Donnimaar. O Tilli (postponed)

Kunsthal Charlottenborg and ((O)) Gong Tomorrow present Donnimaar. O Tilli:

The Danish queen Dagmar captures a mermaid. She wants the mermaid to tell her fortune. The mermaid concedes, but throws a curse in revenge: The Dane will mother three sons, but will soon die for them. The first will be the Danish king, the second wear a crown. The third become the wisest man, receiving news from distant towns. Now Dagmar begs the Danish king to let the mermaid live. But he rejects her plea: “She has sunk my seven ships!”

Dagmar faints, the king gives in. They return her to the sea. The mermaid sits atop a wave, the queen is crying woefully. The mermaid says: “Don’t cry for me. I have opened heaven’s gates for thee. The bells of heaven are ringing for thee, and my little children are longing for me. The angels of heaven are longing for thee, and the depths of the sea are open for me.” *

On May 25, Marie Kølbæk Iversen performs songs from her upcoming album Donnimaar. O Tilli to the accompaniment of Katinka Fogh Vindelev. The album engages the idea of merpeople as humans’ ontological others: Dwellers of those natural environments that are uninhabitable to humans—underwater, underground—and ciphers of cultures and peoples that have been barred from entering the present.

In this latter modality, merpeople represent the spirits of the physically or culturally ‘dead,’ who—from their subjugated position in the netherworlds—continue to haunt the living in their desire for life and revenge.

Kølbæk Iversen’s Donnimaar-project is based on mythic narratives from her Midwest Jutlandic home region. The material was gathered by Evald Tang Kristensen in the late 19th century, among others from Marie Kølbæk Iversen’s great-great-great-great-grandmother Johanne Thygesdatter.

The album title, Donnimaar. O Tilli, is drawn from the above-referenced song about the mermaid, who, having been abducted from the water by Danish royalty, is dancing ‘o tilli,’ that is: Wriggling on the floor like a fish.

Time: Thursday May 25 19.00-21.00
Place: Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kongens Nytorv 1, 1050 København K
Tickets: Buy your ticket in advance on Billetto for 50 DKK, which is the price of a ticket to visit Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Your ticket to the event is also an entrance ticket to Kunsthal Charlottenborg during opening hours on May 25. Buy your ticket here: https://billetto.dk/…/performance-pladerelease…

Bio: As Donnimaar, Kølbæk Iversen (*1981, Herning, DK) has performed in exhibitions and at venues such as PS/Y at LUX London; TEDtalks on Acid at Kunsthal Charlottenborg; Soil. Sickness. Society at Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm, and O – Overgaden. In 2021, she launched her first album, Donnimaar. Vredens Børn, on MoBC Records.

She is a 2008-graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art and her work has been shown in national and international exhibitions including Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo; Kai Art Centre, Tallinn; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; the 11th Gwangju Biennial: The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju; Biennale de l’image en movement at Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, and the MONA, Tasmania. She is represented in private and public collections, among them the Danish National Gallery, Malmö Art Museum, Arken Museum, AROS Museum, and the Danish Arts Foundation.

About ((O)) Gong Tomorrow

Gong Tomorrow is a festival for contemporary music. The festival presents a wildly growing program of experimental music, sound art and newly written works that show ways to feel connected to complex presents. Further info here.

* “Æ hawwfrååw hon danser o tilli” (“Havfruen hun danser o tilli”). Sammenfatning ved Marie Kølbæk Iversen på baggrund af version nedskrevet af Evald Tang Kristensen. Tilbageoversættelse til Ørre-jysk ved Michael Ejstrup.