Borealis receives Balansemerket: – Happy to be in such good company!

Borealis – a festival for experimental music, is a vibrant festival for genre crossing music and art that takes place over 5 days each March in Bergen, Norway.

Borealis is a place for adventurous listeners, celebrating music that doesn’t fit neatly in to any boxes. In 2023 the festival celebrates its 20th Anniversary. As Borealis is doing its final preparations for this year's event, opening on March 15, the festival becomes the 37th organisation to receive Balansemerket. We had a chat with Rachel Louis, managing director of Borealis.

Photo: Runa Halleraker/Borealis

– Congratulations on achieving Balansemerket!

–  Thank you! We are happy to be in such good company!

– You are indeed in good company! Why did you choose to get Balansemerket?

– Borealis won the Likestilling prize from Norsk Komponistforening in 2017 and our values have, for a long time, very much reflected the principles of the Balansemerket. We are very happy to receive the Balansemerket recognition as well. It is important for us that we keep talking and learning together to remind ourselves of how we can be better.  

– What sort of actions are you taking?

Visual interpretation: An elderly, and a younger, woman are practicing boxing. Photo from the project Doing Not Saying: Boxing. (Photo: Thor Brødreskift/Borealis)

– We are working with artists and community groups to improve our knowledge and understanding of communities, to ensure we have direct and honest conversations with local people and community leaders so that a range of voices from across the region are heard and reflected across our programmes. One example of this has been that we have updated our access policy across the festival to include more information for people to understand whether or not a performance is suitable for them. 

– We will trial a new concert format this year: “Relaxed Performances”. Relaxed Performances are for anyone who would benefit from a more relaxed environment. This can include, but is not limited to, those with small children who need some space to move their bodies or the freedom to talk / shout / cry or laugh, people with autism, sensory sensitivities, Tourette's syndrome, learning disabilities or dementia, as well as people living with anxiety or people who have experienced trauma. In our Relaxed Performances we focus on relaxing or adapting the concert environment while maintaining the creative integrity of the show. 

– Wow, “Relaxed Performances”! Sounds like a really nice concept! So how did you find the process of working with Balansemerket?

– Thank you! We are excited to see how this is experienced from both the artists and audience perspectives! You can see more information about this here.

– The process for working with Balasemerket was very straightforward with lots of useful documents to reference. The staff training was also great for us to keep these conversations open and active.  

– And what are your ambitions moving forward with this work?

– We strive to be a welcoming, accessible and inclusive festival for our artists, our staff, our volunteers and our audiences. We continue to think carefully about how to integrate care and inclusivity into our way of working. We hope to develop our community partnerships and continue to bring in new perspectives, empower marginalised voices, create new role models and challenge the exclusions of cultural industry.

You can read more about this year’s Borealis festival, which takes place in Bergen 15–19 March 2023, here.

Are you curious about Balansemerket? Feel free to contact the project manager, Eivind Breilid, at eivind@balansekunstprosjektet.no.