Hartmut Geerken

Nuuk in the evening. The audience sits at round tables and drinks juices or beer. Kresten Osgood goes to the piano and immediately has the full attention. Hartmut Geerken with anklung, Tibetan short tube, Nubian Argool, Byzantine bells, waterphone and roll piano and the "Snoeleopard" on the electric guitar and various s.e. wind, percussion and string instruments, some of them self-made, answer, accompany, comment, and set new accents. The group is well coordinated and improvises with tension-laden lightness. These are unusual sounds in a country where traditionally only the drum (qilaat) is struck, and not on the skin of reindeer or seal stomachs, but hard „rim shots“ on the edge of the drum. Pauline Lumholt cultivates this tradition, combined with a dance that is almost only a shift of weight from one leg to the other and a wide swinging hand movement with the drum from one side to the other. At the end of each piece, she throws her arms upward on her drum with short, quick hits. With a crystal clear voice, Pauline Lumholt sings songs from a time when these drum dances and songs were not yet banned by the unfortunate missionaries.   (Sigrid Hauff)