Adjusting to "The Swing of Things"

Designmuseum Danmark aims to be an archive for art that embodies the principles of Danish design—minimalism, functionality, and beauty. Upon first glance, the museum accomplished this goal. Rooms were filled with bright colors and whimsical furniture complemented by sleek ceramics in soft pastel tones. However, the more time I spent exploring the museum, the more I recognized a lack of logical flow and cohesion between various rooms and among the artifacts themselves. One minute I was looking at Danish fashion, and a few steps later I was attempting to appreciate the architecture of wooden desks from 17th century England. That a design museum would be so poorly designed was so ironic it was nearly comedic.

As a result of the careless layout, the museum as a whole failed to convey a compelling narrative. There was, however, one piece of art that I found intriguing. It was a white pillow case that had a grayish-brown dusty film over it making it look as though it had not been washed for months. In the middle of the pillow case was a facial imprint that could have been mistaken for wrinkles had the description not stated “Pillow with facial imprint.”

Though the facial imprint was odd, eerie even, the true horror of the art piece was the the embroidery at the top of the pillow case. Artist Pernille Egeskov stitched the words “The swing of things” using fine brown human hair as the thread. Egeskov completed a few stitches with each piece of hair and left the rest to hang freely on the pillow. She used a small chain stitch that, though uneven, showcased a greater level of care and detail than the rest of the piece. Like the facial imprint, the embroidery could have easily been overlooked. It resembled a matted hairball that had dried on the bottom of a bathtub: there was a concentrated center made of chaotic strands that curled outwards in free-flowing, haywire patterns. Seeing this caused my whole body to wince in disgust and triggered a gag reflex. I noticed other viewers had similar reactions. Human hair, especially when detached from the scalp, is commonly considered to be unhygienic. This thought stems from the fact that hair traditionally serves as a carrier for unwanted critters such as lice and nits. Perhaps this is why seeing large quantities of hair on a pillow—a sacred space for the face—was far more appalling than seeing the hair on a different object.

Despite my negative reaction to the art piece, I harbor respect for Egeskov’s creativity. I am also impressed by the intense, though negative, reaction her work was able to quickly evoke. However, The Swing of Things did not belong in Designmuseum Danmark. It clashed with the museum’s aesthetic of clean, simple, and traditional design. Egeskov’s work was displayed in the Sustainable Design room, but even the curators seemed to be hiding it. The pillow had been placed in a glass cabinet that was shoved to the side. There were no lights above the glass cabinet to illuminate the artifacts inside. Instead, all of the lights were situated above the grand display of chairs and sculptures in the center of the room; the rays emanating from these sources barely hit the cabinet, causing the pillow to be dimly lit. To make matters worse, large shadows fell on the pillow at strange angles, masking the artistry.

The Swing of Things was most certainly nauseating, but it was also the most curious and enticing artwork in Designmuseum Danmark. It added energy and emotion into an otherwise bland atmosphere. Perhaps it is the museum’s hidden gem saved for the observant eye.  

‘Chicken Nugget?’: Vim and Profundity in Improv Comedy Copenhagen’s Friday Show

The tiny, 32-seat theater that houses Copenhagen’s only improvisational theater company belies the splendor of their comedy. With quick wit and inventive storytelling, the cast of Friday’s show at the Improv Comedy Copenhagen (ICC) wowed its audience with a riveting feast of humor that skilfully avoided the usual pitfalls of improv comedy as it explored some of life’s most poignant moments. From heartbreak to hearthrob and much between and beyond, the show was a rich, wild journey through universal experiences of belonging and longing. Rarely did the actors resort to lewd humor.

The showed featured both long-form and short-from improv. In the first half, the players performed a series of vignettes threaded together by a suggestion from an audience member who was loudest and fastest to shout their idea amid a throng of others. “Chicken nuggets” won the attention of the first improviser, who opened the show with a heartfelt monologue that traced the origins of her distaste for the children’s poultry product. What began as a humorous excavation of the mediocre taste of chicken turned into a thoughtful reflection on her parents divorce, and how the two were now inextricably linked. She delivered her monologue without pausing to say “um.” The audience sat awed at her integration of an innocuous suggestion, empathized at the trauma of the divorce.  

These unexpected plot lurches performed the bulk of the comedic work. In one scene between two men, the first actor opened the dialogue in a deep, macho voice, “Hello, Mr., we meet again,” holding in his hand a sword with which to spar. His partner replied nonchalantly, taken aback at the sword. “Uh, yeah, we do.” The first character took this as an opportunity to change the direction of the scene: “I’m sorry I didn’t remember your name, dude, I’ve been on a lot of grindr dates.” A pause. “Dave,” his partner replied. “Right, Dave.” It got a huge laugh. As the scene progressed, the warrior-turned-bachelor continued to reference previous “forgotten” encounters between the two; gradually they built sexual tension until a charged kiss became full-throttle making out, nearly tackling each other in lust. In a later scene, a Vegas magician appeared mysteriously in the bedroom of an ordinary man, apparently following up on a promise made during a performance that he would dramatically alter the course of his day tomorrow. After much confusion from this ordinary man, the magician divulged an ulterior motive: he needed a loan. Suddenly, our empathy for the confused man turned to pity for the financially desperate artist.

