Debut Concert – Louise Schrøder, composition

With this concert Louise Schrøder makes her debut from the soloist class at RAMA.

Louise Schrøder is finishing her studies in composition on the Advanced Postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with this concert. The course is the highest level at the academy. The concert features the world premiere of the work CYKLUS.

CYKLUS is a work by Louise Schrøder that uses the menstrual cycle as an artistic framework. It is an interdisciplinary work of music, dance and multimedia, in which each phase of the menstrual cycle is given its own sound, body and mood.

The work is an artistic translation of the body’s biology – an interpretation of what it might feel like to live with a menstrual cycle. It addresses the taboo that still surrounds the physical and emotional experiences that can accompany the cycle. For many, menstruation in particular can be experienced as something shameful and deeply private.

At the same time, the work insists that the menstrual cycle concerns us all, regardless of whether we menstruate ourselves or not. The work is therefore a movement from the internal to the external – the private is made collective and the biological is made poetic.

“It is only in the last year or so that I myself have begun to truly understand what happens in the body throughout the different phases of the menstrual cycle. This has made me reflect on just how little we actually learn about something so fundamental to the human body – something that, for many people, plays a significant role in their everyday lives. Knowledge about the menstrual cycle wasn’t a natural part of my own school education, and much of what I know today I’ve had to seek out myself. That’s why the concert begins with a pre-concert talk in which Dr Ida Bergholdt Jul Christiansen talks about the menstrual cycle and the body’s biological processes. I will then talk about the piece and the process of interpreting the different phases within an artistic context.

– Louise Schrøder

You are welcome to attend the concert even if you haven’t taken part in the pre-concert talk. Both the pre-concert talk and the concert are free, and you can simply turn up without a ticket. Please arrive in good time.

CYKLUS is supported by Koda Kultur and Aarhus City Council.