REPORT INTENSIVE COURSE 2013

TEN - Teacher Education Network

BERGEN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

23. - 27. September 2013

Norse mythology through drama,

dance, music and art

1. The Background for the Intensive course 2013

The Teacher Education Network (TEN) constructed a project with a program of three intensive

courses, planned for the period 2011-2013. All three courses had the same heading: Mythology,

culture and identity in the Baltic and Nordic countries - each year with a different host with a

different focus and sub heading. The first in the trilogy of courses received Nordplus funding and was

held in Reykjavik in September 2011 at the University of Iceland, School of Education. The title of the

course was Norse mythology through music, drama and arts and the focus of the course was on

Norse mythology through music, drama and crafts. The special topic selected was the old Norse

poem Völuspá about the creation of the earth, its destruction and subsequent resurrection. Students

who completed the course could earn 3 ECTS credits for their active participation. A diploma

acknowledging this was provided for participants upon completion of the course.

The participants in the Nordic mythology course of 2011 were bachelor students in teacher

education from 8 countries: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and

Sweden. There were also teachers participating who came from all of the above nationalities. The

criteria for selecting students was decided at each institution and there were on average 2-4

students from each institution. However, there were 22 Icelandic students participating. The local

coordinator for the course in Iceland was dr. Helga Rut Gudmundsdottir, assistant professor in music

education at the University of Iceland.

2. Intensive course 2013 - the planning of the course

The second course in the trilogy was originally planned to be in Slagelse in Denmark September 2012.

The title was Norse mythology through drama, music and art. The new internal leadership in Slagelse

cancelled the plans in August due to problems with the self-financing part of the course. As a

coordinator I suggested that my own institution could organize course number two, but a year later

in order to plan for the course in a proper way: provide accept from my leaders, have the self-

financing clarified, adapt the program to the institution and include local and external teachers in the

planning process. Locally I included Anne Paulsen, teacher of fine arts and Siv Ødemotland, teacher

of drama.

The three of us decided very early that the main focus of the course program should be on making a

multimedia performance including drama, music and visual arts in the big hall of our institution. This

performance should be open to the public on the last day of the intensive week which we decided to

be week 39, last week of September 2013.

We decided to apply for special support from the professional Media center at the university college.

We wanted to have a professional design for all the papers we would distribute (invitations, material,

power points, posters etc.) and also big pictures as a background on the walls for the performance.

We also wanted the Media center to make a professional film about the course, a reportage with

interviews of teachers and students mixed with small cuts from the different presentations and

workshops. We wanted also a film documenting the performance from beginning till end. With a

hard competition getting such financial support at our college we were very happy to receive 245

working hours from the Media center. The three of us also were granted with support for planning

the course (travelling and work hours) and work hours for other local teachers to be involved.

We included also a new subject in our course-concept: dance. With including dance the performance

would be even more independent of using spoken words. We changed the course title to Norse

mythology through drama, dance, music and art. We included the dance teacher of our college,

Karen Foss, in our planning, and we included a music teacher, Stein Bakke.

Our budget allowed for one teacher and two students from each institution in the network. The

institutions in Slagelse, Åbo and Siauliai had for different reasons no students or teachers for the

course, while other institutions wanted to send more teachers and students. From our own

institution we decided to include the teacher students who had in depth studies in music , they had

also dance as their subject. Two of these students were included in the planning process from

February 2013 . We tried to involve the practice schools and -teachers of these music teacher

students but since the performance for practical reasons had to be in the afternoon of a Friday this

did not work. In the end we had 59 teachers and students from 8 institutions in Iceland, Denmark,

Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Norway.

In addition to the planning meetings with local students, teachers and the Mediacenter, we also had

planning meetings and mail-exchanging with external teachers (in Copenhagen in December 2012 ,

Bergen in May 2013 ). A web site was constructed in June in order to involve the students in the

preparation for the course. On the web site the students could find a link to the topic, learn about

the Norwegian Wights and receive all the important practical information before they arrived at the

course.

The very last planning meeting with the teachers was in Bergen on Sunday the 22nd of September.

The purpose was to discuss the details of the course program. We planned to have planning

meetings with the teachers and student representatives every afternoon, but found this to be more

time consuming than efficient for the purpose. We decided that only a little representative group of

teachers and students should be attending at the meeting in the afternoons. The outline of the

course as presented to the teachers and students a month earlier and at the last planning meeting

was in other respects followed literally during the week.

3. The implementation of the Intensive course – day one: the inspiration day

The course started Monday morning with an opening procedure: two music colleagues, Stein Bakke

and Anne Kristine Wallace Turøy played some Norwegian folk tunes in their own arrangements on

trumpet and piano while the choir of the music students conducted by Jon Blickfelt performed some

choir music a cappella related to the topic of Norse mythology. The Dean of the Faculty of Education,

Per Arne Mickelsen, had some welcoming words and the network coordinator, Torunn Bakken Hauge

had some information about the program of the week and presented the teachers and the students.

