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culture
The Copenhagen Post cphpost.dk
7 - 13 December 2012
O
n a Monday morning earlier this year, a short skinny man was riding the S-train to Farum. As he tried to get a seat at the back of a packed carriage, his gaze fell upon the cover of the in-train magazine featuring a charming, assertive-looking woman in her late 20s. The man in question was Patrick Kingsley, a young British journalist. At only 23, he’s a features writer for The Guardian, and was recently voted one of the top five young journalists to watch in 2012. He was in Denmark writing a book about contemporary Danish culture. The woman on the cover, meanwhile, was none other than Enhedslisten’s Johanne SchmidtNielsen, a popular figure on the Danish left. Kingsley had received his first cultural shock. “In the UK the idea of a train company interviewing a big leftie is out of this world!” he said. Subsequently King-
Let’s see, a Nørrebro cafe, a bike ... yep, Patrick Kingsley seems to have found ‘Danishness’ alright
kroner a month – less than twice as much as what a rubbish collector earns (34,400 kr). “It’s staggering that the gap between the rich and the poor is so small,” Kingsley said. “Equality isn’t absolute, but Denmark is more equal than many other places, except that immigrants to a certain extent are left outside that overall equality.” Among the people Kingsley interviewed, he was especially struck by his conversations with Fatih Alev, the chairman of the Danish Islamic Centre. “Alev gave me such a fascinating insight into what it is like to be a Dane who has lived all his life in Denmark and yet
Depth in class yields a beauty every night Franziska Bork Petersen
The Sleeping Beauty HHHHHH
A
beautiful production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ is back at the Royal Danish Ballet as this year’s Christmas ballet. The contemporary interpretation by one of today’s most-in-demand ballet choreographers, Britain’s Christopher Wheeldon, premiered two years ago and will once again be performed by the company’s current top-class dancers. The production is traditional – Wheeldon’s choreography is often close to the 1890 original that Marius Petipa’s created at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg – without being stale. While the fairytale is left intact, Wheeldon has added a framework plot that links the tale about Sleeping Beauty to the real contemporary world. Instead of someone opening a fairytale book and the characters in it coming to life, this link is created by means of a painting of Sleep-
ing Beauty. A young boy sees it during a museum visit with his family, returns years later and is invited into the canvas. Upon entering the fairytale world, he gradually transforms into Prince Desiré who kisses Sleeping Beauty and awakes her and the court. The danced fairytale is visually anchored in the era it was written by Charles Perrault. Scenographer Jérôme Kaplan evokes French baroque and designs a Versailles-inspired court with baroque costumes for the courtiers. Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting adds depth to the two-dimensionally drawn scenography. In addition, a subtle video projection animates the stage when it, for instance, lets a hawthorn hedge grow to indicate the 100 years of sleep. Amy Watson, who played Sleeping Beauty in the re-premiere, is a magnificent principal who has been with the Royal Danish Ballet for over a decade. However, she is almost too sure of herself in her dancing and dramatic in her expression to convincingly dance the
role of a 16-year-old. She is technically superb, but becomes truly dazzling only in the scene when she pricks herself with the spindle and falls asleep. Her coquettish refusal to drop the spindle, the subsequent gradual loss of control over her movements and ensuing panic is a fabulous example of telling a scene through extraordinarily expressive movement. Gregory Dean makes a fine and very princely prince. But it is Jonathan Chmelensky as the Bluebird who really has the big night. His remarkable combination of agility and balance make the audience’s frenetic cheers well-deserved. It might seem wasteful to cast outstanding dancers like the Alban Lendorf or Ulrik Birkkjær in roles that require almost no dancing. Although they are scheduled to dance Prince Desiré on other nights, they are not the only ones to whom such reasoning applies. However, the company’s corps de ballet is mainly made up of dancers who are so superb that a smaller part seems
still feels somewhat an outsider,” Kingsley said. “He was very illuminating on the challenges that immigrants and Muslims face. It was an eye-opener to the perhaps slightly more hollow side of Denmark, which was very moving.” His time spent working on the book led Kingsley to believe that Denmark, and ‘Danishness’, is changing. “The people who are making Denmark really exciting at the moment are in a way also subverting what it is to be Danish. People like Rene Redzepi and Bjarke Ingels aren’t Danish in the traditional way of believing yourself to be no better than
anybody else. They see no reason for Denmark to remain a backwater. That ambition didn’t exist 20 years ago.” Kingsley contends that one of the challenges Denmark currently faces is to figure out how to maintain its sense of togetherness whilst trying to branch out and be a player on the world stage. “Danishness evolves with time,” he said. “Many people aren’t digging the whole Jante Law thing anymore and are basically creating a different kind of Danishness. Meanwhile, if Denmark continues to be wary of newcomers, it risks losing one of its greatest tenets.” While Kingsley’s book may have some harsh words regarding Danes’ ability to open up towards others, it ultimately casts the country in a fairly positive light. “A couple of Scots got in touch with me about the book,” he said. “They have been inspired by it because it shows people coming from a small country what you can do to put yourself on the map, be it focussing on low budget films or the local food scene. It’s possible to turn all that into something that makes people really excited about your country.”
