NEUSTART ended with a celebration of Danish-German music cooperation at the German embassy in Copenhagen. A talk with three artists revealed important insights about how projects like this can enable artists internationally, and an unexpected party broke out.
On Wednesday, January 24, a small informal gathering of around 50 people who have all been part of the Danish NEUSTART-initiative took place at the German embassy in Copenhagen. On the 12th floor with a panoramic view of the city, three artists were invited to perform and share their experiences with working in Germany as part of the NEUSTART project. Several German partners were present and the German ambassador to Denmark, Pascal Hector, delivered a welcoming speech to a very broad audience of artists, music organisers, and Danish government employees.
The multi-disciplinary sound artist Ragnhild May played one of her works, a mini-performance of her composition Institutional Critique for Kindergarten – an interesting piece for recorder flutes played by a home built air organ receiving a digital signal. In an entangled web of rubber tubes, recorder flutes were spread across the floor and between audiences feet that each tooted and whistled notes compiling a polyphonic and polyrhythmic composition that sounded almost like a techno song.
In a talk moderated by the NEUSTART project manager Mathias Schønberg, Ragnhild explained that her DAAD residency through Art Music Denmark had contributed valuably to her getting several new opportunities in Germany – among other things, a collaboration with Ensemble Apparat for Ultraschall Berlin hosted by Rbb Kultur and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
Jazz musician Mark Solborg played a suite of dreamy effect-driven guitar, and later expressed in the talk, on a background of 25 years of experience with international collaborations, that projects like NEUSTART work because they allow artists to spend time in the scene they wish to engage with. Showcasing and touring is valuable, and Solborg emphasised that direct exposure to audiences is fundamentally where the music actually exists, but spending time and collaborating with other artists on site is key to getting local recognition outside of one’s home environment.
Lastly, the Danish-Tanzanian pop-artist JJ Paulo told exemplary tales from life on the road at MXD, ROSA, and Tempi’s showcase night at FluxFM in Berlin. He shared stories from meeting and connecting with German artists and that he had already booked more shows in Germany as a direct consequence of the showcase night. He then had his little brother, DJ Paulo, spin the decks and gave an exhilarating concert getting everyone to dance!
It was a sight to behold – government employees and music organisers in blazers and buttoned shirts jumping first three steps frontwards, three steps backwards, then sidewards, and then two claps with JJ Paulo now doing backflips shirtless and announcing that, “this is now the embassy of Tanzania! Everybody move your bodies!”
All in all, the two years of the NEUSTART cooperation could not have ended on a better note and we deeply thank and celebrate everyone who has been involved.
Photo: Alexander Banck-Petersen