As course leaders the three of us representing three different subjects, had a multimedia lecture on

Norwegian Wights giving each wight a characteristic through traditional stories, pictures and music .

We also added some modern expressions and some personal stories from our childhood. The seven

wights were carefully selected to be representative for the whole country at land and sea and both

genders. They were: trolls, tusser, huldra, elves, nøkken, fossegrim and draugen. See attachment for

information material about the wights.

After our presentation we had a concert with one of the best musicians and fiddlers in Norway today,

Nils Økland. In addition to presenting traditional harding fiddle music and other fiddle music from

Norway with reference to the wights in different kinds of tuning ( huldre-tuning, Fossegrim-tuning

etc ) , he also played a couple of his own compositions inspired by nature phenomenons. The

audience was amazed, Økland gave the course a “peak experience”.

After lunch Siv Ødemotland had some drama exercises with the intention of “getting to know each

other”. Anne Paulsen challenged all students to build habitats for the different wights using the

outdoor facilities outside the school. Some extraordinarily habitats were created. Several habitats

are included in the film.

Landart - a habitat for the elves

In the evening the professional theatre group Bergen Byspill had a performance where they also

included children. The performance took place in the old medieval parts of Bergen at the Hanseatic

Bryggen. See film.

All students and teachers form abroad lived in the same place, at Montana Youth Hostel. This hostel

is cheap and is situated up in the mountain area behind our institution at Landås. The participants

were very happy to stay at the same place and to share rooms for a very reasonable price.

4. Tuesday till Friday - warm ups for everybody every day

From day two till day five the main focus should be on the creative process: making a play, making

music, choreography, costumes and scenography for the multimedia performance on Friday.

However , every day we had a warm up sequence for everyone 30 minutes in the big hall. We felt it

was a great challenge to keep the course with all its 59 participants and 6 workshops together. With

having this warm up every day , everybody had a good start and some inspiration for further work in

their workshops . On Tuesday morning the music teacher Annli Falk from Denmark had some music

and dance warm up. Her rhythmic hip hop dance became a hit during the week. On Wednesday the

course leader Torunn Bakken Hauge, after some vocal warm up, introduced a medieval nature

mystical ballad: Villemann and Magnhild with a story related to one of the Norwegian wights:

Nøkken . She taught the course to sing in Norwegian language the two lines that are repeated in each

verse. She also taught the participants to dance in a Færøy - style, like a snake moving in the

landscape to the rote song between her solosinging and the choir of the participants . On Thursday

morning two Icelandic drama teachers, Kristin Olafsdottir and Åsa Ragnarsdottir cooperated on

instructing some Icelandic drama exercises, and on Friday we all were introduced to some Estonian

warm up exercises by Kristi Kiilu , followed by some old traditional songs, also with refrains to repeat

for the participants – in Estonian language.

5. Tuesday till Friday - creative working on SPOR

On Tuesday, after the warm up, the entire group with students and teachers were introduced to the

main task of the week - making a performance with the title SPOR. No story line were given, only the

characteristics of the wights. Students and teachers were divided into workshops: one drama and

dance group, one music group and one scenography and costume group.

The huge music group found it practical to divide itself into three sub- groups: one vocal group , one

percussion group and one band group. No guidelines were given to the three music groups apart

from composing characteristic music by improvising. They were encouraged to talk as little as

possible, go directly to the task. In the end of the day the three groups met to present their ideas to

each other . All groups were fascinated not only by the result of their own work, they were also

surprised positively by the ideas of the other groups. After this presentation the groups made some

decisions for the following days: voice and percussion should put their ideas together and make

music together, while band could continue on its own. Some wights were taken care of by voice/

percussion group, while others by the band.

In the drama and dance group on Tuesday exercises were used to understand and express the

characteristica of the wights. How do they behave? How do they move? In the costume group focus

was put on the quality and colours of the materials that had been bought and presented. The

scenography group consisted in the end only of one teacher, the Danish teacher Frants Mathiesen.

He had long trips into the nature and mountain Ulrikken to take pictures for the performance. His

work raised the standard of the performance. In the evening of the second day some Norwegian

students invited the rest of the course out for an evening meal in the town.

During the week students and teachers representing the different institutions and workshops were

interviewed by journalists from the Media center. The media center also filmed in the different

warm ups and workshops.

Some teachers and students were a bit frustrated by the fact that we had no story line. On Tuesday

afternoon at the meeting between representatives for the groups this frustration was a fact. The

original idea was that the drama group should work on this and then the stage director should try to

sew this together. On Wednesday morning after the warm up we had a couple outlines for a story.

