Golden Days Opening: Welcome to the Dark Side
Golden Days unleashes the monsters among the Meatpacking District’s old slaughterhouses as we join forces with Sort/Hvid to kick off this year’s festival in the twilight zone between light and darkness.
The programme is packed with talks, performances, ghost stories and concerts, so bring your most gruesome friends and inner demons along. If you dare.
PROGRAMME
16:00–16:15
Welcome – today’s host Sebastian Kanani and Mayor for Culture and Leisure Christopher Røhl
16:00–19:00
o Monster A.S.I.C.S. – Kristoffer Akselbo
Performance / Restrooms
A green, furry creature has moved into Sort/Hvid’s restrooms. It has made them its home, its life and its cage. Surrounded by colourful flowers, the monster creates small moments of care and tranquillity while longing to break free. Experience Akselbo’s poetic performance installation about belonging, beauty and daring to venture into unfamiliar territory.
16:15–17:00
Age of Monsters – Åsne Seierstad, Alberte Bové Rud, Kristian Lauta and Asta Kongsted
Talk / Main Stage
The world order we once knew is crumbling as a new kind of leader enters the political arena. Diplomacy and soft power have been replaced by threats and brute force. Journalist Åsne Seierstad, historian of ideas Alberte Bové Rud and disaster researcher Kristian Lauta join journalist Asta Kongsted in a dissection of the geopolitical forces shaping our world and ask: Are we once again living in the time of the monsters?
16:30–17:00
Thirst Trap – Esben Weile Kjær and Mathias Kryger
Talk / Main Stage
Outside Sort/Hvid, Esben Weile Kjær’s gigantic golden rat towers. The work is part of the exhibition ‘Thirst Trap’, which during Golden Days transforms the otherwise idyllic Ørstedsparken into a vermin-infested space full of sparkling and glittering rats, ticks and carnivorous plants. Together with art critic Mathias Kryger, Esben Weile Kjær investigates what happens when the unwanted creatures disturb the park idyll. For who really decides what should be kept down and what should come to light?
17:00–17:30
Gilgamesh – Logen and Sort/Hvid
Performance / Main Stage
The ancient myth of the demigod and hero Gilgamesh and his battle with the monster Humbaba is considered the world’s first great work of literature. But was it a story about good triumphing over evil? Or was it not quite so black and white? Experience a monstrous combination of video art and live performance in this excerpt from Gilgamesh, featuring Sort/Hvid’s artistic director Nathalie Mellbye alongside actor Christine Sønderris, dancer Bjørk-Mynte Paulse and sound designer Joëlle McGovern.
17:30–18:00
Ela Lung
Concert / Outdoor Stage
The Meatpacking District’s narrow alleyways are transformed into an enchanted meadow as Ela Lung invites us into her dreamlike, experimental soundscape, blending folk influences with rock and an atmospheric soundscape. Together, they create Lung’s distinctive musical universe: a dreamlike hybrid of intimate presence and surreal undercurrents, in which characters and experiences from her own life take on new, monstrous forms and melodies.
18:00–18:45
Ghost Stories – Rasmus Daugbjerg, Cecilie Lind, Dean Butt and Gustav Hagild
Talk / Main Stage
There are those with sharp teeth and yellow eyes. Those that rise from the cold waters of the sea or the misty forrest. And then there are those within us, and the ones we become to one another. Acclaimed authors Rasmus Daugbjerg, Cecilie Lind and Dean Butt join cultural journalist Gustav Hagild in a conversation about the monsters lurking in the darkness of their writing.
18:45–19:15
DRENGE
Video pice with live music / Small Stage
It is time to challenge ballet’s restrictive gender categories! Mikkel B. Grevsen performs a live musical score to the video work created as a prelude to the performance DRENGE, which will be staged at Sort/Hvid in September. Wind instruments and electronic music intertwine with a video in which three ballet dancers explore the male body in a choreography by Sebastian Kloborg and staging by Frederik Valentin – a multidisciplinary confrontation with our underlying expectations of gender and identity. Read more about the final performance playing at Sort/Hvid during Golden Days here.
19:15–19:45
A Fan’s Dilemma – Emma Rosenzweig, Ditlev Tamm and Naima Yasin
Talk / Main Stage
Being a devoted fan can be a difficult and conflicted business. Can we listen to music made by people whose actions we condemn? Or watch films made by moral monsters while stuffing ourselves with popcorn? Artist, film lover and author Emma Rosenzweig, author and former professor of legal history Ditlev Tamm, and Naima Yasin, co-founder of the podcast A Seat at the Table, explore the murky moral dilemmas of fan culture.
19:45–20:15
SYL
Concert / Outdoor Stage
In a short space of time, the Copenhagen hardcore band SYL have established themselves as one of Denmark’s most hard-hitting live acts. Their songs engage with the world around them and capture the defining sense of powerlessness of our time, addressing psychiatric medication, genocide, misinformation and toxic masculinity. SYL break the rules, whether appearing at D1MA’s late-night party on Orange Stage or growling alongside Sivas on the track Bedrøvet. Expect chaos, love and perhaps the first mosh pit in the festival’s history.
