• Julian Karenga: – Theater has made me freer

    When Matilde Landlie (15) from Bergen had an internship at Kloden theater this spring, she interviewed director and playwright Julian Karenga (28). t the moment he is at Kloden teater with the performance “Veien sitt ansikt”. Read about how Karenga deals with writing blocks, what motivates him and what tips he has for young people who want to write more.

    Text and interview: Mathilde Landlie

    I have been on a week work experience at Kloden theatre, and have taken part in their new EU project, Performing arts as the Third place for the young audience. The third place project is supported by Kreativt Europa. It will last for three years, and the Norwegian organizations involved are Scenekunstbruket and Kloden teater.

    In the project, they will investigate how theater can become a place for young people, a place where you feel at home and see yourself represented. “A third place” means the place outside the home (first place) and school/work (second place). It is the place you yourself choose to go to or be in, and which you like to be. It can be both together with others or somewhere you are alone.

    With this project in mind, I interviewed director and playwright Julian Karenga. He is a trained actor, but works both behind and in front of the curtain. Julian has had two productions of his own, Demir (2021) and Snøbrun (2021), and is currently working on a new project: Veien sitt ansikt (The road’s face).

    What is your third place?

    – Good question. The idea of what a third place is corresponds to what writing is to me. The solution if I need to think, or have a bad day, is to write. My third place is probably in writing.

    Would you say that theater and writing have been a big part of your life growing up?

    – Yes, I will. I went to Steinerskolen (Waldorf school) when I was growing up. And at times in my life when I was trying to find what I wanted in life, I often came back to that moment when I did a school play in the seventh grade, then I felt safe. I felt an absolutely incredible freedom on stage.

    Have you experienced writing blocks, and what do you do when it happens?

    – I’ll move and maybe go for a walk. It helps a lot to change the environment. Or I try to lower the threshold for writing. If I just sit at the PC and write, it can quickly seem a bit impossible. So then I’d rather sit in the living room with my mobile phone or notebooks. I have many notebooks, and often change which one I use. If that doesn’t work either, I set a timer for 5-10 minutes, and sit down at the PC and don’t let my fingers leave the keyboard during that time. This is how I force myself to think less critically, and hopefully work more intuitively.

    What about young people who want to work in theatre?

    – It is important to see a lot of theatre, to keep up-to-date on what is happening in the theater and to talk to people about what you have seen – whether they are performances that you like or not. The question should always be why was something good/bad? The answer to this – whatever it may be – will always be the most interesting.

    Mathilde Landlie has had a working week at Kloden theatre, and interviewed director and playwright Julian Karenga.

    You should keep your eyes open, and look into things like writing courses and talent programs. You can also sign up for Den Unge Scene or Ung Kultur Møtes. The more you get into all this, the more you get a taste of different environments. I think that for far too many actors and young people, theater can seem like a closed box that is difficult to enter.

    What will you as a theater professional do to open this box and make it more accessible?

    – In order to reach young people, I try to answer why the theater seemed inaccessible to me when I was young myself. The theater may seem like it belongs to the upper middle class, but I want to reach out to everyone. Able to break this barrier between the classes. To remember what it was like as a youth, I talk to my teenage self often, on an almost unconscious level. I want to dispel the thoughts and stereotypes that theater is full of prestige and vanity, and hope that I can make theater more accessible. I also address topics that I feel are under-communicated. I often write about taboos and other things that are not talked about as much. Because that’s what I think is needed more on stage.

    Do you feel your productions can be personal and give too much away about yourself?

    – Both yes and no. It gets a bit personal as I take my own life as a starting point; events or environments and experiences I have had. I don’t feel that it is giving away, but I am constantly working in a process where I try to direct the focus to the right place. I can experience that if you talk a lot about where the material comes from, and that it is based on true stories, then it takes the focus away from the art.

    Finally, do you have any tips for young people who want to write more?

    – It is important to write to yourself. Just writing in a diary is good, and it is important to keep the valuable freedom that comes from writing to yourself. Writing is a lot of practice, you have to write a lot to get good. You have to put in the effort! Also remember that writing is like a life companion. You will always have the writing.

    You can see “Veien sitt ansikt” during Oslo Culture Night on Friday 15 September at 19:00, and Saturday 16 September at 19:00.

  • Video: Camp Involve– what is your 3rd place?

    Last day of Camp involve at Junges Ensemble Stuttgart. After 4 days of workshops Mikkel Huth talks to the other participants from Junges Ensemble Stuttgart in Germany and Divadlo Drak in Czechia. Camp involve was the first camp in the EU-project 3Place, where we explore third places in performing arts for a young audience.

    By: Mikkel Huth, Iulian Simbotin, Ali Shalhab
    Host: Mikkel Huth
    Film photographer: Iulian Simbotin
    Editing: Mikkel Huth

  • Camp Involve: Stuttgart

    In early May, we all met in Stuttgart at Camp Involve, hosted by JES Stuttgart. Teenagers and partners from all three countries spent three hectic, fun, loving and inspiring days together, not as audiences only, but as co-creators, planners, and decision-makers.

