Through layers of legislation, political movements, wars, key events, and shifting migration patterns, my map uncovers how ‘the immigrant’ became synonymous with ‘the Muslim’ in Danish politics starting from the 1960s—tracing the contours of exclusion as they were drawn, redrawn, and hardened over time. To the right, it is traced how the anti-Muslim discourse paved the way for the legitimisation of demolishing multiple racialised neighbourhoods across Denmark and thereby displacing large groups of racialised individuals. The cartoons work to show questions, discomforts, and realisations that emerged as I confronted urban racism in Denmark through a white lens.
This research is about the implementation of elements derived by the musical environment of the
Zurna-Davul duet into a stringed instrument named Laouto.
Although, in Greece, Laouto is mainly used
for accompaniment roles close to violins, clarinets, singers and lyras, the potential and the possibilities of
this instrument seems to have changed given that enough musicians use it to perform even complicated
and demanding melodies. In any case, I am really glad that I dived in the process of revealing and
formulating the solo aspect of the Laouto in association with this distinct musical environment.
During this research, I experimented and tried to find ways to utilize elements of this duet on Laouto;
those elements were the Zurna phrasing, including ornaments, Davul phrasing, the songs’ structure and
rhythm flexibility - rhythm plasticity. Furthermore, practicing the idioms’ repertoire, playing, improvising as
well as composing over odd rhythms such as 7/8, 9/8 and 11/8 while using the above mentioned elements
was part of that research. As my main reference about this style and idiom I used recordings conducted
by the Ethnography process in the city of Naousa. Last but not least, in this musical environment dance constitutes an indivisible aspect.
The purpose of this text is to reflect on my experiences as an active member of a culturally diverse ensemble called Faso Kan. The primary source is the artistic work of Faso Kan during the years 2006-2020. The ensemble worked intensively during 2020-21, resulting in an album completed in September 2021. My main contribution to the album was adapting and arranging traditional West African rhythms for the drum kit and performing them in the studio. This study attends to cover different aspects of that process, particularly the drummer’s point of view. I will also cover the collaboration-based music-making approaches that I encountered while working with Faso Kan. Although Faso Kan´s repertoire consists mainly of traditional pieces from Burkina Faso, the working methods resulted in music representing several musical cultures. The study is primarily based on artistic work, but I will also reflect on the related experiences of other researchers and musicians.
Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.
