Bora Bora: Moving to Godsbanen is impossible or incredibly expensive

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Bora Bora: Moving to Godsbanen is impossible or incredibly expensive

Aarhus Municipality’s savings catalog suggests that Bora Bora should move to much smaller premises at Godsbanen, which are unsuitable for producing and presenting dance. As a result, the country’s only functioning stage of its kind for dance is effectively unable to deliver the performances that have thrilled the house’s guests for the past 30 years.

With the bound task of finding 14.3 million DKK (1.92 million Euro) in the cultural budget, Aarhus Municipality has proposed a room rotation that cannot work in practice. The theater’s creative and executive director Lotte Kofod Ludvigsen states:

“It is similar to wanting to park a bus in an ordinary parking space. It simply cannot be done. The stage at Godsbanen is neither wide nor deep enough for dancing.”

Ambitious international dance scene

For the past 30 years, this space for dance has been filled with extraordinary dance experiences, first as MBT, then Gran and Archauz before Bora Bora. Today, Bora Bora emerges as an ambitious, international space. With only seven permanent employees, Bora Bora manages to present a year-round programme, two self-produced festivals, an international residency program in addition to collaborations with the city’s leading festivals such as SPOT and ILT.

As the only theater in the city, most performances are without words and are therefore also an important offer for the growing group of international employees and students in Aarhus. Bora Bora raises an average of 4-5 million DKK annually in external funds from regional, national and international fundations for the many activities. The overall program is only possible because the performance space has exactly the right proportions for producing and presenting dance.

Expensive reconstruction of the Godsbanen

For several years, Bora Bora has collaborated with Aarhus Municipality on the development of a new house for dance in Aarhus, so that Brobjerg School area can become a children’s cultural production centre. With the savings catalog, this plan is apparently cancelled. However, a move to Godsbanen will actually be a very expensive endeavor for Aarhus Municipality. Lotte Kofod Ludvigsen says:

“If we are to maintain our level of activity, which we have signed in our operating agreement with the municipality and the state, it will require a massive reconstruction of the Godsbanen buildings. Significant remodeling will be required to establish a large and small hall with a special dance floor, two backstage areas, technical workshops, depots, office space for 13 people as well as its own bar and ticket sales. This will constitute a very large part of Godsbanen’s area, which must be rebuilt for a double-digit million amount and will remove production premises for other cultural actors.”

Core role for dance in Denmark

Bora Bora is the country’s only functioning stage and production house for dance of its kind and therefore has great significance not only for the local choreographers, but also nationally and internationally. The savings catalog’s proposal to close Katapult and move Bora Bora with a swift stroke throws away decades of work with dance and new drama, which has strengthened the city’s cultural development and ensured exciting offers for everyone.

“We deliver on the municipality’s cultural policy by simultaneously forming a base for the city’s and the entire country’s dance companies, providing dance to a broad target group and ensuring the city’s cultural internationalisation. We would like to continue with that, so we therefore recommend returning to the plan to keep Bora Bora at Brobjerg School until we can move to a new house.”

Facts:

The production house Bora Bora – Dance and visual theater has the status of a small metropolitan theater and operates with a permanent four-year grant from the Danish Arts Foundation and Aarhus Municipality with seven permanent employees. In the 2021-22 season, Bora Bora had an operating license of 4,776,900 DKK and a total turnover of approx. 8.5 million DKK.

According to its operating agreement, Bora Bora delivers:

– Presents and co-produces dance from all over the world in the ratio 1/3 local, 1/3 national and 1/3 international. A total of 312 different performances from 2012-2022

– Develops and runs the festivals Dans Baby Dans (for children) and Move Your Mind (for adults)

– Offers residencies to Danish and international choreographers through the Bora Bora Residency Centre

– Participating in partnerships with a large number of festivals, e.g. Aarhus Festuge, Det Frie Felts Festival, SPOR, SPOT, ILT, Gender House Queer Arts Festival and Danish+

– Is a partner in several large European networks that develop contemporary dance, including the European Dancehouse Network (EDN) and Aerowaves and works closely with theaters and dance spaces in Denmark on touring business, theater policy and dance strategy.

– Collaborates closely with dance talent at all levels, both private dance schools, municipal talent initiatives and the Danish Performing Arts School

– Contributes to the constant development of the art of dance, i.a. through the laboratory project Contextualizing Dance.

Over the past 10 years, Bora Bora has achieved:

– Several Reumert Award nominations for our co-productions and a Reumert award for Men&Mahler by Granhøj Dans, most recently Himherandit was nominated with the performance My Undying Love in 2022.

– Three productions by Bora Bora’s house choreographers Don Gnu and HimHerAndIt Productions have been selected as Aerowaves Artists i.e. among the 20 best choreographers in Europe, selected from approx. 650 applicants.

– Our house companies have gone through a particularly positive development in the last 10 years: Don Gnu has become the most touring Danish dance company and HimHerAndIt Productions has expanded with its own festival and its own studio in addition to national and international touring.

– Constantly increased number of Danish and foreign choreographers who want residencies and co-productions

– Significant support from Danish and foreign foundations for the Bora Bora Residency Center in the period 2017-22 of 9.5 million DKK, of which 3.25 million DKK from the Bikuben Foundation.

– Particularly positive evaluation by Pluss Leadership in 2014, which concluded that Bora Bora’s results were ‘significantly above the established development targets’