The Mermaid Trilogy - metaphors and metamorphoses
The Book of the Mermaid (2009) is about Desire as longing, loving and raving craving. About still waiting to get out there in actually inter-action.
When I Was A Soldier(2014) is about Desire when one is getting out there and fight for survival.
Becoming Human (2015) is about becoming human with Desire as a basic human condition
The Book Of The Mermaid (2009)
The Book of the Mermaid is a concept album about desire, destiny and transformation.
When I Was A Soldier (2014)
What would have happened if the Mermaid had not been transformed into an airy-fairy spirit?
Becoming Human (2015)
Using voice and piano I explore the transformation of the Mermaid becoming human.
Longing, loving and raving-craving make one changes and conquers oneself in order to fulfil one’s desires.
The longing for love and life, – feeling-being alive, pushes people around in the corners of their minds. Sometimes they do extreme things. Sometimes they have to save themselves. Nobody else does.
In the fairy tale The Mermaid dismembers herself in order to become human and be with the Prince she loves. She cuts out her tongue. Together with her beautiful singing voice, she trades her fishtail for a pair of human legs. She is now speechless but though it hurts she can dance more beautifully than anyone.
But the Mermaid fails. She doesn’t win the Prince. Actually her desire never comes into action with anyone.
The Mermaid shows great courage, willpower and ability to love. She transcends herself and achieves transformation. She also dooms herself into self-destruction.
Is her quest a heroic deed for love or an addiction to desire?
On The Book of the Mermaid the voice is given back to The Mermaid. A voice singing a woman’s desire.
What would have happened if the Mermaid had not been transformed into an airy-fairy spirit?
The album When I Was A Soldier responds to illustrate how the Mermaid’s life could have been and already to some extend had become.
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is caused by war and war-like experiences and traumas. That we all know by now. It seems though that civil life is very stressful as well. Many people have become soldiers in managing their own lives in a world that constantly increases demands for discipline, loyalty and total engagement. Daily life is of course not the same thing as war. So interesting that people living ordinary lives sometimes develop the same symptoms.
When A Was A Soldier is an independent interpretation and elaboration of the fairy tale about the Mermaid. However, this album can also be regarded as a successor to or an extension of the album The Book of the Mermaid.
Using voice and piano I explore the transformation of the Mermaid becoming human. The Mermaid is the main character of the Danish fairytale The Little Mermaid (1837) written by H.C. Andersen.
In this story the Mermaid makes the transition from being mermaid to become human. She represents the human experience of becoming human – entering language and order of society.
I believe her story is about the human condition we all enter when being born.
The Mermaid also represents a particular female experience in a society where women’s desire and capability for acting out that desire is amputated – as the Mermaid in her body is amputated to become human: She cuts out her tongue and trades her voice for human legs. They hurt when she moves but she dances beautifully.
The Roy Hart Approach of Voice Work is sometimes referred to as exploring The Human Voice. The album Becoming Human draws on my experiences working with the Roy Hart approach to voice training.
Becoming Human is the final album in The Mermaid Trilogy.