Visual Poetry and Absurd Humour for Children 

Inspired by physical theatre and visual performance, the story being told recedes into the background of the performances.  Instead, the theatre’s powerful stage language is based on the body and the visual as narrative elements. Thus, the performances are to be experienced rather than understood. – Like a piece of music or abstract painting. As one of the new names in the landscape of Danish children’s theatre, Carte Blanche has quickly earned a reputation for its ability to bring visual performance to children’s theatre. 

The performances have an abstract, often wordless narrative form, filled with absurd humour, in which the logic of the tale is derived from dream association. The form stimulates the audience’s desire to be a part of the creative process and for imaginative abstraction and uninhibited play.

Part of the theatre’s work consists of performance installations, inspired by Colombian director Enrique Vargas’ work with the dramaturgy of the senses.  Here, the central tools are the animation of space and objects, darkness and stimulation of the senses. In the installations, the audience is often the active central character and co-creator of the performance.

Current Productions

Løvspring / Leafing
(2007)
Suddenly a little girl is standing in the middle of an old lady's tea-table.
For so many years the old lady has lived quietly, properly and completely alone with herself. But the little girl with the green shoes just loves to play...She really can't stop playing!
Leafing is a poetic animation performance about finding out how to play again and getting spring into your life, when you last expect it.
Leafing is the latest touring Carte Blanche production and opened on the 17th of February in Viborg.
Leafing is created by director Hanne Sørensen and animator/performer Annemarie Jeppesen.
Age Group: 3-9 years old
Language versions: Danish and English
Max. audience number: 60

Kalejdoskop
(2006)
Kalejdoskop is an interactive performance-installation in which the audience journeys into a world where science and art meet.
This is a place that exists apart from space and time, where perspectives shift so that the patterns that form the base of all life can be clearly reflected – to notice, to feel, to experience and to inspire.
It is a journey that encourages children to be active participants and creators in the world in which they play an integral part.
Age group: 8+
Genre: Fusion between physical theatre & sensorial theatre/installation.
Language versions: Minimal text, performed in Danish, English or with local translator.
Audience number: 2 x 40 (two tandem perfomances with a max. of 40 persons at a time)

Mit loft under himlen / The Attic Under the Sky
(2003)
A little girl is hiding in a dusty attic box room, where no one ever comes. A place full of treasures for the imagination. Here, forgotten memories, stories and dreams flow in abundance from all the trunks and old boxes. Many strange things are hidden in them – the most important of which is her only friend, the head of a puppet in search of a proper body.
This is a performance without words, where poetry and humour are conveyed to the audience through a meeting of puppetry, object animation, mime and music.
Max. audience number: 70
Age group: 6 and up

LEG / PLAY
(2005)
Three adults are playing. Creating worlds out of nothing. They bring us along to desert islands, forbidden adventures, through impossible landscapes of snow, ice and sand. They tell us stories about when they were adults and had forgotten how important it is to play.
In this performance, the children are not only the audience but also active playmates in the worlds that the performers create in their own and in the children’s imagination.
Age group: 6-12 years old
Language versions: Danish, Swedish and English.
Audience number: 2 x 30 (Two tandem performances with a max. of 30 children at a time)

Review Extracts

"Brilliant play of fingers and hands"
Viborg Stifts Folkeblad (DK), Leafing

"Fascinating animation art"
Børn og Unge (DK), Leafing

"This strange tent is more intricate than the wildest medieval castle [...] for grown-ups the experience becomes almost therapeutic. And for the children it's a dream come true: like extreme sport through your own senses"
Anne Middelboe Christensen, Børneteateravisen (DK), Kalejdoskop

"A succesful experiment in stage art [...] Puzzling, lovely, surprising, and a little bit scary [...] The interaction with the audience is simply both innovative and challenging."
Folkeskolen.dk (DK), Kalejdoskop

"A charming stream of visual imagary [...] It's skilfully done, full of lovely invention."
The Herald (SCO), The Attic Under the Sky

"A charming dream-show, which uses live action and puppetry to explore the 20th-century memories and 21st-century fears [...] Gorgeous dream-imagery."
The Scotsman (SCO), The Attic Under the Sky

"Truly in a class of it's own [..] A work combining scenes and images of great beauty, both from the dramatic and scenografic point of view.""
Glos Wielkopolski (PL), The Attic Under the Sky

”The performance is convincing, sweet, powerful, musical, sensual, mature, skilled, open, expectant and very physical”
Viborg Stifts Folkeblad (DK), The Attic Under the Sky 

”The performance concept is brilliant, because it gives all the magic of storytelling back to the children.  Makes them active co-creators of the many worlds of play, instead of reducing them to passive consumers of entertainment”
Politiken (DK), PLAY

International Tours

2007
May: New Victory Theater, New York (USA)
May: Childrens International Theatre Festival, Edinburgh (SCO)
June: The Biennal of Art for Children, Poznan (PL)
June: The International Poppentheater Festival, Dordrecht (NL)
September: Bitef Polyphony, Belgrade (SERBIA)

2006
TNL Helsinki (FI)

2005
Danish Culture Week at FEZ (Berlin/DE) and Kecskemet (HU)