The Danish Arts Foundation and the Royal Danish Theatre once again present a series of experimental independent productions at the Skuespilhuset’s Lille Scene. In the coming season, audiences will be taken on a journey into the body and far out into the universe. You can experience an artist digging through the body to reveal a new organ, three circus artists’ fear of falling, modern dance based on a 4,000-year-old myth of doom, a horror interpretation of an H.C. Andersen fairy tale, and a cosmic force of music that evokes the red glow of cold stars.
The KSelekt 2026/27 season showcases the artistic breadth of independent performing arts and opens the doors of the Royal Danish Theatre to the innovative, the daring, the beautiful, and the unsettling. All performances have been specially selected by the Danish Arts Foundation’s Project Support Committee for Performing Arts for their artistic quality and contemporary relevance. As an audience member, you are invited to experience five different snapshots of where art is headed.
Foto: Jakob Tekiela
Our Other Organ
NoLands
Sept. 29 – Oct. 4
With brutality and humour, Boaz Barkan cuts through a living body to reveal a new organ—the place where our racism resides. *Our Other Organ* is a humorous and grotesque dissection of antisemitism and its effect on Jewish identity—as well as the birth of Zionist ideology as a toxic antidote. A performance lecture on how we are both victims and oppressors at the same time, within the same body. A journey through bodies and time that links internalised oppression with the roots of violence.
Cast: Boaz Barkan & Joel Dergefeldt
Created by: Boaz Barkan
Audience warning: The performance touches on sensitive topics such as anti-Semitism, Gaza, and war, and contains violent descriptions and fake blood.
Foto: Jacob Stage
The Fall
Cikaros
Nov. 2-7
Three of the country’s leading circus artists—Signe Løve Anderskov, Henriette Aarup, and Kajsa Bohlin—have been working professionally on (not) falling for over 20 years. Now they share their fears and wonder with the audience, exploring the phenomenon both physically and existentially. Drawing inspiration from autobiographical material, literature, and language, as well as from Einstein and the myths of Icarus and the Fall of Man, they explore the anatomy and mythology of the fall. *The Fall* was nominated for a Reumert Award in 2025 in the category Special Performance of the Year.
My body stiffens at the thought of the humiliation of the small fall and feels the fear of the great, endless fall. For after the fall, there is nothing. Or is there?
Performers and directors: Signe Løve Anderskov, Henriette Aarup, Kajsa Bohlin
Set designer and co-director: Sir Grand Lear
Dramaturg: Betina Rex
Composer: Mika Forsling
Lighting: Martin Danielsen
Outside eye: Anika Barkan
Producer: Cikaros
Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation, the William Demant Foundation, the Danish Artists’ Union, and the Copenhagen City Council’s Performing Arts Committee
Foto: Ville Vidø
Atmosphere of Decay
Solid Real Productions
Nov. 30 - Dec. 5
A distant past merges with the unknown future, evoking love, destruction, and feminine sensuality in the hour of the apocalypse. The dance performance *Atmosphere of Decay* is a rhythmic, choreographic interpretation of the 4,000-year-old epic poem, *The Descent of Inanna*. In this ancient Sumerian myth, the sister goddesses Inanna and Ereshkigal meet in the underworld. They each represent the lower and upper realms of the universe, the conscious and the unconscious. The performance unfolds Inanna’s path to omnipotence, the decay of her ego, and ultimately her submission, which holds the potential for new life. On the border between subtle dominance and overt vulnerability, three performers shift form through a choreography of intimacy, transformation, and repulsion. It is restless and earthy, thirsting for blood and longing for intimacy. “She swallows it all—bones, fur, paws, tail, teeth—while she sleeps and dreams...” An ode to chaos in a time of collapse.
Concept and choreography: Sophia Mage
Choreography and performance: Brittanie Brown, Charlotte Petersen, Escarleth Romo Pozo
Music: John T. Gast
Lighting design and photography: Thomas Zamolo
Costumes: Mai Sakamoto
Dramaturgy: Quim Bigas
Voice coach: Mette Nadja Hansen
Production: Christina Cibrowski, Dansehallerne
Rehearsal director: Sanna Blennow
Artistic consultants: Rachel Tess, Marie Kaae Schmidt, MUTSUMINEIRO
Visual design: Ville Vidoe
Trailer and documentation: Alexis Rodriguez Cancio
Co-produced by: Dansehallerne
Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Knud Højgaard Foundation, the William Demant Foundation, HAUT, MARC, Akademiet, Dansstationen
Illustration: Nina Steen
THE RED SHOES
Steen & Hejlesen
Jan 11–16, 2027
Lifelike humanoid robots perform autonomously in this production, with no flesh-and-blood actors at all. Using androids, video-animated set design, and neoclassical electronica, the production explores our tendency to animate “dead” objects and allow ourselves to be seduced by imitated life. THE RED SHOES combines animation theater, robotics, and horror-fairy tales in a grotesque narrative about a young girl’s budding sense of identity. The performance is a radical reinterpretation of H.C. Andersen’s fairy tale “The Red Shoes”—a heart-wrenching story of shoe fetishism, self-amputation, and the death drive. In Steen and Hejlesen’s version of the fairy tale, connections are drawn to the present day, opening up a universe of dilemmas surrounding gender, power, and desire.
Concept, direction, set design, video animation, and robots: Ninna Steen and Thomas Hejlesen
Music: Peter Kyed
Narrator: Nicolas Bro
Producer: Steen & Hejlesen
The Danish Arts Foundation and the Augustinus Foundation
Illustration: Ninna Steen
Foto: Caroline Bittencourt
Cooler Stars Glow Red
Scenatet
May 4–8, 2027
When scientists look out into space, they see that cooler stars glow red, while hotter stars shine blue. The musical performance *Cooler Stars Glow Red* explores the deep connections between our inner lives and the universe’s infinite cosmic forces. The audience is invited into an abstract atmosphere where two dancers, two singers, two flutists, and two percussionists use movement and sound to create a unique experience of the interplay between outer space and human existence. Body, sound, and electronics converge in a poetic space of fragments and lyrical passages, ranging from poems by Jon Fosse to scientific facts. Through sensory experiences, the performance evokes subtle reflections on humanity’s relationship with the outside world, and how major changes can resonate in the rhythms of the body and mind.
Idea and concept: Bára Gísladóttir, Margrét Bjarnadóttir, and Anna Berit Asp Christensen
Composer: Bára Gísladóttir
Choreographer: Margrét Bjarnadóttir
Dancers: Aðalheiður Halldórsdóttir, Halla Þórðardóttir
Musicians: Björg Brjánsdóttir, Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir, Lorenzo Colombo, Marta Soggetti, and Jakob Bloch Jespersen
Sound technician: Kristian Alexander
Text: Jon Fosse, Ann Jäderlund, and others
Artistic director: Anna Berit Asp Christensen
Buy tickets here
Independent performing arts selected by the Danish Arts Foundation
KSelekt is the public’s window into the independent performing arts at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. All performances are selected by the Danish Arts Foundation’s Project Support Committee for Performing Arts.
UP serves as an advisor and coordinator between independent companies, the Royal Danish Theatre, and the Danish Arts Foundation.
Each season, you can apply to have your performance included in the program and present it at the Royal Danish Theatre’s Lille Scene. You can do so via kunst.dk here.
The deadline for applications for the KSelekt 2027/28 season is June 2, 2026, at 2:00 p.m.