen to leave the theatre behind and venture into the city to create art, vitality and discussions on the hottest topic for all urban developers: The creative city. By doing this we yet again aspire to challenge the traditional understanding of performing arts and the limitations that follow these
definitions.
Currently international definitions of artistic concepts are evolving dramatically. Apparent results of conditions such as the entertainment economy, creative potentials and the obvious disintegration of traditional conceptions of art and genre. Principal artistic centres see new concepts surfacing in what we formerly defined as performing arts. Today concepts such as “time-space-based art experiences” are applied when defining staged, artistic experiences in public spaces.
Copenhagen International Theatre has created METROPOLIS in response to this important development. This is to strengthen the development of the city in a positive way and once again confront outdated definitions of performing arts in Denmark.
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Over the next decade Copenhagen International Theatre will present theatre-based METROPOLIS experiences in city streets – far from traditional street performances – but artistic adaptations of significant buildings, squares and roads. These experiences include the staging of everyday life, installations in abandoned buildings, artists working with local groups in creative inner city processes, art experiences in temporary and mobile venues and excursions to the parameters of the city. City streets will be closed in an attempt to create new meeting places, where sound and light projections change faceless locations. Cult-films mix with new stories and tell tales of city diversity. From Beijing, London, Marseille, New York, Istanbul and Berlin – to Copenhagen. The city becomes the frame, the object and subject, all at once.
To accommodate this positive development Copenhagen International Theatre has formed connections with local/ international, public/ private institutions and businesses, just as a number of Danish and international artists, architects and city planners have all been invited to influence the development of METROPOLIS. But METROPOLIS is far from an exclusive club. Everyone with a passion for developing Copenhagen and the culture of the city can participate. You can participate in various projects or be member of the audience and in this way be a shareholder in METROPOLIS.
METROPOLIS was launched in 2007 to invite current and future partners, the press Danish and International artists and the naturally the city of Copenhagen to participate in this venture. During the METROPOLIS 2007 15 productions was presented all over the city, five workshops - three of which are open for the public, four installations of sound, images, music and bodies, and a grand opening event in Copenhagen Harbour and a spectacular performance in Ørestad City.
