The children are taking over in Norwegian choreographer Hege Haagenrud’s extraordinary dance show The Jury, one of the highlights of Imaginate, the children’s performing arts festival in Edinburgh.

 

Trained at the Norwegian School of Ballet and Studio Harmonic in Paris, Haagenrud has worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, becoming one of Norway’s foremost pactitioners in the field of children’s dance. The Jury takes the notion of dance for kids to an entirely new level, exploring the idea of whether, handed complete control, children could find a way of entertaining themselves.

Against a beautiful backdrop, two dancers perform a graceful contemporary routine that would delight any adult dance aficionado. The children watching, however, have other ideas. Gradually dissent mounts, and the junior audience make their displeasure more and more apparent: ‘I don’t understand anything!’ ‘This is boring!’

Working on the logic that a performance for children should be made by children, the pint-sized dance critics stage an intervention, stopping the show and taking control of the choreography, but can they work together to create the ultimate children’s dance show, or will their own differences in the disagreements get in the way?

The girls want princesses, the boys want ninjas and gunfights – is one child’s ‘beautiful’ another child’s ‘boring’, after all?

As the dancers obediently follow the instructions of their new directors, the show becomes an exploration of the childlike mind, as well as a showcase of ambitious modern dance.

Here’s a quick preview of what to expect…