With the support of EEA Grants The New Theatre Institute of Latvia and Rosendal Teater in Norway launches a new international cooperation project “The Shake Down”. The project aims to develop a new generation of cultural leaders, who, given the right time and resources, can shift the way we consider young people as collaborators and put them in charge of the cultural creation.
“The Shake Down” is a culture development and artistic exchange designed to empower a cohort of young people to work with art, curating and festival making. 10 teenagers, from Norway and Latvia, will participate in a 15 month mentoring program that will support them to co-curating two international performing arts festivals – “The Shake Down” program within the frame of “Homo Novus” festival in September of 2022 in Riga and a stand alone festival at Rosendal Teater in April of 2023.
The project will consist of an online community, formed and maintained by the young people, mentored and inspired by some of the world’s leading curators and artists. This online community will meet at least twice a month with workshops and conversations targeting all aspects of festival curation, production, dramaturgy, artist management and design. The online community will lead to two intensive training and exchange periods in each country, with the teens, artist mentors and guest workshops leaders.
The design of this project has been generative collaboratively between the NTIL (led by Bek Berger) and the Rosendal (led by Alexander Roberts) both who have extensive experience in engaging with the specific age group of 16–18 and generating extraordinary artistic outcomes. The artistic mentors of the training program will be experienced European festival makers – Sodja Zupanc Lotker (CZ), Asgerdur Gunnarsdottir (NO/IS), Marta Keil (PL), Santa Remere (LV) as well as Bek Berger and Alexander Roberts. The artistic mentors will provide a knowledge of art making and festival curation from a global perspective offering an additional international dimension to this project that inturn will provide a global attention.
Photo credit: Pēteris Vīksna / Workshop for young people by “Nocturne” artists at “Homo Novus”, 2018.
The project has been created with the support of the European Economic Area (EEA) Grants Financial Mechanism funding period 2014. – 2021. program “Local Development, Poverty Reduction, and Cultural Cooperation” open call “Support for the Creation of Professional Art and Cultural Products for Children and Youth”. The project’s total eligible costs are 249 635,00 EUR. The Shake Down benefits from a € 212 189,75 grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and 37 445,25 EUR from national co-financing. The aim of the project is to promote the involvement of young people in solving issues of public importance and participation in the cultural life of the city.
www.eeagrants.org