Lysets tøven - a concert performance in the historic Sneglegang

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Lysets tøven - a concert performance in the historic Sneglegang

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Lysets tøven - a concert performance in the historic Sneglegang (the Spiral Walk) On the shortest day of the year, when the light reaches its minimum, you can experience the hesitation of light interpreted in a musical performance by the artists Sonja Strange and Barbara Skovmand. Until the 1670s it was believed that light travelled instantaneously at infinite speed. But when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini and the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer observed irregularities in the orbit of Jupiter's moon Io, doubts arose. Rømer maintained that the variations must be due to the finite speed of light. He showed that the shifts in the times at which Io disappeared behind and reappeared from Jupiter could be explained by the time light takes to travel through space. It is precisely this transition - from the instantaneous to the delayed, from the fixed to the hesitant - that is the pivot of the musical work "Lysets Tøven". An otherworldly experience The work is performed by the two artists Sonja Strange (voice) and Barbara Skovmand (sound sculpture), who in Rundetaarn's iconic Sneglegang translate the discovery into a bodily and acoustic experience. You can see Sonja Strange move singing up through the tower in a sustained rotation that melodically answers the music from Barbara Skovmand's après-Baschet sound sculpture, where glass rods are rubbed with wet fingers. The vibrations are led towards sheet-steel screens that amplify and distort the sound so that it seems almost otherworldly. Between voice and sound an echo arises, a delay, a hesitation. The composition of the work was created by the composer Toke Odin and binds the two sound sources together, so that space, body and music express the same idea. Sound and light slowly fade on the shortest day of the year, when the stillness of the solstice becomes the counterpart to the movement of light. The work thus becomes a conclusion to Rundetaarn's LYSÅR 2026 (Light Year 2026) - a year that, with exhibitions and events, has marked the 350th anniversary of Ole Rømer's discovery. The concert is an experience and not a classic seated concert. The audience can therefore expect to stand in the tower's cool Sneglegang and experience the sun being played down on the special sound sculpture. The work can be experienced either at 16.30 or again at 17.30. It is not necessary to buy tickets in advance - you simply turn up and pay regular admission on the day. With paid admission you also have access to Rundetaarn's own exhibition on Ole Rømer and his great discovery and the special exhibition Light Echoes, just as you can explore the tower or make your way to the top and look out over the city. The event is part of the programme for LYSÅR 2026 in Rundetaarn - a whole year in which we mark light and the 350th anniversary of Ole Rømer's groundbreaking discovery of the speed of light.