Marina Mascarell, artistic director of the Danish Dance Theatre, explains the company’s new talent development program
In this interview Marina Mascarell explains how she herself, years ago, being a part of the biggest production house in the Netherlands for eight years, enjoyed policies aiming at developing new talents and how she was given all sorts of support including production, space, contacts and touring.
Marina Mascarell was Resident Choreographer at the Korzo Theatre in the Hague from 2011-21 and Associated Artist at the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona from 2018-2022 before she joined the Danish Dance Theatre in 2023.
by Iben Maria Hammer (dance writer)
Portrætbillede af Marina Mascarell – foto: Bradley Waller
Billederne: DRIVHUS er en strategisk satsning, der bygger på mange års erfaring med talentudvikling og samarbejde med uddannelsesinstitutioner – foto: Magda Buczek
In this interview Marina Mascarell explains how she herself, years ago, being a part of the biggest production house in the Netherlands for eight years, enjoyed policies aiming at developing new talents and how she was given all sorts of support including production, space, contacts and touring.
Marina Mascarell was Resident Choreographer at the Korzo Theatre in the Hague from 2011-21 and Associated Artist at the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona from 2018-2022 before she joined the Danish Dance Theatre in 2023.
Many choreographers whose careers today are going really well came out of these programs, including herself. “It is really massive what they do,” she elaborates adding that she actually was surprised when she arrived to Copenhagen that the Danish Dance Theatre did not have a talent development program because “as a national company it is our responsibility in some way to support the community and the evolution of it.”
Trust and a space to fail
Marina Mascarell also underscores the importance of mentioning that many choreographers could grow under the roof of the Netherlands Dance Theatre’s talent developing program, “because there was trust and there was a space to fail.” She adds that in the dance world it sometimes feels like this idea of failing isn’t always accepted. “Many times we are thrown into projects that are actually exposing you in a not safe way, because you are not under the umbrella of ‘coming choreographers’ for someone who are just starting and so on.”
So in that sense, Marina Mascarell wanted to launch a talent development program where the Danish Dance Theatre offers the possibility for people to evolve and to connect with the company and to use the company as a platform to get further support afterwards, while at the same time creating a space where it’s safe to fail.
Doing better for the community
When asked whether it is not a lot to take on, Marina Mascarell states that it of course is a lot of work, but that the Danish Dance Theatre has the resources and the possibility to do it and that it is also about having the eye for how the company can transform what it has in order to do better for the community. “So it’s not like inventing the wheel in that sense, but it’s about how we can do better for others, with what we are already doing.”
The program, Marina Mascarell explains, is for artists based in Denmark, and there are like three legs. One leg is for choreographers, and that one she calls Choreographic Exercises “aiming to create that safe space where they can try and fail.” The other leg is for dancers, and it is about how the Danish Dance Theatre can share “the incredible knowledge of the dancers and their approach to movement and artistry” in the Royal Ballet Schools around Denmark (located in Copenhagen, Odense, and Holstebro), with whom they collaborate.
Expensive art form
The final leg has to do with the possibility of giving talents residencies with the dancers of the Danish Dance Theatre, inviting them to be working with the company’s dancers for a full week. This is not only open to choreographers, but to different artists who have the body as the axis of their work.
“And that’s like very unique. For an artist the most difficult and the most expensive thing to do is to work with bodies. It’s an expensive art form that requires resources. It’s not like you’re an artist who go and work in the studio alone. You need people to try out your things and that’s why everybody applies for subsidies and so on. We thought that the residencies would be interesting because it’s the possibility of all of a sudden to work with an incredible group of 12 dancers. This year we had a pilot program for instance. We did an open call, and we chose two people. Both of them are visual artists, and for both of them it was a very important moment of their career to have the possibility to work with our 12 dancers.”
Dancers of all ages
The Danish Dance Theatre has an ongoing collaboration with the School of Contemporary Dance, where students from the bachelor every year join the company and are part of a particular creative process for two or three weeks. “We try to make a small program for them, and this is good for getting to know them more and it also serves to create a bigger community,” Marina Mascarell explains.
In the Royal Ballet School in Odense they are much younger than in the School of Contemporary Dance. “They are all like talent schools obviously, states Marina Mascarell, because that’s what we want to do, to share knowledge and for them to learn from our own dancers, our own practices.” When it comes to these young dancers, the Danish Dance Theatre goes to The Royal Ballet Schools, and these schools make the selections telling the company which years or grade levels the teachers from the Danish Dance are going to work on.
Keen to teach
So, for a full week, every year, all the dancers of the Danish Dance Theatre go to the different schools, where the students train classical ballet but also have a contemporary dance program with the company. “We divide them into two or three groups, and we have created a program that they will be sharing. All our dancers like to teach. They are very keen to do so, and they think it is an amazing experience, because having to articulate your thoughts about specific tasks also make you connect with that topic in a more meaningful and deeper way. Some of them already teach the warm-up classes here in the company, and others, I can see, have it in their system, the teaching part.”
Choreographic exercises
When it comes to The Choreographic Exercises, Marina Mascarell explains, that they this next season will have four choreographers joining them. Two in-house choreographers and two external choreographers. “They will be having a mentor through the year, and the exercises will be created for public spaces. We got a mentor who is Trevor Davis from Metropolis. He will be giving workshops to the choreographers, and also to the dancers.”
Next year, these choreographers will have one month with the Danish Dance Theatre’s dancers to create something for the public space, like an open space in Sydhavn premiering at the end of June 2026. “They have been scouting around the city, and this space was the choice of the choreographers. They are going to have workshops, lectures and develop the work with the mentor, and with this exercise, I also think that we open up the possibilities of creating not only for theatre or black box, but to think in different ways.”
For the public to connect
This is a way for the public to connect with the Danish Dance Theatre in different ways. “Of course when you are performing in a public space you are exposed to people that otherwise would not go to the theatre. With the performance lectures, the aim is also to reach out to people that perhaps don’t know the company. I’ve been working with the Netherlands Dance Theatre, and everybody in the country knows the company. When they ask you, what you do for a living, and you tell people that you work with the Netherland Dance Theatre, you can sense that they admire it. Maybe that’s something that is not so common here in Denmark. But this year we reached out to 43,000 people in one season, so there is an interest, and 3,000 people joined our performance activities and events. I think that number is a very good result.”
More info
The Danish Dance Theatre – Talent development program