The Nordic Culture Fund grants 3 million DKK to:
Today, the Nordic Culture Fund has decided to allocate 3 million DKK to the inter-Nordic musical stage performance ”The Emigrants”. The musical mega-play tells the story of emigration and migration, seen from a Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic perspective. The journey of a single man makes a local world come to a halt, because when the big world moves, the small world stops.
Malmö City Theatre, the Får302 theatre in Copenhagen, and the Icelandic Vesturport receive 3 million DKK from the Nordic Culture Fund for the innovative stage performance ”The Emigrants”.
”The Emigrants” was created by the three theatres, together with the Swedish scriptwriter Lucas Svensson. Icelandic Gísli Örn Garðarsson, one of the Nordic region’s most talented young directors, directs the play. The renowned Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen also takes part in this project.
A surprised and happy theatre leader Charlotte Rindom receives the news that she has been rewarded 3 million DKK to her coproduction with Malmø Stadsteater and Icelandic Vesturport. The messenger is Mr. Olemic Thommessen, chairman of the Nordic Culture Fund. Photo: Klaus Holsting
The Nordic Culture Fund is very pleased to award ”The Emigrants” its special funding, Nordic Stage Event of the Year, thereby enabling the dedicated Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic artists to carry out a magnificent, inter-Nordic cultural project.
- ”The Emigrants” fulfils our wish to bring Scandinavians together around culture in the Nordic region. The main ambition of the Fund is to create a platform where Nordic artists can meet and enrich each other, both on a cultural and linguistic level. Thanks to this special funding, artists such as those involved in ”The Emigrants” can meet across Oresund and the Atlantic Ocean. And this newfound richness enables them – together – to entertain and touch the hearts of many inhabitants of the Nordic region, explains Olemic Thommessen, member of the Norwegian parliament and chairman of the Nordic Culture Fund.
With his fresh take on drama, Lucas Svensson addresses current problems and puts focus on today’s notion of migration in the Nordic countries.
The play is the theatres’ ”… interpretation of the Nordic migration, inspired by tales of emigration and the urge to travel found in world literature and current events alike. Because mankind never ceases to move. Our current abode is always temporary. We are only borrowing it for a while”.
”The Emigrants” is performed in an outdoor, mobile container-theatre, inspired by the old ”The Globe Theatre”.
The theatre thereby merges location, set design, and audience into one. Source: The ”The Emigrants” project
The board motivates its decision thus:
”The Emigrants” is a co-operation between the Får302 theatre in Copenhagen, Malmö City Theatre, and the Icelandic theatre ensemble Vesturport and the play will be performed in at least three Nordic countries.
The play is the artists’ interpretation of ”…the Nordic migration, inspired by tales of emigration and the urge to travel found in world literature, but also by current events”. The intention is to investigate the small tale of migration found within the Nordic region, as opposed to the large-scale emigrations found in other parts of the world. The theatres also wish to make the audience aware of the elements of integration problems found in connection with inter-Nordic migration, as well as both alienation and enrichment.
The board has emphasized the fact that the project is an artistically convincing presentation of a play capable of attracting a large audience. The co-operation between the large cultural institution, Malmö City Theatre, the small, but well-reputed and experimental Får302 Theatre in Copenhagen, and the internationally renowned theatre ensemble Vesturport contains exciting possibilities of a fruitful collaboration.
This is the fourth time that the Nordic Culture Fund grants a seven-digit amount to a large-scale project, in order to create additional attention around Nordic cultural co-operations. This special funding is granted every second year.
The Nordic Culture Fund supports a broad spectrum of cultural co-operations between the five Nordic countries and the autonomous areas Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the Aland Islands. Each year, the Nordic Culture Fund awards around 28 million DKK to cultural projects in the Nordic region or Nordic projects taking place outside the region.