Celebrating international theatre in the Nordic regions and cultures of Europe, the seventh Official NEATA Festival will be held in Sønderborg, Denmark this year, from July 31 through August 5, 2012. The preparations for the International Theatre Festival in Sønderborg have continued to progress thanks to a generous donation from The A. P. Møller Foundation.

This year’s Official NEATA Festival offers five days of festivities that will feature over 200 theatre professionals from the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries and the rest of Europe, who will meet for five intense days crammed with theatre performances, workshops and qualified theatre discussions.


Twelve theatre companies in all will participate in the festival, which in 2012 features the theme of “Culture Across Borders – Theater Crossing Borders.” In addition to the theatre groups from the Nordic and Baltic countries, the festival will also feature a theatre group from Italy and one from Romania.

All the performances will include the opportunity for discussion, and the theatre groups will get the opportunity to share their work methods and work processes with the other participating groups. The festival colloquia will be led by knowledgeable theatre professionals in their respective fields. Three workshops will also be held at the festival led by highly qualified international professional theatre teachers, as well.

NEATA Youth Event

Before and alongside the festival, a theatre workshop for young people from the Nordic and Baltic countries will also be held under the NEATA Youth event, involving a group of young people under NEATA whose collective aim is to produce activities for the young people between 16 and 25 in the Nordic-Baltic area who are seriously interested in theater and the performing arts.

The goal of the event is a worthy one -- to give young people, who are not attached to the established groups, the opportunity to meet about theatre matters with other young people from the Nordic and Baltic countries. The theatre workshop in Sønderborg provides an excellent possibility for this purpose.

The workshop starts one week before the NEATA Festival and will be led by a professional actor/director, who – in collaboration with the participants – will create a performance that takes up the theme of the Festival “Culture Across Borders – Theatre Crossing Borders.” With participants in the workshop coming together from several different countries, the workshop itself will illustrate this year’s festival themes, uniting the countries in a scenic expression that results from the different types of theatrical forms and techniques.

As an additional bonus, the NEATA Youth Event participants will also gain knowledge of the organization of larger festivals and theatre events, as they – apart from seeing the performances from all the different participating countries – will also be given practical tasks during the Festival.

The NEATA Youth workshop will culminate in a performance that will be shown at the Festival itself as a part of the Festival’s official program of performances.

Digital Lighting and Design Symposium

As a special side event to the Festival, a Nordic-Baltic symposium about digital lighting and scenic design will also take place, and will explore the new possibilities arising with the digital development, and which so often give theatre groups with limited economic resources new possibilities to produce and exchange audio-visual expressions.

The symposium will take place in Alsion, the concert hall in Sønderborg, as part of a Nordic-Baltic educational networking project on digital lighting and digital design.

About the NEATA Festival

The NEATA Festival is held in a new NEATA country every second year. The VI Official NEATA Festival took place in Iceland in August 2010. The NEATA Festival in 2012 is arranged by DATS – the Danish Amateur Theatre Association in cooperation with the municipality of Sønderborg.

About NEATA – (The North European Amateur Theatre Alliance)

• NEATA is the North European part of AITA/IATA, the worldwide organization for amateur theatre.
• The official NEATA member countries are Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and The Faroe Islands.
• Among other things, NEATA´s work consists of coordinating and implementing activities with common interest for the amateur theatre in the region as well, as representing the cultural political interests connected with amateur theatre in the region, with regard to the national and international authorities as well as AITA/IATA.
• NEATA holds a theatre festival with participation from all the member countries every second year.
• NEATA also facilitates other international exchange between amateur theatre groups.

About the DATS – Danish Amateur Theatre Association

DATS is a national theatre organization working on local, regional and national basis to strengthen and develop theatre in Denmark. DATS promotes and supports theatre activity including projects that contribute to the social debate, strengthen the freedom of speech and create dialoque cutting across social, ethnical, religious and cultural boundaries.

DATS looks after the theatrical interests of single members, theater companies, groups and institutions. All in all, there are 56,000 active amateur theatre people in all ages throughout the country. DATS also subsidizes courses and productions, organizes festivals, conferences and educations as well as being instrumental in bringing about theatre contact nationally and internationally.

For more information on the NEATA, or DATS, please visit their official website, at http://www.neata.dk/NEATAfestival.htm.