Matilda Rolfsson — Christian Meaas Svendsen

Context
When: 14.09.2020
Where: Oslo, Norway
What: Cooking, happiness, working with dance and more

C: Do you like tea?

M: I don’t know so much about tea, but I know I like it, and I know how to enjoy it. But no, I’m not a tea nerd.

C: What are you nerdy about, then?

M: I’m quite nerdy when it comes to food, but in the last couple of years my boyfriend, Oscar Grönberg, has become our household’s head chef, so I’ve kind of lost it a little. He’s got more patience than I’ve got, even though I think I’m adept at improvising in the kitchen; take whatever’s there and make something good out of it! Good ingredients — preferably organic — is important, but also how you combine the sour, the sweet, umami, texture and so on. I think it coincides with trusting my senses. You have to taste, taste and then taste some more in order to get to what you’re after, just like you have to listen, listen and then listen some more in order to shape the music you’re playing.

C: In my world, there are three main ingredients when I cook: brain, heart and guts.

M: Guts! I’ve got no problem with that, haha! But I have to work on my patience, and maybe take fewer risks. I can be too confident some times. You have to do it awfully wrong in order to completely destroy a dish, so worst case scenario is usually that the food tastes a tad bit worse than it could have. My mother is a chef, and she was a bit strict with me in the kitchen. I think that has contributed to my anarchistic and experimenting attitude when cooking. She made everything based on guts and feeling herself, but towards me she could be quite the I’ll-teach-you-how-it’s-done.

C: Are you like that yourself?

M: No, I try to keep my mouth shut, play a supporting role and praise the result. I think I can take some honor in my boyfriend’s culinary advancement, mainly by encouraging rather than correcting. Despite the outcome, I think it is important to be grateful for the fact that someone has cooked for you. I should add that my mother also taught me — first and foremost — that it’s OK to dare to fail, and that that’s just a part of developing one’s skills.

C: I think that I can be a bit bossy and proud when it comes to cooking. I know what I’m doing, even when I don’t, so I don’t need or want any tips. Both my girlfriend and I have strong personalities in the kitchen, but I think I’m the most stubborn of us.

M: You just want to make good food. But it is it perfectionism, a need to be in control?

C: I can be perfectionistic, for sure. I think it also has something to do with ensuring that the ingredients are not wasted, and that they reach their fullest potential.

M: I too, can sometimes come on as somewhat preachy. If I see that the bread isn’t rising, or if the food is too salty. It’s like you say, about reaching the food’s potential. So maybe I’m a bit like my mom, just not as outspoken.

C: I also see a lot of love in the culinary competition, and I appreciate, at least retrospectively, the small disagreements and quarrels about this and that.

M: Another interesting thing is that there’s a big difference between Oscar’s family and mine. My family always sat down in silence. Oscar’s family sits down to have discussions about politics, the latest news and stuff like that. That was very new to me to begin with. I was forced to participate in the conversation, which left me burnt out the first couple of times. Combining my senses and the grindings of my brain… I just wanted to be one with the food!

C: Have you ever worked with fermenting? I think that’s a really exciting process. It’s food which is made without us seeing it. You just have to ensure that the conditions are right. I’m thinking it’s the same with music, and maybe also with humans. We can cultivate a healthy and good culture if the conditions let us.

M: 10 years ago, I had a year where I was isolated, both socially and creatively. It wasn’t something I sought voluntarily, but something which was forced upon me due to medical reasons. In many ways it was a challenge, but at the same time I noticed how I fell in love with life when the period ended. I had a clear direction in my life, also musically. I started peeling off stuff from the drum set, and started concentrating more on what I felt artistically drawn towards; free improvisation and working with dancers. The things I had spent time on practicing while I was studying — mainly jazz stuff — didn’t appeal in the same way. When I look back at it now I realize I sort of knew it already before I went into isolation, it just became more vividly clear to me after my hiatus. It’s like fermenting: The waste material that the bacteria produces needs to surface sooner or later. It might come out gradually or all in one go. In my situation I had to refrain from so many things for a whole year, which resulted in this enormous release and urge to get back into the world. Everything was more colorful. Life was opening itself up in a way. Maybe something we can look forward to at the end of our current pandemic situation?

