elegier over jorden

‘elegier over jorden’ – a reinterpretation of the classical myth of Persephone during Aarhus Festuge.

Experience soprano and composer Katinka Fogh Vindelev’s performance concert, ‘Elegies on Earth’ – a reinterpretation of the classical myth of Persephone during Aarhus Festuge.

Aarhus Festuge and Kind Of Opera, in collaboration with Godsbanen, invite you to an alternative birth narrative in the form of the cross-disciplinary performance concert ‘elegies over the earth’ by soprano and composer Katinka Fogh Vindelev, based on Sofie Isager Ahl’s new collection of poems, staged in collaboration with choreographer Marie Topp.

The performance concert will be presented in the Rå Hal at Godsbanen as part of the exhibition ‘Det Levende Ler – Skab’ with Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen. Here, Katinka Fogh Vindelev will perform and sing alongside 35 singers from the Midtvest Girls’ Choir, accompanied by three string players.

Birth and regeneration

In the context of the exhibition *Det Levende Ler – Skab* with Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, ‘elegies on the earth’ unfold as a modern primal narrative. Here, the performance concert’s narrative of birth, earth, care and regeneration enters into dialogue with the exhibition, which, as a sensory total installation, invites the audience into Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s artistic practice through materials, creative power and collaborative creative processes.

The performance concert unfolds as a musical ritual, drawing a parallel between birth and nature’s regeneration. Here, myth, poetry, music and the body are woven together in an attempt to re-enchant our relationship with the earth. Not by romanticising nature, but by emphasising connection, responsibility and care, and by creating spaces where hope does not stand in contrast to darkness, but sprouts from its very heart.

Once upon a time, nature was sacred. The earth was the mother of all things, and the cycle of life was understood as animate and reciprocal. With the spread of Christianity, notions of nature’s inherent power were supplanted, and for more than 2,000 years a fundamental worldview has prevailed in which everything is thought to have been created from above. ‘Elegies on the Earth’ takes regeneration as its artistic starting point and explores how we might re-establish a connection with that from which we have become alienated: the earth, the collective, the life-giving.

The work asks not only what we have lost, but how we can begin to nurture rather than deplete. It unfolds as a new myth of regeneration centred on Persephone. Abducted to the underworld, she loses her bearings, dissolves and decomposes in the dark soil. But in this decay, something new sprouts. Her transformation and return are painful, but not necessarily tragic. They hold both hope and new life.

You can step into the hall and let yourself be absorbed by ‘elegies on the earth’, presented as part of the exhibition ‘The Living Clay – Create with Anne’

Marie Carl-Nielsen, on 4 September at 7.30 pm and on 5 September at 4.00 pm.