The stage is transformed into a lively skate park and skateboarding to a unique form of choreography. Skatepark is one of Mette Ingvartsen’s major works, which can now finally be experienced in Copenhagen.

Legend has it that skateboarding was born one day when low waves forced surfers onto the Los Angeles asphalt. Gliding through the streets, conquering every new obstacle, skateboarding has become a peculiar choreography. It plays over the surface of our cities, reclaiming public space in fierce movements that cut across curves and boundaries.

Together with a group of skaters and dancers, Danish star choreographer Mette Ingvartsen explores the speed and energy of movement on wheels – a physical memory from her own youth. More than a smooth spectacle of virtuoso feats, Skatepark marks the emergence of a community – one defined by persistence and hard work within the ongoing practice of individuals who try, fall, and push the limits of the possible, alone but together.

On this journey, theatre provides a fluid framework for an encounter between a group of skaters and dancers across generations. Their repeated efforts at balancing and jumping, their boisterous interaction and clashes in the shared space, form something more – an entire society we can learn from.

Dansehallerne present Skatepark as part of the festival OPENINGS. With the festival, we open up for top-class international performances and strong national talents. For a wide spectrum of dancing bodies: older bodies, smaller bodies, bodies of different shapes and colors. For the iconic and the surprising. For other perspectives. OPENINGS celebrates the joy of dance and makes dance accessible to everyone.

Skatepark and OPENINGS is part of yes – dance biennale 2026.

About

Mette Ingvartsen is a Danish choreographer and dancer with a company based in Brussels. Her internationally reclaimed and vast body of work is characterized by hybridity and engages in extending choreographic practices by combining dance and movement with other domains such as visual arts, technology, language and theory.

Mette Ingvartsen holds a PhD in choreography from Stockholm’s University of the Arts and graduated prior to that from the performing arts school P.A.R.T.S in Brussels. Since establishing her company in 2003, her work has been shown throughout Europe, as well as in the U.S, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia. She has been artist in residence at the Kaaitheater in Brussels, Volksbühne in Berlin, as well as associated to the APAP network. In 2024 she was granted the lifetime achievement award by the Danish Arts Foundation.

Credits

Concept & choreography: Mette Ingvartsen
With: Damien Delsaux, Manuel Faust, Aline Boas, Mary Pop Wheels, Sam Gelis, Fouad Nafili, Júlia Rúbies Subirós, Thomas Bîrzan, Briek Neuckermans, Indreas Kifleyesus, Arthur Vannes, Camille Gecchele, Mathias Thiers, Bob Aertsen, Bo Huyghebaert, Nona De Neve and local skaters
Sound design: Anne van de Star and Peter Lenaerts
Lighting design: Minna Tiikkainen
Dramaturgy: Bojana Cvejić
Costumes: Jennifer Defays
Music: Felix Kubin, Mord Records, Why the eye, sonaBLAST! Records, Rrose, The Fanny Pads, Restive Plaggona
Scenography: Pierre Jambé/Antidote
Technical design set: Stéphane Thonnard
Construction set: Construction workshop of Théâtre National Bruxelles: Joachim Pochet, Joachim Hesse, Pierre Jardon, Yves Philippaerts, Andrea Messana, Boyd Gates
Technical direction: Hans Meijer
Sound technicians: Milan Van Doren, Yrjänä Rankka, Filip Vilhelmsson
Lighting technicians: Bennert Vancottem, Jan-Simon De Lille, Sil Verdickt
Choreographic assistant: Jacob Ingram-Dodd
Supervisor kids: Billie Meeussen, Victor Perez Hernandez
Production and administration officer: Joey Ng
Production: Oihana Azpillaga Camio
Communication: Jeroen Goffings
Management: Ruth Collier

Production: Great Investment vzw

Co-production: La Danse en grande forme (Cndc – Angers, Malandain Ballet Biarritz, La Manufacture CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux · La Rochelle, CCN de Caen en Normandie, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, CCN2 – Grenoble, La Briqueterie – CDCN du Val de Marne, CCN – Ballet national de Marseille, CCN de Nantes, CCN d’Orléans, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix – Hauts-de-France, La Place de La Danse – CDCN Toulouse – Occitanie, La MC2 – Grenoble), Ruhrtriennale, Wiener Festwochen & Tanzquartier Wien, La Villette & Théâtre Chaillot, deSingel, Kaaitheater & Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER, Next Festival, Charleroi danse centre chorégraphique de Wallonie – Bruxelles, Theater Rotterdam, Perpodium
Supported by: Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden
Residency: Rosas, Charleroi danse centre chorégraphique de Wallonie – Bruxelles, deSingel

Great Investment is supported by: The Flemish Authorities, The Flemish Community Commission (VGC), Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government & The Danish Arts Council