    All of us had only met once before, online, in the first digital workshop.

    The camp itself as a shared space beyond school and home

    Camp Involve was designed as a third place: a space where young people and adults could meet on equal terms, outside the usual structures of school, family, or institutional hierarchies. Twenty-five participants took part in workshops, performances, city explorations, and shared meals.

    Learning through practice

    Camp Involve was designed as an in-person continuation of the project’s digital exchanges. The objectives were to:

    • examine different institutional approaches to youth involvement through practical workshops
    • test formats where young people and professionals work together on equal terms
    • strengthen long-term relationships between young participants and institutions
    • create a shared reference framework for discussing involvement across different national and institutional contexts

    Rather than presenting finished models, the camp functioned as a laboratory, where methods were tested in practice and reflected upon collectively.

    Youth involvement as a starting point

    A key methodological decision was to involve young participants from Stuttgart already in the planning phase. Approximately one month before the camp, the JES youth group met with the professional team to co-design the programme. Structured questions were used to support the process, including:

    • Which places in Stuttgart feel like a “third place”?
    • What kind of daily rhythm feels sustainable?
    • How much free time is needed?
    • Which social activities help create trust and comfort?

    Working in pairs, the young participants developed proposals for the camp schedule, which were then discussed and combined into a shared plan. The JES team committed to realising the programme as closely as possible to the young participants’ ideas. Practical responsibility was also delegated: the youth group organised parts of the social programme and were given access to a dedicated planning space (“Headquarter”), reinforcing ownership and responsibility without placing organisational pressure on them.

    Communication and shared decision-making

    Once the programme was drafted, participants from all partner institutions were involved through shared communication channels. A WhatsApp group was used to distribute information, gather preferences, and conduct informal voting on workshops and meals. This low-threshold tool supported transparency and continuous participation before and during the camp.

    Importantly, young participants were also involved in the documentation phase, contributing perspectives that informed the final report.

    The camp combined internal workshops and external expert sessions focusing on participation, creative collaboration, and shared decision-making. Participants explored strategies of involvement through formats such as:

    • Co-creation workshops on participation and democratic processes
    • Graffiti and DJ workshops focusing on non-hierarchical creative work
    • Game development as a tool for collective thinking and rule-making

    Alongside this, the group attended JES’s performance Aus der Kurve fliegen, including a preparatory workshop that highlighted how mediation and artistic practice can function together as tools for inclusion.

    “Getting to know us”: institutional exchange through artistic methods

    The first content-focused activity was a joint workshop titled “Who We Are”, hosted in Agentur, one of JES’s newest spaces for participatory work. The workshop focused on institutional self-reflection and exchange.

    Using the artistic research method Dada Data (developed by Mammalian Diving Reflex), participants engaged in structured speed-dating conversations to exchange views on:

    • theatre for young audiences
    • co-creation and participation
    • institutional structures and limitations

    This was followed by a hands-on exercise where each institution was translated into a three-dimensional architectural model, built from simple materials. These models represented each theatre’s structures, values and working conditions, and formed the basis for discussion around the three core themes of the project: involvement, artistic practice and architecture.

    Graffiti and DJing: involvement through creative processes

    Participants split into two mixed-age groups. One worked with a graffiti artist in public space; the other with a professional DJ in a club setting. Both workshops emphasised collective creation, absence of hierarchy, and equal valuation of ideas. Adults and youth worked side by side, experiencing non-institutional creative environments together.

    External expert workshops: testing involvement strategies

    Day two gave us different workshops in participation, involvement, gamification, how to change the outcome and do things together.

    Strategies of participation

    Theatre-maker Inga Schwörer introduced models for shared decision-making, role distribution and collective responsibility. Through practical exercises, participants tested different cooperation structures and reflected on power relations between adults and young people.

    Game development

    Led by theatre pedagogue and game developer Friedrike Hänsel, this workshop explored how games can be collectively developed, adapted and renegotiated. Participants worked with known structures and everyday objects, continuously revising rules through discussion and play. Reflection focused on democratic processes and collective authorship

    Social programme curated by young participants

    In parallel with the workshops, the Stuttgart youth group curated the social programme. This included a guided city tour, shared meals, bowling, karaoke and game nights at JES. Tasks were distributed among the young organisers, allowing them to choose responsibilities according to interest and capacity. These informal settings played a crucial role in building trust and flattening hierarchies across age and institutional roles

    Reflections and long-term impact

    Post-camp reflection interviews with both young participants and professionals highlighted several recurring observations:

    • young people felt taken seriously and experienced real influence
    • traditional age-based hierarchies were largely suspended
    • shared play and informal social settings strengthened trust
    • institutions gained concrete ideas for adapting their own involvement structures

    Rather than producing immediate structural change, Camp Involve generated transferable practices that are now being tested within the partner institutions. The camp confirmed the value of treating involvement not as a fixed model, but as an ongoing practice shaped through shared experience and reflection.