Theater director: We are very proud!
A new beginning is always a good one
Ambiorn Happy, Kulturnyt.net
26. september 2023.
The Danish theater Katapult will live 4 more years. The city council of Aarhus has decided that. The theater had been pushed out of the municipality's cultural budget, thrown into the sea and left to its own fate. The employees at the theater had to realize that it was curtain fall after more than 20 years. This autumn's own production has been shut down. Discouragement and sadness were on queue.
But then Katapult had success in Scotland with the performance 'The Insider' at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A performance originally developed and performed in Aarhus with the title 'Insideren'. Katapult won one of the world's most prestigious theater awards at the world's largest festival for the performing arts, and it resonated in the city of Aarhus.
Was that why, Torben? Have you survived because of the international recognition?
- I don't know, but our success - which was mentioned in both The New York Times and the Financial Times - may have pushed us on, so it's nice, says theater manager Torben Dahl from Katapult.
The Conservative Party have promoted your case in the city council. Why?
- Well, I really just think that the conservatives are also in favor of culture and cultivation. We are grateful for that. They have fought fiercely for us, says Torben Dahl.
What is it with you and the conservatives? Do you have the same political views?
- I hope not, Torben says with a warm tone in his voice. - After all, we are not party political, we are a theater that creates culture, where you illuminate the world from several angles. But then again, we do collaborate with the business world in Aarhus, we do, and that may also be a part of the fact that people from the political side have gotten to know us better.
How has it been for you? To go to work every day for 6 months and know that you have to dismiss the employees and close the theater?
- Not just half a year... 11 months it has lasted. It has been hard. We have had to cancel the performance 'Madonna is an old whore', or slash postpone it until later. It should have premiered in October, but at the end there was not enough resources on the human level nor financial resources, says Torben Dahl.
- It has been hard. After all, employees have been sitting with notices of layoffs, and... I have to say, it might be a sparse program, the first half of 2024. We just have to find ourselves and get started again, he says.
So all in all, how is it for you now?
- Well, we are just so damn proud that we have come back on the municipality's budget. It happens only rarely. We had been ripped off from the budget and now we are back. We are proud of that, says Torben Dahl, from Teater Katapult.
Gets 5 million over 4 years
Instead of 1.5 million DKK in grants annually, theater Katapult will receive a total of just under DKK 5 million over the next 4 years. A smaller grant than usual, but much more than nothing - as had otherwise been decided.
Aarhus municipality will finance the subsidy for Teater Katapult by small reductions elsewhere in the support of the city's cultural life.
A sensible decision for theater life in Aarhus and in Denmark as such. Katapult has been pulled up from the sea and now sits more safely together with the other performing artists in Aarhus.
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