Sort/Hvid
We are not afraid of the refugee crisis, of the climate crisis, of the financial crisis. Of Taliban or Putin, the survival of the planet, of the mind, of the welfare state. We are not afraid of being stupid, elitist, chauvinist, feminist, post-factual, intellectual, of being out of date or in your face.
We are not afraid of being in someone’s pocket or in no one’s pocket. To be the last people on earth before it ends, or to party as if we were passengers on the Titanic.
We are not afraid of standing alone. We are not afraid of being alone. Not afraid of being black or white. Not afraid of being afraid.
Sort/Hvid is a stage. For art and politics. We are based in an old, industrial butchery in Copenhagen’s Meatpacking District. Come visit us. If you are not afraid.
Profile
Sort/Hvid [Black/White] is one of Copenhagen’s most agenda-setting theatres. Sort/Hvid creates art that examines current social and political issues across genre and form. Through collaborations with artists, performers, researchers, theatres, festivals and art institutions both in Denmark and abroad, we toss and turn current issues in the public debate in the pursuit of expanding the public consciousness. Under the artistic direction of director and playwright Christian Lollike, Sort/Hvid gains recognition and attention at home and abroad, among the theatre audience, and in the public debate.
In 2020 The Danish Arts Council selected Sort/Hvid to be a scene for music theatre development from 2021 till 2024. In this period, Sort/Hvid will be the center of music performances across genres and form that seek to develop the understanding of and the conditions for music theatre. Read more here.
Sort/Hvid’s political art is produced in a newly renovated slaughterhouse in the Meatpacking District of Copenhagen with collaborators ranging from independent performing arts groups to established public arts institutions. Through collaborations with Aarhus Teater, The Royal Danish Theatre and Teater Momentum, Sort/Hvid gains a much wider outreach than our size allows. With Aarhus Teater, this has been evident in our staging of the Hoblerg classic ERASMUS MONTANUS, and in LIVING DEAD, a zombie horror on the refugee crisis. With The Danish Royal Theatre, we have created the war ballet IN CONTACT and UROPA with the Royal Ballet have shown. At festivals, we experiment with other forms of expression – like opera in our staging of Mozart’s DON JUAN in a horny nightclub version during CPH Opera Festival. Through collaborations with art centres Overgaden and Kunsthal Aarhus, we incorporate contemporary art in our work, often seeking to expand the theatre’s practices. Examples include the memorial WE ARE NOT REAL, the performative exhibition MARTYR MUSEUM and the satirical-political performance movement THE PUPPET PARTY.
Our works always try to challenge political agendas, and with heavily debated stagings such as the race war in BLACK MADONNA with Madame Nielsen and the examination of the mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in MANIFEST 2083, Sort/Hvid has shown that theatre can extend its range from the cultural section to the wider public debate.
At our location in the Meatpacking district we have about 7000-9000 audiences per year, where Sort/Hvid’s total audience on own and other stages in the country adds up to 15-20,000 annually. The audience is wide ranging in age, and 40 percent of our audience in the Meatpacking District is under 30 years of age.
The theatre was founded in 1972 under the name CaféTeatret. In 2014, CaféTeatret changed its name to Sort/Hvid. Just half a year later, the historic theatre in Skindergade burned down. In the spring of 2017, we opened our new theatre in Staldgade in the Meatpacking District with the support of the City of Copenhagen, private foundations and almost 400 private followers who backed our crowdfunding campaign. Here, Sort/Hvid is housed today.