Amy Watson: “dazzling” in the prickly spindle scene, average elsewhere
ill-suited to them: it faces the luxurious dilemma that it doesn’t have anyone obvious for the notso-challenging parts. For some time now, ballet master Nikolai Hübbe has been giving corps de ballet dancers the chance to prove themselves in leading parts. In addition, training them in the Danish Bournonville style – which is known for its expressiveness – has helped foster a troupe of outstandingly charming artists. As a consequence, regular ballet-
goers will in each performance remember a fair proportion of those who appear in smaller roles as last month’s dazzling leads. So there are three reasons to see this production of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’. See it if you’ve never been to the ballet, see it if you’ve seen a hundred other productions and think you are done with the piece, and see it if you’ve seen this version already, because with so many fabulous dancers sharing the lead roles, it’s differently splendid every night.
Erik Scavenius? DR/Bjarne Bergius Hermansen
Intrigued by ‘The Killing’, Patrick Kingsley explores the positives and negatives of the country’s national culture in his new book, ‘How to be Danish’
sley went back to his seat and picked up a newspaper whose main article was about Roskilde Dagbladet’s – by now infamous – headline: ‘N****r steals car from 80-year old’. “Within only a few minutes I was exposed to a very progressive and a very conservative side of Denmark,” he later observed. It has now been over six months since that train ride and Kingsley is back in Denmark in order to promote his newly-published book, ‘How to be Danish’. We met up with him in a Nørrebro café for a brief chat. After becoming interested in Danish culture after watching ‘The Killing’ (‘Forbrydelsen’), Kingsley set out to investigate key aspects of contemporary Danish culture, including design, architecture, food, transport, integration and the welfare state. ‘How to be Danish’ is based on a series of interviews with over 70 Danes including Noma co-founder Claus Meyer, ‘The Killing’ screenwriter Søren Sveistrup, and fashion designer Henrik Vibskov. What most impressed the young British journalist in his research was the level of equality in Danish society. According to Statistics Denmark, Danish lawyers earn on average 54,700
Henrik Stenberg
Vasilis Panagiotopoulos
vasilis panagiotopoulos
Guardian journalist tries to shed light on ‘Danishness’ Who is
linn lemhag Or was! He was a Danish politician who died 50 years ago. Most notably he was prime minister during the German Occupation in the Second World War. So … why are we reading about this man now? Despite being dead for half a century, Scavenius remains one of Denmark’s most controversial politicians (Pia Kjærsgaard aside) and last month the city denied him a street in a new all-PM-named area of Islands Brygge in Copenhagen. Why is he so controversial? Scavenius is remembered as being a Nazi collaborator. To be fair, he did negotiate the terms of the German Occupation in 1941, a year after it had started. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, another former PM, called him naïve and immoral. Scavenius would have called him an ungrateful wuss. Umm, why? Scavenius, who became PM after the former government was dismissed, didn’t care much for politicians who went through the trouble of actually being elected. He saw himself as Denmark’s greatest protector, and many historians praise him for getting Denmark through the war as well as it did. Ideologically-blind and a bit of an arse, he saved a lot of Danish lives nevertheless. But still no street? Nope. The Copenhagen Board of Street Names says he is too controversial and that nobody would want to live on Scaveniusvej. Aksel Larsen – the former leader of Denmark’s Communist Party and a founder of Socialistisk Folkeparti − gets to keep his street name despite being a loyal supporter of Stalin and covering up his colleagues’ deaths at the hands of the Soviets.
Online this week Julekalender, 50 years old this year, adds an extra day
Wacko Jacko’s locks generate one thriller of a competition
Desert rockers to grace Roskilde stage again
The Christmas Julekalender show has been entertaining audiences with its tales of festive cheer since 1962, and on Saturday, both DR1 and TV2 began broadcasting their versions. While TV2 is showing two repeats – ‘Jul I Valhal’ for the kids and ‘The Julekalender’ for the adults – DR’s ‘Julestjerner’
Most people are content to let old locks wash down the drain. They’d also prefer monetary prizes for winning competitions. But for one Danish online gamer, the mainstream methods didn’t quite cut it. In an online competition last week hosted by BestOnlineCasino.com, he won a roulette
US desert rockers Queens of the Stone Age will in 2013 make their third Roskilde appearance in ten years, promoting a new album that frontman Josh Homme promises will harken back to the band’s earlier albums, with guest drummer Dave Grohl (Foo
(Christmas Stars) is brand new and for the first time ever includes 25 episodes. Written by scriptwriting veterans Michael Wikke and Steen Rasmussen, the show follows the exploits of a family who have recently relocated from the city to the countryside and will spend December unlocking the mysteries of Christmas.
ball made from a sample of Michael Jackson’s hair, bought for $10,871 at an auction last December after it was pilfered from a New York hotel. The gamer now plans to auction it off and donate the proceeds to charity. So while the King of Pop is long dead, his hair continues to help good causes.
Fighters, Nirvana) on board. Meanwhile, French turntable quartet C2C and the American electronica producer Daedelus have also been confirmed. Tickets are now on sale, costing 1,790 kroner until March 1, and 1,890 kroner thereafter.
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