Founded in 2006, OUT OF BALANZ is an international ensemble dedicated to producing interdisciplinary performances that respond to contemporary existence and strengthen human interconnectedness
About Us
Mission
Out of Balanz is committed to creating original performances that respond to contemporary existence and bring new forms, faces, ideas and voices to our audiences around the world.
Our mission is to inspire hope, provoke change and enrich the human experience through the performing arts.
Company
Out of Balanz is an award-winning, international touring performing arts company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are known for our highly collaborative creative processes and for producing original work and adaptations that are rich in spectacle and adventurous in form. Our approach is rooted in collective creation and ensemble practice. Our performances transcend borders and create thought provoking and enjoyable experiences for our audiences.
For almost two decades, we have worked collaboratively using collective creation methods and collaborative structures that are outside of the traditional hierarchies of power in the performing arts. Our work is made through a deeply researched and highly collaborative process which fuses a profound belief that all aspects of the performing arts should challenge the limits of theatrical form. We work across art forms, believing theatre, circus, concerts, opera, film, installation, transmedia, visual, written and participatory arts can all be sites for the collective acts of imagination, creation and invention. With an emphasis on rigorous experimentation, playful exploration and exchange, we seek to reinvent how stories are told and to inspire new ways of thinking, being and doing.
Out of Balanz has created over a dozen new works and has toured to festivals, venues and residency programs in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Greece, Romania, France, Portugal, Spain, Kosovo, South Korea, Canada and The United States. The body of our work is eclectic and adventurous; ranging from the intimate and semibiographical Hr. X (2022 Best Male Lead Performer Award Nominee, CPH Culture) to the funny and kinetic I’m So Close... (2008 Summerworks Festival Spotlight Award for Best Ensemble, Toronto).
Currently, Out of Balanz is composed of two artistic directors and numerous associated artists. The company made Copenhagen our home in 2010, however, individual pieces are often developed in collaboration with international artists and companies, and through residencies at theatres, cultural institutions or universities abroad.
We work purposefully for a higher and more qualitative level of activity and a better balance between work and private life. Relevance, high artistic quality, inclusion and visibility are key words, with particular emphasis on equality and sustainability.
Values
- Collaborate with artists of diverse histories, backgrounds, cultures and disciplines;
- Reinvent how stories are told and to inspire new ways of thinking, being and doing;
- Engage audiences as collaborators in the art-making process and to challenge their relationship to performance;
- Advocate for collective and experimental practice;
- Participate in global networks of artists, creators, presenters and producers;
- Serve as cultural ambassadors for our home city and country as we tour internationally;
- Embed environmental sustainability at the heart of our practice, guided by best practice and the 5 "R"s: #Rethink, Recycle, Restore, Reuse and Repremiere/-tour";
- Share our experience and learn from others within the wider sector;
- Evaluate and reflect on our work, practice and community engagement on an ongoing basis.
Accolades