Kulturnatten 2006: Is that a FireWire cable in your pocket or are you just happy to see me

On the 13th of October 2006 it was time for the great yearly Copenhagen event, Kulturnatten. Kulturnatten, means “night of culture”, and it keeps growing bigger and stronger with every year that passes.

This year I had. as last year, been quite ambitious in selecting the number of events that I would attend, “unfortunately” I started by visiting the “Frivillighus” on Nørrebrogade, and I stayed for almost 2 hours.

Well it was nice meeting some people that I keep running into, including the mother of my old friend Sporado – she’s serious KEWL.

Next stop was The Fredriks Church, better known as the “Marmor Kirken” (The Marble Church), the beautiful domed church in Copenhagen. They had engaged the vocal ensemble Ars Nova to do a mini concert. And it was fantastic, just listening to the voices “hanging in the air” after each part, the “hang time” seemed to be like minutes. It was a fantastic experince, and great to see a full church for once.

I also managed to talk a little about the history of the church with some people that were sitting next to me, they seemed to be impressed by my knowledge, “it sounds like it’s your passion” – “not at all”, I said, “it’s just due to my high age that I have such extensive common knowledge” – that being said I’m quite passionate about the Marmorkirke, it the most spiritual church in all of Copenhagen. Sunday, two days later, I made an observation:

Out side the church statues of the most important figures of the “Christian Peoples Church of Denmark”, are mounted, but there’s no women among them, that is a disgrace, but who should we nominate? I asked some girls outside the church, but they had no suggestions, I started thinking, and I came up with the Danish Jazz singer of African American heritage: “Etta Cameron”, not only a woman, but a good Christian, and she’s also an Immigrant of “colour”. But I’m open for nominations, Christianity is TOO important to leave to men.

Next stop was supposed to be “Orlovsmuseet”, but I falsely thought that it was located on Holmen, so instead I ended up at the School for Architects, and there something remarkably strange happened. In the main conference room was an art installation, but I missed the performance. I was lugging my camcorder, and a FireWire cable. The last fact was strange, because I didn’t bring my computer, anyhow, the performance had been controlled from two Apple laptops, and they had done a recording of it, that they now wanted to show, I overheard a conversation: “But I only have USB”, I immediately picked up on it: “Do you need a FireWire cable”, “YES we do”…”Wow that is really strange, you’re the only outsider around, and you have a FireWire cable!”, my answer: “Well that was the reason I was sent here”! I know this is just PURE coincidence, but it’s very strange, and makes you wonder if that was a sign from the divine providence. It was events like that , that made meloose mind last year…Hmm!!!

Now I was in a hurry, because I wanted to go the the concert in “Rundetaarn”, on the way there I checked out the light installation at “Thorvaldsens Musseum”, and the installation at the museum was very well executed, with beautiful shadows being cast. The most impressive was the central garden at the museum, I never noticed this before, but the museum is modelled on an Egyptian temple, and the light effect on the central statue of the Christ, was impressive, above in a window someone was playing the flute…It was just beautiful.

Reached Rundetaarn, only to be turned away, due to massive demand…Bummer! However: I’m not really regretting that I went see “the statues” instead.

That actually concluded my attendance at the official Kulturnat events.

Conclusion a great night, with lots of surprises and a number of GREAT events I missed, and some rather mind blowing experiences. And finally: I found out that I might be falling in love.

One more thing (LOL), Kulturnatten is becoming more and more like the old Copenhagen carnival, there seems to be a decreasing number of people that join the events, but more and more drunk teenagers.