Stockholm Culture Night – cultural events, free of charge, all around town. Concerts, performances, open houses, etc.

Unfortunately when thousands of Stockholmers all decide to attend said events, the result is queues. Lots and lots of very long queues. In barely-above-zero temperatures.

I first went to Stockholm City Hall, but the broad queue there went along at least two sides of the building. It’s a public building, so I figured I could see it at another time.

Instead I took the metro to the Royal Institute of Technology, where the reactor hall – home to Sweden’s first, experimental nuclear reactor – was open to the public. The queue was again enormous, but at least I’d get to see something more unique at the end.

I stood for maybe forty minutes, by which time I estimated I’d gotten no more than a quarter of the way there, and I was freezing. No way I’d take two more hours of that.

Having given up on seeing the reactor hall, I opted for a (hopefully) safe bet and took the metro to Gamla Stan and the German Church for a concert. I got a seat (I believe everybody did), and it was indoors and warm, and I heard some lovely music, so at least there was that.

I had a pizza, which warmed me up yet a bit more, and considered my options. The reactor hall was still my top pick. I could either give it another try, or call it a night.

This time the queue was much thinner (and thus faster) and the end of it was well ahead of the point where I’d dropped out before. It still took over half an hour to get to the entrance, but it felt doable.

The reactor hall was a unique space indeed. It hasn’t housed an actual nuclear reactor since 1982, so now it’s just an odd-shaped cavernous space deep underground. For the past 17 years it’s been used as an events space, which has led to some interesting design choices. Tonight it was all lit up in blue, for example, and there’s an installation of mirrors along one side.

All the walls, floors and ceilings are covered in a grid of one-metre squares, for systematically measuring residual radioactivity after the reactor was shut down. The grid breaks up the otherwise monotonous surfaces and makes the hall look kind of like a magician’s experiment.

In the middle of the floor, there’s an irregularly-shaped concrete pit that used to house the actual reactor. Also all gridded up, of course.

Right next to the pit, there’s an antique Wurlitzer theatre organ, originally from the Skandia cinema. These days it’s hooked up to a computer, and we were treated to a loud and energetic performance.

We visited Vårsalongen, the Spring Salon, at Liljevalchs art museum. Like last year, the works are all available for viewing online.

Paintings, sculpture, videos, textile art, mixed media etc.

There were plenty of impressive paintings but not many that left a lasting impression.

This intricate drawing/painting of ptarmigan – where the feather patterns hide everything from miniature lemmings to snowflakes – captured our attention.

Whereas this bee-themed one mostly made me think that this could be turned into an embroidery.

There were several textile works that I liked. Especially those that utilized the possibilities of thread and fabric and yarn for something more than just a flat image.

These rocks were my favourites: from a distance they just look like lichen-covered rocks, but up close you can see that it’s all woven tapestry and embroidery. Soft pretending to be hard.

Others left us all puzzled. A rectangular hand-woven piece of fabric in black and white. (Next to it there was another one that was all yellow, with subtle variations in tone and shade.) What made this so special that it stood out from the thousands of other works submitted?

Yet other works sparked different kinds of questions. These five colour-coordinated stacks of men’s ties, seemingly just hung over a hook. How did they transport this work? Probably in parts. Who hung it up again? How did they ensure the ties were hung in the right order, and with acceptable (lack of) precision?

There were also numerous fun sculptures, including one of “seven kinds of cakes” in stone, inspired by a Swedish fika tradition.

If I had room for sculptures and knick-knacks in my home, I would rather like something fun like these fish:

More about the works above: Ptarmigan, Rocks, Fish, Cakes, White yarn thing, Ties, Black & White Weave. Couldn’t find anything for the bee, probably because it was part of the Young Spring Salon.

Painting Easter eggs, as per tradition.

Also as per tradition, Ingrid makes the most artistic ones, while Adrian makes the crazy ones. This year his eggs had body parts – a giant eye, an ear, a mouth.

