In the first semester, the students on the program worked on a co-creation project with theater people. On this page you can also read about other examples of co-creation.
Theater project with NTL
In the first semester of the new degree – i.e. in autumn 2023 – the students have worked intensively with two directors and choreographers, Alice Occhiali and Valerio Peroni, from the Nordic Theater Laboratory in Holstebro and with five international actors in residence at NTL.
Together they have explored the theme “Elsewhere” and given the theme a theatrical life. Along the way, musicians and actors have exchanged skills from each of their artistic practices and challenged themselves and each other to work with visual arts, music and drama, regardless of their own artistic starting point.
Through working in pairs and in groups, they have created a series of scenes together, which were presented at a work presentation on 8 December 2023 at NTL. In addition, the students have created completely new music for the project, based on the original NTL performance “Elsewhere”, which premiered on 23 November 2023.
See the video (in Danish) telling about the programme, with the NTL project as an example, on Youtube here.
Music and Health
For a number of years, the Acdemy has worked with the use of music in the health sector, e.g. as pain relief.
In November 2022, the project “Live music for intensive care patients”, of which RAMA is a significant part, won the Danish Nursing Council’s Athena prize. One or two students play “concerts” for individual patients in an intensive care unit at Aarhus University Hospital (AUH), and in parallel the nurses collect data to document the effect.
In an interview study, patients almost unanimously said that music gave them a break and peace from thought chaos and illness. At the same time, the collected data showed that the heart and respiration rates decreased, and both the pain experience and the measured stress level were reduced. In autumn 2023, the project will continue in the intensive care unit at Regionshospitalet Horsens.
Culture in everyday life
Holstebro Music School is part of the municipal project “Culture in Everyday Life,” which is an offering for citizens who are far from the labor market, typically socially vulnerable adults with, for example, mental challenges or issues with crime, substance abuse, and so on.
The purpose is for citizens to approach the labor market and once again become part of society. They should engage in a community with others who are like-minded, with whom they can converse and experience a process together, without their challenges or illnesses being the focus.
A program extends over 13 weeks with eight participants who meet for 2 hours weekly for various cultural activities, with a project responsible professional as a consistent guide. The activities include nature experiences, creativity/art therapy, historical experiences (Hjerl Hede), and music/singing, which the music school is responsible for.
In the musical part, the participants are encouraged to sing, play drums, or dance, especially by imitating what the instructor does. They may also engage in shouting to release tension and express aggression.