Thoughts from Rebekah / Artistic lead on Teater Animisme
Hvad er vigtig for dig?
In the project workshops we ask the participants to answer one question: What is important to you? Gellerups Skygger is about the people of Gellerup so we had to find a question that would inspire them and get them thinking about their lives.
It is an open question and it can mean a lot. When answering it you can think big about the whole world or simply about the here and now. It also gives a chance for people to answer authentically. Answering ‘eating pizza for dinner’ is just as valued as ‘the environment’ or ‘world peace’.
The workshops have given us really varied answers which means the content of the installation will be rich. The mixture of light and serious answers will create texture and different episodes with very different atmospheres. Answers have included football, sweets and mobile phones as well as, hands for working, stopping all war and planting trees in Africa.
We’ve been working with a huge range of people, different ages, ethnicities and genders. Just as we had hoped. All these different voices will represent the diverse and rich culture of Gellerup.
In one workshop some boys answered football. This has inspired a football sequence in the installation. For this we will also sample actual games taking place on the pitches to the side of Verdens Pladsen so the audio scape interacts and mimics the natural sounds in the area. It’s so much fun that a simple answer and a kids making a puppet with a football can inspire a whole narrative.
One woman cut out a tree. The drawing was very basic but the way she cut it had a really unique style. I will mimic this style to create a whole forest of her trees. Two other women cut out nature they had seen in their gardens, a butterfly and a hedgehog. These three women were in separate workshops and have never met, but their shadow puppets will appear in the same sequence so their voices and perspectives are being blended.
Foto: Sam Kara
Why Gellerup?
I love Gellerup. There are so many languages spoke here. So many cultures. I feel like it reflects the world and a future world we should all embrace. As more and more countries become environmentally and socially unstable immigration will rise. We need to embrace the talents and benefits multiculturalism brings to a country and celebrate the rich spectrum of perspectives and ideas it can contribute to contemporary Danish culture. I really hope this project enables this.
Why shadow puppets?
Puppets have a magical power. They unlock the child in all of us and give space for us to forget reality and just go with whatever happens. And shadow puppets are really easy to make so anyone can participate. You don’t need to be a super talented artist because even the simplest forms have impact in shadow. So shadow puppetry really lends itself to a project in which we’re working with loads of different people of different ages and backgrounds. They also really lend themselves to being projected of to buildings as shadows themselves are a form of projection. The starkness of the black and white forms are also really effective on the textured facades of the buildings.