Afterwards somehow the women ended up cooking dinner while the men snoozed.

Saw a notice in the weekend issue of Dagens Nyheter about a crafts & design fair and decided that it would make a nice outing.

Small-scale crafts of various kinds. Textiles, ceramics, fancy candles. Lots of prints, especially that kind with a slightly witty slogan.

Lovely venue with lots of space and natural light, but with pretty bad signage. I almost missed out on half the fair because I didn’t realize that there was a whole other floor, until I was heading out the door.

Ingrid is studying WW1 at school, and her teacher had recommended the class to visit the Army Museum to learn more. She asked for company, so I went with her to the museum.

The permanent exhibition was much smaller than I had expected given the teacher’s express recommendation. And it was very much about the army and its experience of the war, rather than about the bigger picture, the whys and the wherefores. Still, well presented and rather interesting, and we learned things. About the breakneck pace of technical innovation during the war, for example. And that guns are heavy.

We breezed through the rest of the 20th century and didn’t visit the section about older history at all. What we did spend time on, though, was a very topical temporary exhibition about historical relationships between Sweden and Ukraine.

I had no idea that there were such close ties between the royal families, and important political alliances. Starting Ingegerd Olofsdotter, daughter of a Swedish king, marrying the Grand Prince of Kiyv, which I had never heard about. Then Karl XII allying with Ukrainian leader Ivan Mazepa against Peter I of Russia – what I remember about the Great Northern War from my years in Swedish school is all about Sweden warring against Russia, with Ukraine coming up only tangentially as the place where the battle of Poltava took place. (And the parts of GNW that were discussed during my Estonian schooling were mostly those that took part in Estonia, i.e. the battle of Narva, and the fact that it brought with it the end of the “good old Swedish days” and the passing of Estonian territory from Swedish rule to Russian.)

I also (re-)learned that Gammalsvenskby, an old village in Ukraine of people of Swedish heritage, was originally settled by Estonian Swedes from Dagö/Hiiumaa. Sadly most of the village has been destroyed now in the war.

Víkingur Ólafsson played Bach’s Goldberg Variations. My favourite, by far, of the piano recital series. Wonderful experience.

Unlike the grumpy Russians, Ólafsson was personable and fun. Smiled, talked to the audience. Patted the piano to thank it when he was applauded at the end.

These things always end with extra numbers. They can barely even be called extras, these days – they almost always happen. But it was Ólafsson’s very definite opinion that the Goldberg variations were a whole, with a built-in encore in the shape of the aria being repeated at the end, and “you can’t just play a Nocturne by Chopin after it”.

Ballet evening at the Royal Opera.

Lukáš Timulak, Totality in Parts. Had all the right pieces but left me cold. During the intermission I was doubting myself, trying to figure out whether I just wasn’t in the right mindset for modern dance today, or maybe I was too tired from work to appreciate it properly.

It was just… boring. There is the “individual vs. group” angle, dancers moving as a group and then breaking out of it, but there really isn’t anything new about that. And I didn’t like the “language” it uses – and it’s definitely not just this work, it seems to be a certain style of dance that some choreographers prefer – that is all slouchy and dragging and “drawly”. I think of it as the “bad posture” school. The body seems to hang and be dragged along, rather than moving with energy. Pelvis forward, sternum back; leading with the elbow and letting the arm hang; toes turned inwards; shoulders rounded. A similar style is present in fashion photography as well, with a kind of world-weary, blasé, slouchy look.

The only thing I will really remember from Totality in Parts is the decoration on the far wall, with 512 lights arranged in a spiralling circle, pulsating and fading.

Then came Emma Portner’s “Bathtub ballet”, and all my doubts left me. Nothing wrong with my head; I just needed a better show to look at. Twenty-five bathtubs lined up on the stage, and seven dancers doing everything possible with them. It sounds gimmicky, and it almost could have been – “look, here’s yet another thing I can do with a bathtub!” – but somehow it wasn’t. There was an energy and a curiosity here that was just totally engaging.