21:00–21:30
(DJ) SPOILR: PAYDAR and pixel.daddy
DJ / Foyer
Expect something raw, chaotic and imperfect as underground collective SPOILR joins forces with pixel.daddy and PAYDAR for a session in their musical laboratory. In recent years, SPOILR have transformed the city’s stages into artistic playgrounds for uninhibited live performances, giving artists the opportunity to test unreleased tracks, unfinished works and raw material – a small act of rebellion against perfection culture and algorithm-driven music. For the opening party, SPOILR present a new DJ format in which host and founder pixel.daddy and PAYDAR create a set made entirely from demos stored on their own hard drives. Danish-Iranian PAYDAR, known for a high-energy stage show combining Persian pop, South African amapiano and familiar bangers, is ready to get the party started.
21:45–22:30
Tonser
Concert / Outdoor Stage
As darkness falls, Tonser transforms the Meatpacking District into a post-apocalyptic late-night party. With heavy drops and an explosive blend of EDM, R&B and K-pop, he pushes the boundaries of pop music. Heartbreak and longing meet invented fantasy worlds and black-metal references. Following sold-out concerts in Asia and a packed late-night show at this year’s Roskilde Festival, Tonser is ready to take over Golden Days with a dark, maximalist pop spectacle.
22:30–23:00
Look at Me – collectif blitzbereit and Niklas Apfel
Performance / Outdoor Stage
An absurd dance unfolds as eight-metre-tall moving inflatable sculptures confront three performers for the audience’s attention. The audience’s gaze is the decisive currency in the battle against one of the modern world’s greatest fears: invisibility. Through performance collective blitzbereit’suncompromising physicality and humorous visual language, human beings are pitted against machinery as one question demands an answer: Is everyone 100% for sale?
Throughout the day and evening, former inmates from Den Sociale Foodtruck will serve burgers to hungry guests, while the Meatpacking District’s own brewery, ÅBEN, will provide locally brewed beer for the thirsty. More adventurous visitors can explore a carefully selected range of monstrous natural wines from the Vesterbro wine bar Volatil. Sort/Hvid’s own bar will also be open throughout the evening.
After nightfall, the party continues just around the corner in ÅBEN’s old slaughterhouse venue, where the beer taps will remain open until 02:00 and DJ Yoon will lead us into the night’s darker corners.
Admission is free all evening.
Golden Days Opening: Welcome to the Dark Side
Golden Days unleashes the monsters among the Meatpacking District’s old slaughterhouses as we join forces with Sort/Hvid to kick off this year’s festival in the twilight zone between light and darkness.
The programme is packed with talks, performances, ghost stories and concerts, so bring your most gruesome friends and inner demons along. If you dare.
PROGRAMME
16:00–16:15
Welcome – today’s host Sebastian Kanani and Mayor for Culture and Leisure Christopher Røhl
16:00–19:00
o Monster A.S.I.C.S. – Kristoffer Akselbo
Performance / Restrooms
A green, furry creature has moved into Sort/Hvid’s restrooms. It has made them its home, its life and its cage. Surrounded by colourful flowers, the monster creates small moments of care and tranquillity while longing to break free. Experience Akselbo’s poetic performance installation about belonging, beauty and daring to venture into unfamiliar territory.
16:15–17:00
Age of Monsters – Åsne Seierstad, Alberte Bové Rud, Kristian Lauta and Asta Kongsted
Talk / Main Stage
The world order we once knew is crumbling as a new kind of leader enters the political arena. Diplomacy and soft power have been replaced by threats and brute force. Journalist Åsne Seierstad, historian of ideas Alberte Bové Rud and disaster researcher Kristian Lauta join journalist Asta Kongsted in a dissection of the geopolitical forces shaping our world and ask: Are we once again living in the time of the monsters?
16:30–17:00
Thirst Trap – Esben Weile Kjær and Mathias Kryger
Talk / Main Stage
Outside Sort/Hvid, Esben Weile Kjær’s gigantic golden rat towers. The work is part of the exhibition ‘Thirst Trap’, which during Golden Days transforms the otherwise idyllic Ørstedsparken into a vermin-infested space full of sparkling and glittering rats, ticks and carnivorous plants. Together with art critic Mathias Kryger, Esben Weile Kjær investigates what happens when the unwanted creatures disturb the park idyll. For who really decides what should be kept down and what should come to light?
17:00–17:30
Gilgamesh – Logen and Sort/Hvid
Performance / Main Stage
The ancient myth of the demigod and hero Gilgamesh and his battle with the monster Humbaba is considered the world’s first great work of literature. But was it a story about good triumphing over evil? Or was it not quite so black and white? Experience a monstrous combination of video art and live performance in this excerpt from Gilgamesh, featuring Sort/Hvid’s artistic director Nathalie Mellbye alongside actor Christine Sønderris, dancer Bjørk-Mynte Paulse and sound designer Joëlle McGovern.
