The Changeling

“The Changeling”, premiered 13. May 2012 at the SPOR festival, is written in collaboration with Jullie Hjetland Jensen. The piece is partly a concert, an installation and a performance and is written for the mannequin ensemble, Jullie Hjetland Jensen on vocals and myself on electronics.

The piece is, in its essence, ment to be experienced live. A short video documentation/teaser was under construction, but it never made it. Instead you can enjoy this short “behind the scenes” shot from the making of the video. Thanks to Kim Asmussen (the man behind the camera)

The piece is written with support from The Danish Arts Foundation

Listen to a complete stereo-dump of one of the four hours for SPOR festival May 13. 2012

The performance at SPOR 2012:

The performance was held at Aarhus Kunstakademi as a four hour long ongoing experience. The audience was free to enter and leave the room as they pleased. The 15 mannequin dolls was distributed throughout a dark room, lit only by candle lights. The performer Jullie Hjetland Jensens role was to find a mental state of mind in the room, defining her position and relation, both physical and musically, to the dolls. We had a storyline, a set of events or states-of-minds she were to go through throughout the four hours.  One of her rituals was to slowly push a candle light over the entire floor, a gesture which took 10 minutes. Every movement was slow, searching, doubtfull. Her position to the dolls was submissive, as a captured treasure owned by the dolls for their amusement.

The story, or state-of-mind, was inspired by a kind of reversed version  of the old norse myth of a Changeling, only Jullies character is not the troll-child growing up in a human environment, but the stolen human child, growing up in the mountains amongst  her abductors.

For this piece Eyvind Gulbrandsen was revarded a special price from the Danish Arts Foundation.

Statens Kunstfonds tonekunstudvalg for klassisk musik 2012

tildeler værket “The Changeling” en præmiering på 50.000,- DKr

”Med The Changeling har Eyvind Gulbrandsen skabt en sjælden smuk og gribende installation, hvor det auditive og det visuelle smelter sammen til et samlet mystisk hele. Musikken er primært vokallyd, der kommer fra de i rummet opstillede mannequindukker, der bliver levendegjort af både lyden og den dæmpede belysning. En koncertinstallation hvor performance - i form af Jullie Hjetland Jensen - naturligt glider ind i et værk, hvor lytteren i sin gang mellem figurerne selv er med til at forme sin oplevelse af værket.”

The set-up before the premiere: