In their last effort the year, our InOut team sat down to rate the best events of 2012. That's small task considering the number of events they've previewed and reviewed, but they've managed to boil it all down to best of the best shows, performers, festivals and events that impressed them the most over the last 12 months.
All of our writers at InOut hope you had an enteraining year and we wish you a happy 2013.
1. Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet
Yorick is back! Martyn Jacques of the Tiger Lillies, court jester extraordinaire, wowed audiences this spring in the world premiere of perhaps the most macabre version of Hamlet yet. Praise is also due to Republique’s inventive artistic director Martin Tulinius – together they have created a musical destined to be a worldwide hit.
2. The Seeress Prophecy
Republique again! Delicious food, endless glasses of wine, and talented performances bring you into a world of fantasy and myth on this Nordic food expedition, where the audience were brought from the Earth’s creation to the fires of Ragnarok.
3. Crazy Christmas Cabaret’s Hitchcock-Up!
Vivienne McKee’s annual Crazy Christmas Cabaret got even crazier this year when she decided to stage a Hitchcock-style movie script as opposed to the traditional CCC. Sociopathic Danes, lederhosen-loving Nazis, cross-dressers and a terrible Swedish accent made this year crazier than ever.
4. Old Times
Why Not Theatre’s Angela Heath-Larsen and Sue Hanson Styles joined forces with That Theatre’s Ian Burns for what is probably Harold Pinter’s most ambiguous play. Theirs is a collaboration that we hope will run and run.
5. Cinderella
The CTC in January showed that pantomime isn’t just a graveyard for washed-up soap stars and, in their absence, is exceedingly good fun for all the family.
Ben Hamilton & Linn Lehmag
1. Saint Patrick’s three-legged race
Another year and another record number of participants. Under the stewardess of Family Kelleher, and with the help of the city’s Irish pubs The Globe, the Dubliner, Kennedy’s, and the Shamrock Inn, this event never fails to draw a smile out of the watching public. Irish, legless and leg-tied, and proud.
2. St George’s at Sankt Nikolai’s
Not the best-attended event of all time, but ten out of ten for effort. Few present will forget the horseback gallantry and damsel snatching re-enactment, plus the madcap homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Only the English!
3. St Albans Fete at Churchillparken
If ever there’s an event that will take you back to Blighty in the blink of an eye, it’s the St Alban’s church fete in August where the best of British gather to enjoy creamed teas, show their knobbly knees and shoot the breeze. Oh, and it has the best bookstore in town.
4. Burns Night at the Dubliner
Nothing lifts the gloom of late January like Burns Night, and the Dubliner’s event, which is quickly becoming a city institution, had them dancing on the tables again. Scotland forever!
5. Irish Day at the Races
All a bit biased to the British Isles, so here’s … hang on, how could we leave out the Irish Rover’s Irish Day at the Races, the race meet that tends to always welcome in the Danish summer. It didn’t this year, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t another winner.
Ben Hamilton
1. Louisiana Literature
The city was crying out for a quality book festival that didn’t think all world literature started and ended with Paul Auster, and in just three years, Louisiana Literature has answered our prayers. Headlining this year (just 150 kroner for all four days), rock legend Patti Smith gave some unforgettable readings – a real treat.
2. Fashion Festival
Like Louisiana Literature, the Fashion Festival has in a short space of time become something quite substantial, offering non-industry fashionistas a myriad of events to make them feel like they’re really participating in Fashion Week instead of just looking in, thinking about blagging their way into shows and parties.
3. Springsteen at Roskilde
The country’s biggest music festival recruited Denmark’s favourite international singing star, Bruce Springsteen, for this year’s affair, and the Boss didn’t disappoint. For three beautiful hours on a July evening, he transcended both time and place to deliver what was the festival’s standout performance.
4. Distortion
Distortion bounced back in 2012 to silence its critics with a well-organised and extremely enjoyable five days of relentless fun and music, and it even managed to clean up afterwards. A job well done all-round!
5. French Affair at Docken
The organisers of this Francophile’s paradis brought Gallic gourmet gems to Docken. Parlez-vous Francais? Non, but maybe next year!
6. Gay Pride
The hottest weekend of the year, both literally and figuratively – what’s not to like about heat?
7. Puppet Junior
Under-rated by those with an aversion to either children’s festivals or puppets or both, the occasion was once again one of the highlights of the year.
8. Copenhagen Book Forum
The festival may be trailing in the wake of Louisiana Literature, but it upped its game in 2012, attracting an impressive selection of authors including Ken Follett.
9. Buster Film Festival
Always refreshing to see a kids festival that doesn’t patronise its target customers, and the result is one adults can enjoy too. At only 15kr a movie, it truly is quids in for kids.
10. Irish Festival
Few could believe their eyes when they saw Paul Brady’s name down on the list of performers for this year’s Irish Festival, but there he was, arguably Ireland’s most influential singer-songwriter – a total coup for the festival organisers.
Ben Hamilton
1. ‘Manuevering’ at Overgaden
American performance artist Mary Coble’s massive exploration of an old shipyard in Nakskov, in Lolland in southern Denmark, included a durational performance, new photographic work and giant shipping flags.
2. ‘Avantgardens Kvinder (Women of the Avant Garde) 1920-1940’ at Louisiana
This ambitious survey showed rarely seen early work by celebrated European female artists from the inter-war years including Hannah Höch and Dora Marr.
3. ‘Ruth Ewan’ at Charlottenborg
Scottish artist Ruth Ewan’s exploration of the utopic power of music involved live performances by a brass band, an interview with an ethno-musicologist, workshops with imaginative children in Christiana, and a large collection of instruments collected from citizens around Denmark.
4. ‘If One Thing Moves, Everything Moves’ at Charlottenborg
Danish artist Joachim Koester’s exploration of esoterica and altered states was presented in an immersive installation environment that owed much to theatre design and transformed the exhibition hall.
5. ‘The Kiss’ at Overgaden
German artist Hito Steyerl’s innovative installation combined video, digital imaging technology, sculpture and archival material to address a mysterious, violent abduction that happened during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.
Bonnie Fortune
1. Dance to Go
The Dance to Go performances are a great invention in which all the seats in the auditorium cost just 150kr. Last spring’s version combined Flemming Flindt’s Enetime (The Lesson), George Balanchine’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Pas de Deux and The Concert by Jerome Robbins.
2. Balanchine & Stravinsky
Balanchine & Stravinsky was an evening of dazzling abstract beauty that celebrated the collaboration between choreographer George Balanchine and composer Igor Stravinsky. It consisted of the early neoclassical Apollo, the tightly knit Agon and the jazzy Symphony in Three Movements.
3. Den gyldne hane (The Golden Cockrel)
A fun performance with breathtakingly beautiful costumes. Former Royal Danish Ballet dancer and today’s internationally renowned choreographer Alexei Ratmansky was responsible for the great choreography of this production.
4. Tornerose (The Sleeping Beauty)
The Royal Danish Ballet showed a Christmas ballet this year that made their ensemble shine: The Sleeping Beauty in a traditional staging by contemporary British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.
5. Kameliadamen (The Lady of the Camellias)
John Neumeier’s choreographic interpretation of Alexandre Dumas’ dramatic story about the demimonde of mid-19th century Paris is now in the repertoire of the Royal Danish Ballet.
Franziska Bork Petersen
