PROJECTS
Photo: Jan Christensen
THINGS WE USED TO HOLD ON TO
Duration: 60’
Status: First performed January 6 2023.
Description: A concert about Nordic identity with contributions from 6 composers from the Nordic countries.
The core of the project is two four-day workshops held in September 2021 and January 2022, for which CRAS rented a villa in the Copenhagen suburbs and invited the six composers to stay, experiment and collaborate on a joint concert that focuses on all the things that unite us.
Under the guidance of opera director, Louise Beck, the two workshops also included activities that explored the participants' personal backgrounds and national character traits, for instance by using personal objects from their pasts.
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The final concert opens with a short performance by CRAS called [these are the] THINGS WE USED TO HOLD ON TO. As a natural extension of the project's overall idea, this performance invites the audience into the minds of the guitar players, before all the dots are connected into a joint musical expression.
Timeline:
Workshops: September 2021 & January 2022.
Performances: Throughout 2023 in the Nordic countries.
Collaborators:
Composers Pernille Sejlund (DK), Zoe Efstathiou (SE), Anna Katrin Egilstrøð (FO),
Kristin Bolstad (NO), Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir (IS), Maija Hynninen (FIN).
Louise Beck (curator).
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RUDY
Duration: 45’
Status: First performed: December 29, 2022
Description: Celebrating 100 years of James Joyce's iconic novel "Ulysses",
CRAS stages a mini-ballet that uses the optical illusion "Pepper's Ghost"
to bring the deceased son of protagonist, Leopold Bloom, back to life and appear on top of the guitars in the shape of a 20 centimetre hologram.
Collaborators:
Lasse Schwanenflügel Piasecki (composer/conceptual mastermind), Hearmyeyes Production Company, Black Box Theatre & Dance, The Danish James Joyce Association,
the Irish Embassy in Copenhagen, The James Joyce Centre (Dublin).
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OUT OF THE CAGE
Duration: 45’
Status: First performed: September 14, 2020
Description: A performance that deals with the topic of online bullying amongst teenagers.
A multifaceted artistic expression is created by combining music, dance and pre-recorded voices of more than 60 pupils from Danish public schools telling their stories in interviews conducted by members of CRAS.
Collaborators: Pupils from Holluf Pile skole, Pedersborg skole, Køge Gymnasium,
Lykke Møller Kristensen (author and social media expert), Aske Knudsen (hiphop-producer),
Clara Wärme (dancer).
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IN OUR TIME
Duration: Infinite
Status: Chapter 1 first performed: January 30, 2020
Chapter 2 first performed: August 6, 2020
Chapter 3 first performed: January 5, 2024
Description: Inspired by the iconic Doomsday Clock, “In Our Time” is a potentially endless
piece of music initiated by global events such as international security, climate change and
the threat from nuclear weapons.
Every time the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets the Doomsday Clock, a new musical
“chapter” will be added to this ongoing creative process. Over time different composers from
every part of the world will contribute to “In Our Time”, each one taking over where the
previous one ended, so that ultimately we’ll have one long, uninterrupted piece of music that
goes on forever.
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Chapter One (2 minutes to midnight) took its starting point at the birth-place of the atomic
bomb: New Mexico, USA. The piece was premiered at a former Cold War facility outside of Copenhagen, and the concert also featured a talk by Carina Meyn (Assistant Professor at the Royal Danish Defense College).
Collaborators: José Luis Hurtado (composer and Assistant Professor of Theory and
Composition at the University of New Mexico), Ejbybunkeren, Carina Ann Meyn.
Chapter Two (100 seconds to midnight) was premiered on Hiroshima Day 2020, and
featured the first ever screening of a film created especially for this event, as well as the
launching of a petition aiming to make the Danish Parlaiment sign the UN Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Collaborators: Ruta Vitkauskaite (Lithuanean composer), Benjamin Henriksen (film maker),
The Cinematheque, and the NGO "BAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS" (Danish Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, NOAH, Copenhagen Peace Watch, The Danish Ministry of Peace).
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Chapter Three (90 seconds to midnight) This concert was a mix of music and poetry, where the history of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the events that affect the setting of the Doomsday Clock were chronicled throughout.
A new piece by Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak was premiered.
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SIX SENSES SUITE
Duration: 25’
Status: First performed: October 10, 2019
Description: A musical interpretation of the five traditionally recognized senses and the
mysterious sixth one.
Collaborators: Composers Christos Farmakis (hearing), Ivan Olsen (sight), Hugi
Gudmundsson (smell), John Frandsen (taste), Jeppe Just (touch), Peter Bruun (6th sense).
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MACHINERY
Duration: 8’30
Status: First performed: April 18, 2018
Description: A performance which puts the increasing amount of machines in our society
into perspective through the motions of the human body – which itself is a kind of machine.
Collaborator: Ida Langkilde (new-circus artist).
Pictures
Video
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