17:30–18:00
Ela Lung
Concert / Outdoor Stage
The Meatpacking District’s narrow alleyways are transformed into an enchanted meadow as Ela Lung invites us into her dreamlike, experimental soundscape, blending folk influences with rock and an atmospheric soundscape. Together, they create Lung’s distinctive musical universe: a dreamlike hybrid of intimate presence and surreal undercurrents, in which characters and experiences from her own life take on new, monstrous forms and melodies.
18:00–18:45
Ghost Stories – Rasmus Daugbjerg, Cecilie Lind, Dean Butt and Gustav Hagild
Talk / Main Stage
There are those with sharp teeth and yellow eyes. Those that rise from the cold waters of the sea or the misty forrest. And then there are those within us, and the ones we become to one another. Acclaimed authors Rasmus Daugbjerg, Cecilie Lind and Dean Butt join cultural journalist Gustav Hagild in a conversation about the monsters lurking in the darkness of their writing.
18:45–19:15
DRENGE
Video pice with live music / Small Stage
It is time to challenge ballet’s restrictive gender categories! Mikkel B. Grevsen performs a live musical score to the video work created as a prelude to the performance DRENGE, which will be staged at Sort/Hvid in September. Wind instruments and electronic music intertwine with a video in which three ballet dancers explore the male body in a choreography by Sebastian Kloborg and staging by Frederik Valentin – a multidisciplinary confrontation with our underlying expectations of gender and identity. Read more about the final performance playing at Sort/Hvid during Golden Days here.
19:15–19:45
A Fan’s Dilemma – Emma Rosenzweig, Ditlev Tamm and Naima Yasin
Talk / Main Stage
Being a devoted fan can be a difficult and conflicted business. Can we listen to music made by people whose actions we condemn? Or watch films made by moral monsters while stuffing ourselves with popcorn? Artist, film lover and author Emma Rosenzweig, author and former professor of legal history Ditlev Tamm, and Naima Yasin, co-founder of the podcast A Seat at the Table, explore the murky moral dilemmas of fan culture.
19:45–20:15
SYL
Concert / Outdoor Stage
In a short space of time, the Copenhagen hardcore band SYL have established themselves as one of Denmark’s most hard-hitting live acts. Their songs engage with the world around them and capture the defining sense of powerlessness of our time, addressing psychiatric medication, genocide, misinformation and toxic masculinity. SYL break the rules, whether appearing at D1MA’s late-night party on Orange Stage or growling alongside Sivas on the track Bedrøvet. Expect chaos, love and perhaps the first mosh pit in the festival’s history.
21:00–21:30
(DJ) SPOILR: PAYDAR and pixel.daddy
DJ / Foyer
Expect something raw, chaotic and imperfect as underground collective SPOILR joins forces with pixel.daddy and PAYDAR for a session in their musical laboratory. In recent years, SPOILR have transformed the city’s stages into artistic playgrounds for uninhibited live performances, giving artists the opportunity to test unreleased tracks, unfinished works and raw material – a small act of rebellion against perfection culture and algorithm-driven music. For the opening party, SPOILR present a new DJ format in which host and founder pixel.daddy and PAYDAR create a set made entirely from demos stored on their own hard drives. Danish-Iranian PAYDAR, known for a high-energy stage show combining Persian pop, South African amapiano and familiar bangers, is ready to get the party started.
21:45–22:30
Tonser
Concert / Outdoor Stage
As darkness falls, Tonser transforms the Meatpacking District into a post-apocalyptic late-night party. With heavy drops and an explosive blend of EDM, R&B and K-pop, he pushes the boundaries of pop music. Heartbreak and longing meet invented fantasy worlds and black-metal references. Following sold-out concerts in Asia and a packed late-night show at this year’s Roskilde Festival, Tonser is ready to take over Golden Days with a dark, maximalist pop spectacle.
22:30–23:00
Look at Me – collectif blitzbereit and Niklas Apfel
Performance / Outdoor Stage
An absurd dance unfolds as eight-metre-tall moving inflatable sculptures confront three performers for the audience’s attention. The audience’s gaze is the decisive currency in the battle against one of the modern world’s greatest fears: invisibility. Through performance collective blitzbereit’suncompromising physicality and humorous visual language, human beings are pitted against machinery as one question demands an answer: Is everyone 100% for sale?
Throughout the day and evening, former inmates from Den Sociale Foodtruck will serve burgers to hungry guests, while the Meatpacking District’s own brewery, ÅBEN, will provide locally brewed beer for the thirsty. More adventurous visitors can explore a carefully selected range of monstrous natural wines from the Vesterbro wine bar Volatil. Sort/Hvid’s own bar will also be open throughout the evening.
After nightfall, the party continues just around the corner in ÅBEN’s old slaughterhouse venue, where the beer taps will remain open until 02:00 and DJ Yoon will lead us into the night’s darker corners.
Admission is free all evening.