Unlike the bawdy humor of much contemporary improv –– humor enabled by a male-dominated industry –– the laughs in Friday’s show stemmed from the deeply human desires of full-fledged characters grappling with life transitions and difficult cultural moments. This was striking given the cast was comprised of six men and only one woman. The second vignette in the long form stood out for its ability to capture the fraught swirl of emotions for millenials who’ve inherited the problem of climate change from our parents’ generation. This same vignette highlighted the absurdity of gun rights activism by depicting a father giving his young son a gun to fend off enemies in a post-apocalyptic world. Only when male actors portrayed women characters did they resort to gendered stereotypes. In the one such vignette, a male actor playing a hubris teenage girl exploited stereotypes of femininity to build his character: he flaunted his boobs, twirled his hair, and stuck out his buttocks as he explained to his younger sister what to expect from puberty. It was a low point, redeemed only by the delightful absurdity of the rest of the scene. The women characters created by the woman actor contained more depth. At various times she was the struggling daughter, the goddess of a mythical religion, and the empty narrator telling a story she wished was her own. I hope ICC will take a note from her vivid illuminations of complex women characters.

Moving Along: Rob Norman’s Dynamic Improvisation

On Friday, August 11, 2018, I entered the International Comedy Copenhagen theatre, a cozy one-room affair on a cobblestone street in the old part of Copenhagen. I sat in the front row, and all the rows of folding chairs behind me quickly filled. The lights dimmed, and a gray-haired man came onstage, where he announced his fellow improvisors in a chipper British accent, with a special note that the mostly Danish cast would be joined tonight by a well-regarded improvisor from Canada, a Rob Norman.

            I have seen improvisation shows before, and so I thought I knew what to expect: fumbling plots, somewhat-offensive stock characters, crude humor, and absurd scenes that dragged on for too long. I thought that these drawbacks were just part of the condition of improvisational comedy, and were worth it for the delight of seeing people invent worlds on the spot. But the show that now unfolded before me far exceeded my expectations.

            The scenes, though separate, played off of each other. Characters came back at unexpected and hilarious moments. The scenes didn’t all take part in a world of extreme absurdism; some felt very real. Each scene had dynamism and plot, and wasn’t given time to droop or stagnate, before a new scene would begin. The cast worked wonderfully with each other, and each had good ideas, but the star of the show was clearly the Canadian guest, Rob Norman. This did not mean that he dominated the show. Instead, he offered ideas in participation with the other actors. His characters, from the beginning, were fully embodied. They had body-language, and agenda, and a physical place in space: with a few mimed motions he made it clear that he was in a kitchen, getting a beer from the fridge, or getting ready in front of a mirror, whereas the other actors often had scenes that floated in a nowhere space. I hadn’t known what made for truly great improvising until I saw two scenes in which Rob performed alongside another actor.

            In one, an actor began by pretending to urinate in the direction of the audience, and Rob came in as an over-eager bathroom attendant. Each time Rob spoke, he moved the story, either escalating its absurdism, or changing the direction of the plot. His scene-partner tended to take the cues and play more of the bewildered ‘everyman,’ responding to Rob in a way that maintained but did not move the narrative. I have observed that it is easy for improv to fall into a back-and-forth plateau, in which the current situation drags on, perhaps becoming slightly more farfetched, but not in any way that is truly surprising or delightful. Rob surprised and delighted with every line.

            Another scene in which Rob shone was one in which he started by sitting in a chair, and the older British fellow came in, looking baffled and distressed. So: the British fellow had given the first emotional cue, the offer for starting the scene.

            Rob sat back coolly in his chair and said, “You’re confused.”

            “Well, yes,” spluttered the British man. Rob waited unless the British man was going to explain himself, but he didn’t seem to have anything more to say, so Rob forged on ahead.

            “You’re wondering how I got in your house,” said Rob. “Why I’m sitting on your bed.”

            And this went on, with Rob offering suggestions. He always gave space for his scene partner to speak, but his partner ended up mostly spluttering, so it was up to Rob to move the scene along. This was the most dynamic scene of the improv show. With each line, Rob revealed a new layer to the story. He was a Las Vegas magician. He had seen this fellow in the audience of the show. He had stolen his identity. He had emptied his bank account and cavorted with his wife and now he was moving into his house.

            Here, again, Rob gave space to his scene partner, but the scene partner was at a loss for words, so Rob held out a mimed set of cards and said, “Pick a card.”

            The scene partner splutteringly obliged, and then Rob said, “That’s for a divorce lawyer. You’re going to need it.”

            At this, the audience, including me, burst into laughter and applause. Perhaps in a regular play, the joke would have been merely funny, but knowing that it had been concocted just moments before made it hilarious. Soon after this, that scene ended, before we could get weary of it, and the show moved onto other things.