Two Danish students wrote an outline for a story independently of the drama group on Tuesday

night introducing the mythological human being Volven as a story teller in the play. A human being

was also added and this human being got the main role. The stage director also had an outline that

was built on the work in the drama group. The students were very fascinated by the outline of the

two students and suggested that we should use it. The stage director accepted a compromise

between the two outlines.

The rest of Wednesday was used for working in the workshops. In the end of the day the music

groups moved down to the big hall with the dance and drama group and presented their musical

ideas, mostly on iPhone. Surprisingly everything could seem to fit together.

6. From Thursday - coordinating the groups in the big hall

On Thursday the music group moved permanently down to the big hall to work together with the

drama and dance group. First the vocal and percussion group. It took a long while to set up the band

with all the outfit needed (microphones, amplifiers etc.) so the vocal and percussion group started

this coordination work . After that the band group had their coordination work. After a while there

was also some overlapping with band and percussion and vocal group. A synthesizer also became

very popular in both music groups. Much time on Thursday were used on detail instructions with the

drama and dance students. After lunch on Thursday the stage director started her work. Some

musicians found it interesting to follow her work. Other musicians were a bit frustrated that most of

her work focused on the drama and dance group and very little on them. They used the breaks for

solve their own internal musical challenges. But it was a highlight to experience the results of the

coordinating work.

The music group in the big hall for coordination work

Another highlight on Thursday was also the costumes that started halfway to appear on the dancers

and drama people when they practiced. Everybody had been asked to bring a black T shirt and a

black tight since we had the intension of having everybody on stage at the performance. In spite of

the fact that we did not have time to go through the whole performance from beginning to end as

originally planned, everybody, though very tired, seemed to be positively surprised by the quality of

the performance and looked forward to the performance with audience on Friday.

The stage director instructing the elves

The two trolls and the human practicing together

7. Friday - the performance day

The performance took place at the Faculty of Education, big hall on Friday at 1 pm. The hall was both

used as a stage and as place for audience. A diagonal line had been drawn through the floor with a

white visible tape in the beginning of the week, dividing performance area form audience area,

inviting the participants to think in an interactive way with the audience. Even the musicians were

encouraged to think interactively, not only to stand in the same place all the time. Three

photographers from the Media center filmed the whole performance from the beginning till end . We

wanted to have different perspectives in the film .

The audience had been invited weeks earlier. A poster was put up on walls and doors in the Faculty

of Education and on internet the internet pages. See attachment ! It was, however, a great surprise

for the course participants that so many teachers and students had found their way. There were not

enough chairs, so people had to stand behind and sit on the floor in the front.

The performance was extremely well received. The audience was very impressed by the quality of

the performance, this without knowing that it was an open creative process for only 3–4 days. They

only knew that it was a Nordplus intensive course in TEN and that there were 59 participants from

the Nordic and Baltic countries. As with the Norwegian fiddler on the first day, this performance got

“top score 10” on the rating list by most of the participants . The participants were very tired but

also very happy. See attachment.

The vocal group with their trance joik with human being in the middle

The three tusser with the human being

Hungry trolls

Three huldre and one human being

Elves dancing The human being wants to become a pop star and learn to

play from Fossegrimen.

After the show we had an evaluation, everyone should fill out a form, and in the evening we had a

party. The party opened with a Huldredrink. After that we had a ceremony with the Nordplus

Diplomas. All participants who had participated actively 100% during the week got a Participation

certificate (attached). During the week the participants had been encouraged to take pictures and

film cuts and send it electronically to a committee for participating in a competition. The pictures and

the winners were presented at the party and as rewards they got small trolls. All countries were

invited to bring some folklore with songs and dances into the party, and thus it became a memorable

night for everyone.

Most teachers and students were very satisfied with the course. The evaluation forms are full of

positivity. All guest students were happy, having had an “unforgetful” week. So also with the guest

teachers. The two Latvian teachers were so inspired that they suggested to organize the third course

in the project focusing on Baltic folklore and myths in Riga next year. We think this is a good idea

since Siauliau in Lithuania due to maternity leave of the partner representative in TEN withdraw from

the project this year. We are a bit uncertain whether University of Siauliai will continue in the

network or not. We have got an alternative Lithuanian institution this year but we think it might be a

little too early to involve them this much in the project.

The weather was nice all week so the visitors could also see the town in the evenings. The guests

lived at Montana, a Youth Hostel up in the hillside behind our institution. Some of the guests walked

up to the top of mount Ulrikken in the evenings, the highest mountain around Bergen city.

Attachments:

2 Films:

1. Norse mythology through drama, dance, music and art - SPOR (about the course )

2. SPOR ( the multimedia performance ) .

Course program.

A poster to invite audience

An invitation to primary school teachers and classes.

Norwegian wights - Preparation material sent to the participants in advance.

TEN course evaluation form

Participation certificate 3ECTS