I think our generation and also later generations, the individualists, are clinging to a hidden belief that life needs to be controlled and conquered like a heroic myth in order to be justified. It makes me jealous of the older generations who seems to be spared this endless internal self examination. To me, the biggest treasure is just to let life happen. It doesn’t mean that we should blindly accept everything, we need some healthy resistance in our lives, but to balance these aspects and transform movement to direction. I think this is why I was drawn towards musical improvisation — there’s a duality there which is much easier to balance than in our everyday lives.

C: I’ve been thinking that we need to get better at getting to know and embrace the nuances between «happy» and «not happy». The idea that we both can and are supposed to be happy all the time — without really knowing what happiness entails — seems to me as a platonic reality which we are fooled into believing is accessible and real through recognizable pictures in various media, marketing and commercials.

M: The perfect is an illusion. Feeling a little under the weather has become synonymous with being unhappy. It’s like «either you have it, or you don’t». It’s helped me a lot to cultivate a «both/and» mindset. It gives my life more nuances and more potential. Even though an outcome isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean everything with it is bad. We’re not raised to be grateful for the things that, after all, turned out quite good. If you flunk a penalty, then the whole match is a failure. If you don’t get all the answers correctly, then you completely failed the test. It’s like the expectations and the result stand between life and you.

C: But like you said earlier, it doesn’t mean that we should accept everything no matter what?

M: No. I think there’s a lot of potential in being vigorous, proactive and notify your surroundings when you feel something’s wrong. It’s not about putting the blame on anyone else, or directing your anger inwards, but rather directing it towards something you can do something about. If you discard the idea about «all or nothing», you’re left with a vast potential. It’s really about how you relate to reality, and what kind of tools you use to relate. This is actually a recurring topic in my PhD!

C: Yes, I wanted to talk a little bit about what you’re going to spend your next 4 years on. Please!

M: I am taking a PhD where I will explore interdisciplinary interplay between music and dance in free improvisation. My thesis is that listening, in an expanded sense, is all about attention, meaning that we don’t only hear the room, but also feel and see the room, and that this is key to working with dancers. I’m inspired by the broader definition of the word «listening», commonly used among dancers: To see, hear and feel your way into the room. I bring the dancers’ theoretical and methodical perspective into the mix, while inevitably emanating from a musician’s perspective myself.

C: More, please!

M: For a long time I was intrigued by John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s co-existence principles, which is about music and dance co-existing in time and space as autonomous identities in the eyes and ears of the observer. As the project has been focusing more and more on interplay, the subjective meeting, I have found that my freedom as an improviser is not completely separate from my surroundings. It’s impossible not to take input from the dance. The freedom which I experience when I meet the dance is more about forgetting oneself together with the dancer and the audience. Instead of understanding «co-existence» as a strict doctrine, I’m wondering whether to broaden its definition or just view the principle as a tool which can be utilized to protect me from the magical influence of dance. I’m not so interested in finding a terminological or linguistic common denominator. The two arts should meet each other as essentially different, both as expressions and with their respective inherent poetry.

My research will be revolved around the improvisational meeting between the two art forms, and whether the simultaneous existence of dance and music will contribute to limit or liberate me as a musician. The dance has always conjured «something else» in me. I’ve had so many impressions from dance that I’ve started seeing and hearing music differently, and even started noticing its reverberations in my own playing — that which I call the «the resonance of dance». This is something I think is connected with hearing, something physical, a bodily intelligence, muscle memory, something sensual which I through listening are given access to.

Cecil Taylor was talking about uniting Body & Mind already in the 60s in what he called «The doing of the thing». He was also inspired by dance: «I try to imitate on the piano the leaps in space a dancer makes». That quote alone sort of says it all; that the dance as an art form serves as a latent source of inspiration, like an inbuilt muse, for the music, manifested in me playing my drums, without it being intentionally shaped.

C: What will the end result of your research be?

M: Right now I have too many idea! For starters, I will start with residencies and viewings which will be video documented and put out on a blog, where I will also share my reflections. Maybe a podcast? I also look forward to doing a recording with dance ala Derek Bailey and Min Tanaka’s «Music & Dance». I’m not sure where my writing will take me; maybe a small book or a booklet. My viva voce might end up as a multimedia exhibition in Trondheim

The goal is not to nail a conclusion or a certain truth about how to work with dance in a free setting. It’s rather about being able to convey both new and old perspectives between the different art forms which will enrich and/or broaden the improvisational field. I’m happy as long as I can contribute with a new idea or a new angle.