 I do not wish my praise of Rob to belittle the other actors. They were all expressive, quick-thinking, and cooperative. Throughout the show, their incorporation of audience suggestions, combined with the intimacy of the venue, made it feel as if the audience were an essential part of the action onstage. However, it was Rob who really showed me the dynamic possibilities of improvisation: that the best improv could be like a tightly-written story, where each line had purpose and contributed to the movement of the piece.

            At the end of the show, the cast held an ‘improv jam,’ in which audience members could come on stage and try improvising with some of the experienced cast members. At first I had no intention of volunteering, but after watching some fellow amateurs fumble around, I had enough confidence to give it a try. I did not move along the scene with my every line. My character was not complex or particularly embodied in space. But I found it exhilarating and comfortable to be up on stage. It reminded me of the joy of make-believe play as a child. Trying improv myself drove home just how much there was to learn, and made me eager to try again, or at least to catch Rob Norman on his next tour.

Botanisk Have (Botanical Garden), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

In The Landscape of Man, authors Susan Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe define landscape architecture as “the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes.” In conducting an aesthetic assessment of landscape architecture, there are many factors to consider: the interplay between “hard” (constructed) and “soft” (planted) materials, the urban or rural setting, and the integration of environmental sustainability, among others. All play into the space’s achievement of Jellicoe’s aforementioned “environmental, social-behavioral, and aesthetic” goals.

Copenhagen’s Botanisk Have (Danish for “Botanical Garden”) is a successful example of landscape architecture escapism amid an urban setting. The ten-hectare area beside Nørreport in Copenhagen was originally conceived in 1600—presumably to secure Copenhagen University’s collection of medicinal plants—and given its current location in 1870. Today, the garden serves educational and research purposes as part of the National History Museum of Denmark, as well as being a public recreational attraction. Overall, the garden holds over 13,000 plant species from around the world.

Judging empirically, the principle aesthetic effect of highly urban public parks is to break up the urban sprawl that surrounds them, providing city residents with a method of escape from their predominantly concrete setting. Botanisk Have accomplishes this desired effect in a number of ways. The topography of the garden and surrounding area is such that the grounds lie in a valley. Trees crowded near the garden’s edges further articulate this effect, such that the outer city is virtually invisible from any area inside. The bowl-shaped topography also allows for a central water feature around which the greenhouse area and garden paths are centered [fig. 1].

A notable feature in the garden’s design is the diversity of walkway materials. Perhaps inspired by American landscape architect Calvert Vaux, who co-designed Central Park in 1857, Botanisk Have’s designers included wood chip, cobblestone, gravel, smooth stone, and dirt walkways. Vaux, in the original Central Park plan, called for 36 bridges of distinct material and design. Botanisk Have’s paths, however, correspond to the different geographies of plants in the grounds, with sections allotted to Danish plants as well as perennial, annual, and rhododendron species.

The interaction between “hard” and “soft” garden materials plays a less combative role than in the more uptight designs at Hyde Park in London or Central Park in New York City. Despite clear daily maintenance of the grounds, Botanisk Have features numerous paths nearly overrun by the surrounding flora, such that passage becomes sometimes impossible—an inefficiency in the garden’s design, but something of a compliment to its aesthetics. Natural features here are intended to be tactile and unimpeded, in defiance to the gridlines that define the city blocks outside. Further, garden visitors have even carved paths up hillsides, much like migrating deer, trampling the grass in a straight vector between paved areas of different altitude. There are no signs or fences to discourage this behavior. Instead, the park designers prioritize an open and undirected design to the garden, adding features to help and not hinder their guests’ traversal through it. There’s a cohesive blend of order and entropy within the garden that gives it an exotic though not dangerously unfamiliar quality.

Another aspect to highlight the garden’s deliberate informality is the fact that none of the paths are named or marked to indicate their location. Personally, I found myself lost several times as a consequence of this effect. There is a clear contrast from the logistical precision of Copenhagen’s city streets.

The largest university greenhouse is something of a centerpiece of the garden. The greenhouse’s central dome, on an elevated foundation, towers above everything else in the garden, though is still largely invisible from outside. Thankfully, as with the garden’s paved walkways, the sea-green glass panes echoes the surrounding color palette and easy viewing experience the rest of the garden affords. For the most part, glare from the sun obscures the view inside, but the greenhouse manages to avoid an imposing posture on the grounds below it.

The greenhouses, in some respects, did serve to distract from the entrancing effect of the garden’s other features. So, too, did the occasional advertisements for the Museum of Natural History’s paid attractions. The harmony of natural and constructed elements works with the garden’s many humanoid copper statues, in the classical Greek fashion, paved walkways, and white wooden bridges. In my eyes, the smaller greenhouses and red-brick neo-Victorian administrative buildings fell short of this same metric. They took away from the immersive experience that the trees along the garden’s border otherwise insulated.

Overall, however, the garden succeeds in providing the escape from urban landscape in Copenhagen, better than in many American cities, in arguably more dire need. The grounds attract an audience of all ages, as well as educational opportunities on all academic levels. The effect is calming and centering, and appealing as a discounted wilderness experience—something good urban landscape architecture should be.

Figure 1: Picture of the Botanisk Have map, noting the water feature in the center and the greenhouses at the “top” of the grounds.