Having a Hand in it

Anastasis

HAVING A HAND IN IT was a co-operation project between Levende Musik I Skolen (Live music in School), the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the Aarhus Sinfonietta, the Klüver Big Band, as well as a number of primary and secondary schools in the Aarhus area, Jutland.

This project ran with planning and visits to schools during the autumn of 2002, and reached its culmination on 8 March, 2003 with concerts and performances in the Aarhus Music House, and at the neighbouring Grans Dance Theatre. Mogens Christensen had joined into the overall planning procedure, the development of building block material in the Symphony Orchestra, and as responsible for the compositions for the project with Aarhus Sinfonietta.

This part of the project was called Anastasis, since the point of departure was Danish painter Per Kirkeby’s 500 m2 ceiling- and wall painting in the Auditorium building at the Aarhus University. Two school classes were asked to bring an air mattress. Then they were allowed to choose somewhere to lie down for the following 20 minutes. Exclusively in order to watch, silently and singularly, one single detail of the enormous picture.

Through help from the musicians of the Sinfonietta, these impressions were then transferred into immediate sounds and movements. During the class visits taking place the following three weeks, these sounds were given a form. And in the first round they were performed in the Auditorium House. This time, there were several hundred parents, siblings and grand-parents lying around on the floor on mattresses to let themselves wrap up by the painting as well as by the new music, which the classes and the musicians performed.

At the concert in the Grans Dance Theatre, the painting was included by projecting details of  it in the room, while the classes, spread all over the room, performed their music. Apart from this, Aarhus Sinfonietta performed Mogens Christensen’s Anastasis, a piece inspired by the painting as well as – in this version – the childrens’ music.

See the article on this project (in Danish only) in the Newsletter from LMS. Furthermore, the whole project was described in detail in the book De Kom Po No.

The Aarhus Sinfonietta recorded a re-arranged version of Mogens Christensen’s work Anastasis.