LOUISE LESSEL

RETURN WITH TEITUR

Return with Teitur (Danish title: Tag Retur med Teitur) is an immersive storytelling and concert event I developed for the Danish Golden Days Festival, an annual festival of cultural heritage and history. The event had 600 participants and closed of a month-long festival of 100+ events in the Copenhagen area. The event was centered on the renowned Faroese musician and TED speaker Teitur Lassen's music, and his return to the Faroe Islands after spending years abroad, and what returning to his roots did to his creative process.

For Return with tEituR I turned the bay area outside of Nordatlantens Brygge into a little slice of Torshavn – Teitur’s hometown on the Faroese Islands – for one evening. The area was filled with Faroese participants knitting on the waterside, folk dance, snaps and fish soup served with a story on the side by legendary cook/captain/storyteller Birgir, who spends his days on the harbor side in Torshavn. Faroese upcoming bands played the harbor stage and walked through the audience like street performers.

The audience were co-creators and invited to sing along on the song they had chosen upon arrival, in a sort of red pill / blue pill scenario. This prompted strangers to share the papers with lyrics with others, thus breaking down the boundaries between Teitur’s fans through song. Faroese residents felt a little slice of home for the evening, and Danish fans learned more about the cultural heritage of the Faroe Islands, a part of Denmark far to the north were communal singing is an important part of the culture.

All footage recorded at the event/concert in Copenhagen on September 20th 2015, is arranged by 1606 interactive, co-produced with Nordatlantens Brygge as part of Golden Days Festival 2015.

The event/concert was kindly supported by Drost Fonden, Tórshavnar Kommuna, Københavns Kommune, and Norðurlandahúsið.