in brieflive

I Am an Empty High-rise, Where the Pain Sits in Every Wall

Ensemble Lydenskab, Martin Ottosen, Ulla Bendixen, Gerd Laugesen & residents at the social-psychiatric housing facility Sønderparken: »Everyone Leaves Traces«

Museum Ovartaci, 12.03

Therese Wiwe Vilmar

It is both difficult and unfair to approach the concert Alle sætter spor (»Everyone Leaves Traces«) with a critical mindset. It concerns real people with something at stake and with their hearts invested: residents at the social-psychiatric housing facility Sønderparken. They placed their inner lives in the hands of six artists and thus became co-creators of a total of nine songs, which premiered at Museum Ovartaci.

The project Musikalske alliancer (»Musical Alliances«) is simultaneously art, research, and relief. A co-creative endeavour intended to give a voice to people within psychiatry. The result was songs marked by banjo-tinged gallops, painful violin stabs, empty houses filled with inconsolable crying, torn torsos and deep, lingering bow strokes – but also hope, care, and softened edges. Acting as mediators of these life experiences were the poet Gerd Laugesen, three musicians from the ensemble Lydenskab on cello, violin and guitar, as well as pianist Martin Ottosen and vocalist Ulla Bendixen from the electro-folk band Sorten Muld.

It was a capable group that delivered a high musical standard. Even so, it seemed as if this important project succeeded with its co-creation and its conversations, but perhaps not entirely with its artistic expression. Was it because the lyrics were filled with clichés? Or rather because the entire staging felt somewhat inward-looking – almost like a school concert? Despite Bendixen’s wonderfully airy and expressive vocal, the performance felt strongest in the few segments shaped by poetry readings. Yet I had to learn, by indirect means, that the poems were adaptations, while the song lyrics were the residents’ own words. And those were the voices I was meant to learn to listen to.

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