Performance Venue

Moveable micro-city to innovate culture of sustainablity

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures
ArtEpi-livet-mellem-bygningPaint a picture of Europe’s sustainable thinking, knowledge and experiences. That is one of the assignments for a ‘green performing city’, Art-Epi, which will be kaunched in Denmark on 18 August 2013. The project aims to find new ways of cultivating innovation and development in the sustainable sphere – socially, scientifically, artistically, culturally, tourist- and business-wise.



An interesting experiment blending arts, architecure and science is taking shape in the centre of the Danish mainland, Jutland: a moveable micro-city of 100 inhabitants, organised around a series of sustainable, environmental and resource-conscious building activities, lectures and workshops.

This year, Art-Epi will roll out a laboratory and a pilot project where sustainable thinking of the future will be stimulated and co-created. The micro-city will rise on the moor of Præstbjerg in Mid-Western Jutland from 18 August til 19 October 2013.

The goal is that Art-Epi, with all its initiatives and ideas, will travel in Europe the next couple of years. After that Art-Epi will return to Denmark and visit Aarhus when the city becomes the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017, gathering and presenting all the experiences and inspirations from four years of travelling.

The micro-city will function as an ordinary city where 100 people live and work, half of the inhabitants are to have come from outside of Denmark and half from within the country, in a blend of approximately half from the arts world and the other half from the
world of science, creating interdisciplinary networks locally, regionally, nationally and internationally on a platform where music, theater, visual art, beekeeping, science, carpentry and farming can meet and inspire and learn from each other.

The green performing city will have a performance venue, a communal soup-kitchen, and many other facilities enabling it to host events on a daily basis. Visitors are welcomed to walk around on the site and to join the daily activities.
They must bring with them everything they need during their stay, and they should have a focus on sustainability.

Starting up in Jutland, the micro-city will be like an epicentre right in the middle of group of collaborating cities.
Art-Epi is organised by the organisation Kultursamarbejdet i Midt- og Vestjylland – The Cultural Collaboration in Mid-Western Jutland – a collaboration between 57 cultural organisations and seven
municipalities.

“The word Art in Greek means ‘crafts’. Everyone has his or her own ‘craft’ to help create new ways of thinking, acting, producing, concept development and innovate with a focus on sustainability.
By bringing different worlds together in an alternative room, we bring different mindsets together. This gives the opportunity to create new connections, new networks and the opportunity to visit different worlds,” writes t

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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Bay Area is Fertile Ground for Sprouting Green Theaters

Reprinted from SF Performing Arts Examiner: “East Bay Theatre Goes Green” by Dyane Hendricks, October 3, 2009 Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley was certified on September 29 by the Alameda County Green Business and the Bay Area Green Business programs as the first certified “green” professional residential theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Aurora Theatre Company Technical Director and Production Coordinator Chris Killion, spearheaded the company’s efforts to go green, Aurora made the decision to go green because “the staff and administration felt it was the right thing to do. There were also systems in place, like the Bay Area Green Business Association, that enabled us and helped us meet that goal.” Other certified green performing art centers in the Bay Area include the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek and Lincoln Theater in Yountville. Both venues play host to a variety of performances and companies throughout the year. In San Francisco, Eth-No-Tec is a green-certified business, but does not have a regular theater performance venue. Aurora Theatre Company is a green-certified business that also has a resident theater. In order to meet qualifications to be green-certified, Aurora Theatre Company set up in-house recycling and composting. The company also began utilizing paper that contained as much post-consumer content as possible, changed all cleaning products used in the facility to biodegradable, less harmful green cleaners and soaps, installed restrictions of water flow on all faucets, and reduced gallons per flush in restrooms. All facility lighting meets Title 24 standards and all exit signs are now LED lights; there is a time-of-use meter on Aurora’s electrical service. Certified green materials were also used in the construction of the company’s recently-opened Nell and Jules Dashow wing. As a result of Aurora’s greening efforts, the company has significantly reduced its carbon footprint and is generating significantly less trash. Additionally, Aurora’s decision to go green provides an opportunity for audiences visiting the theater to participate in being environmentally friendly. Aurora Theatre Company continues its 18th season in October with Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig, and will stage The Coverlettes Christmas in December, The First Grade in conjunction with the GAP new works festival in January, and John Gabriel Borkman in April. Closing the season in June is the Bay Area premiere of the comedy Speech & Debate. For more information about Aurora Theatre Company or for tickets call 510. 843.4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

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Go to the Green Theater Initiative