Mette Ingvartsen ^(DNK/BEL) SKATEPARK 10-11 April 2026

Programme

In Skatepark the stage is transformed into a vibrant skate ramp, and skateboarding into a strange choreography. Suddenly we all become part of a frenetic universe where skaters, rollerbladers and dancers try out tricks, start a band, sing, play games and play basketball. A community emerges - not through words, but through movement.

The stage space opens up to what happens every day in parks and streets: making something out of nothing. The ramp brings together different generations and groups. A community based on equal parts frivolity and hard work, teamwork and competition.

Mette Ingvartsen has skaters and dancers share a room - not to emulate each other, but to meet in what they already have in common: the body, the rehearsal, the persistence. It is not a performance. It is an ongoing movement built on presence and respect.

When the doors to the stage area open, you will initially meet local skaters demonstrating their tricks on the ramps on stage.

The ramp itself was designed by French company Antidote Skateparks, which specialises in building skateparks in public spaces.

Mette Ingvartsen on SKATEPARK

"A couple of years ago I was sitting in a skatepark in the centre of Brussels. As I watched the activity there, it began to strike me how incredibly performative this site was. I saw that it was both a space of virtuosic physical experimentation, and a shared, public place for cross-cultural encounters between communities. From my seat, I witnessed young people of different ages gliding through the park as they tried again and again to pull off spectacular tricks. I saw boys fly through the air on bikes or pedal quickly forwards with a single wheel touching the ground. I stared at a group of teenage girls rehearsing a dance they were recording on a mobile phone. I was blown away by their sense of rhythm, their total commitment, but also the fun they were having with each other as they perfected their dance before the camera. 

It struck me how extreme the physical activity in this park really was. I was compelled by the persistence of these young people who were working so hard to succeed. It reminded me of practicing dance, and of how bodies can be driven by an insatiable desire to accomplish a specific movement. I was intrigued by their physical energy, but also by their capacity to coordinate themselves, and the respect they showed for the logic of movement needed to prevent accidents in their shared space. 

In the following weeks I returned to the park to confirm the feeling I'd had, and with it the idea that a skatepark would be an incredible space and context for choreography. What I had in mind was an expansive form of dance that would be both physically virtuosic and socially relevant. A determined attempt to understand a place where different cultures thrive alongside one another, even at a time when our society is struggling to overcome all kinds of inequality and discrimination."

In co-operation with the Swedish Skateboard Association