And there is SO MUCH a bathtub can be used for. You can be in it alone, or together with someone. Bring water, or soap lather, or a duck. Lie, sit, stand, balance on the edge, arch across it. Hide in it, and reduce your body to a pair of legs, just a graphical combination of two articulated lines, really, paring off everything else. Stand it on end. Remove its bottom so you can pour yourself through it.

(c) Nils Emil Nylander

Aftonbladet’s review finds Portner’s piece meaningless and banal, an agglomeration of loose ideas, a technical exploration without meaning. Whereas Timulak’s piece is existential.

Expressen likewise appreciates the existential message of Totality in Parts, its expression of the loneliness of each individual dancer, a reminder that we are small atoms in a wide universe. Whereas the 45 minutes of Bathtub Ballet is too long for a single idea.

Dagens Nyheter likewise uses words such as “weighty”, “mystical” and “powerful” to describe Totality in Parts, but finds the bathtub idea too artificial, sees it as an unnecessary obstacle to movement rather than an interesting exploration.

What can I say. I disagree with them all. I’m not looking for a deeper message in every single ballet; they don’t all need to tell a story or impart commentary on the human condition and our existence. I just want the performance to be interesting. Bathtub Ballet does interesting things with the scene as a whole, and the enclosed space within each tub, and parts of the human body.

Went to a concert with Sara Parkman together with Hampus Norén and Hägersten A Cappella, at Uppbenbarelsekyrkan (Church of Revelation) in Hägersten. Beautiful church, beautiful music, a wonderful experience.

The concert was a mixture of old classical music (ranging from Hildegard Von Bingen to Gregorio Allegri), modern classical music (Arvo Pärt), Swedish folk tunes and herding calls, new music written by Sara Parkman, and combinations of the above.

The concert ended with a sing-along version of one of Sara Parkman’s songs, with a text by Erik Gustaf Geijer, another meeting of old and new. I can generally manage to follow along in an average sing-along tune, especially when I have the score AND I am given multiple chances – this one had two short verses and we sang it three times – but this melody was way above my skill level. But the experience was moving nevertheless.

Powerful and emotional and beautiful. Sara Parkman’s passion and presence made it a truly memorable experience.

The piano recital series continues. Piotr Anderszewski, playing Bach, Szymanowski, Bartók and more Bach.

Piano concert at the Stockholm Concert Hall, with Arkadij Volodos playing Aleksandr Skrjabin and Franz Schubert.

The concert leaflet describes Skrjabin as innovative and boundary-breaking. To me it just sounded dissonant and chaotic. I read that the brain releases dopamine both when it hears things in music that it recognizes or predicts, and when it is surprised. With Skrjabin, I felt there was nothing predictable at all so there was nothing to hang on to. No melody line to follow, no recognizably recurring phrases. It was like… stuff just happening, all the time. Music that’s a hundred years old, and it’s still too modern for me.

Schubert is always Schubert, though!

Volodos also played several extra pieces after the official programme, and the third of them was such a glorious piece of music that I didn’t even hang around to see if there might be more. There was just no way he could top that. Konserthuset kindly publishes updates to the concert programme after the fact, so I now know it was his own arrangement of La Malagueña, a flamenco piece originally written for the guitar I’d guess. You can see a somewhat blurry video of it here. There’s just… fingers absolutely everywhere, and I can’t see how could possibly hit all those notes with any kind of control, but clearly he does. Absolutely magnificent.

Speaking of Schubert, the last concert in the chamber music series that Eric and I go to together also started with Schubert. An octet by Schubert, and followed by another octet by Jörg Widmann, who wrote it as a tribute to Schubert’s octet. And my opinion here was the same – liked the Schubert, but Widmann’s octet was too un-melodious for my taste.