SEAS - an urban festival

"The Fantomat" in Balchik (Bulgaria), Dritëro Kasapi (Sweden) and Venelin Shurelov (Bulgaria) Photo: Venelin Shurelov

With a broad international focus, SEAS brings together two areas, remote to each other but facing similar challenges: the North Sea and the Black Sea. Through an artistic approach the festival raises issues on urban re-invention and environment in the coastal regions of Europe.

SEAS takes perfomances, theatre, video, installations, dance and music into new venues and the urban space, intervening in the cityscape. The objective is to create artistic encounters and initiate co-productions from these regions.

The first part of Black/North SEAS was realized in Spring 2008 in the Black Sea harbour cities with Nordic contemporary artists working in collaboration with the local art scene. From August to October 2009 the mobile festival will bring the artists and productions from the Black Sea to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and England.

In its entiretiry it is an initiative that is realized in collaboration with over sixty partners throughout Europe.

“I think it is working better than we dreamed. Which is mostly because the participants are also co-owners of the project. So it is not just us traveling around as a touring circus, but the ownership is shared between the partners”, tells Chris Torch, the artistic director for the project from Intercult, an independent production company based in Stockholm.

”Hard work and a lot of traveling. Continuity is important. Making lot’s of contacts and staying in contact”, comments Chris Torch on what it takes to find international partners and to build lasting networks.

“The most important thing is the mosaic of funders and partners that makes the whole picture. Nobody can make a project like this with just one big partner or one funder. Everybody has to bring theirs to the potluck. For example the Nordic funding gave us a chance to bring on the Nordic image that we could not have made without it.”

SEAS is a platform that has been going on since 2003; the first collaboration was between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea regions. After the Black/North SEAS the plan is to continue the work in the Mediterranean Sea during the year 2011.

Read more about the project and see where and when you can join some of the festival activities on its tour to the North Sea harbour cities www.seas.se

The project has received funding through the Art and Culture Programme’s module for Production-based activities and communication.