Since 2013 we have
had the H. C. Andersen Festivals the week after the Flower Festival here in
Odense, Denmark – the hometown of world famous fairy tale writer Hans Christian
Andersen (and me). This year the festivals took place between during August
19.-26. and like previous years, private businesses funded the biggest part of
the festivals, so – as I usually point out, it was all rather commercial.
The makers of the H.
C. Andersen Festival are also very good at boasting. Like last year, the
programme claimed that the festivals contained 500+ events, but if you took a
closer look, only around 130 were different events, which were then repeated
again and again. Some of the events were for children only, others for adults
only and almost half of them was not free of charge, so you had to buy tickets
in advance. The average ticket cost between £10 and £30, so you had to choose
wisely. I did what I always do: only attending events that were free of charge,
so the most interesting concerts, theatre plays, and other performances were
out of my reach. Still, I managed to see around fifteen events, enough to make
my own Top 5, which looks like this:
1. On a clear first
place I have “Beyond Time”, a steam punk show with Polish artists. Although the
start was a little slow, the 1 hour show just flew by. It was amazingly
creative, funny and talented, a combination of mime theatre, dance and modern
circus, not to mention the guys in charge of the music, singing and sound
effects. Amazing! Five out of five stars: *****
2. The Rainbow
Ballet was almost as good. The German street performers Dulce Compania went through
the streets using stilts and segways and dancing a gracious ballet inspired by
Oscar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet”. Five out of Five stars: *****
3. “Step into the Fairy
Tale” comes next. This title was giving to a number of huge Hans Christian
Andersen fairy tale books that had been placed in Brandts Passage in the city
centre. Each book spoke its own fairy tale out loud, so you could listen to
stories like number of huge Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale books had been
placed. “Thumbelina”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen” and “The
Nightingale”. The books looked lovely, especially at night with lights on. Four
out of five stars: ****
4.The “Ocean
Sphere”, which basically was a mermaid in her own world in a magic globe on
wheels. The concept was created by the Belgian artist Anne Vandelanotte and it
was beautiful to behold. The mermaid waved at and interacted with the people
she passed while driving around in the streets and if you pushed the red button
on her globe, the air filled with soap bubbles. Four out of five stars: ****
5. “Nobody but a
princess…” is on the fifth place, not that I think it is deserved, but as it is
the biggest free event, people would find it odd if I don’t mention it. This
event replaces the wildly popular light show on the town square during the
first four years. Unfortunately, the festival director found that the light
show had become too popular, so last year he replaced it with something else
that is not likely to suffer the same fate. This year it was “Nobody but a Princess…”.
a horribly written modern fairy tale “like Hans Christian Andersen would have
sounded today”. Are you kidding me? Just because you mention Facebook and
Tinder and phrases that were popular ten years ago, it doesn’t make a story
modern. Or good! It wasn’t even a real fairy tale as there were no obstacles to
overcome. But in the show that was created by the German artists network Phase
7, there was some good singing (especially from Jacob Zinn), a guy who played a
light organ (I haven’t been able to find out who) and some nifty acrobats (The
Funky Monkeys). I suppose the dancing was good too, but the stage was so far
up, that only the few who had been able to take possession of a balcony seat was
able to see the dancers and actors on stage. The rest of us could only see
heads bopping up and down! Two out of five stars: **
I didn’t see enough
good things to make a Top 10, but at least the Menschines and “The Red Shoes”
are worth mentioning too. The Menschines are a creation of German mime artist
Silent Rocco where human-like robots wander the streets, trying to break down
the boundaries between humans (Menschen) and machines. It was actually better
than the princess-show, so I’ll give it three stars: ***. “The Red Shoes” was an
exhibition at Odense Town Hall of the costumes of drag queen Polly (Poul
Sylvestersen). Some of the costumes were based on Hans Christian Andersen fairy
tales like “The Red Shoes”, “The Snow Queen” and “The Little Mermaid”, but
there were very few of them. Still I’ll give them three stars: ***.
Like other
festivals in Odense, the H. C. Andersen Festivals are not getting
better over time, but worse, and even the public transportation problem (there
is no public transportation in the city centre and the last busses at the train
station leave before most evening events end!) hasn’t been solved, yet. Still,
the festivals are here to stay, I guess, so now I only have to figure out why
it is called “festivals” instead of “festival”.
