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Sep 22, 2013

Musical Enactment of Compassion in Moments of Crisis


Musical Enactment of Compassion in Moments of Crisis
The Memorial Ceremony for the 2011 Utøya Massacre

by Jan Sverre Knudsen

My contribution to the anthology «Popular Music in the Nordic Countries» explores the role of popular music in the official memorial ceremony held in Oslo one month after the terrorist attacks on the Government buildings and at Utøya July 22nd 2011. This ceremony had an impressive lineup of some of the most known and beloved Norwegian popular music artists as well as contributors from Denmark and Sweden. Although it responded to a local happening in Norway, it was clearly an event engaging with a transnational Nordic consciousness – broadcast live to all Nordic countries and with invitees including royalty and heads of state from the entire region.

My first notes and chapter drafts mainly dealt with the ceremony in view of politics and the reception history of particular songs. Still, the more I engaged with this material, and not least, the more I talked to people who had attended the ceremony, it became clear that a comprehensive understanding also would need to bring up other aspects. A turning point in this respect was my interview with the producer of the event, Stig Karlsen, at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), department of entertainment. I was told that in the planning process representatives of the Norwegian government had explicitly asked for a ceremony that primarily addressed the needs of the audience in the hall at Oslo Spektrum, which consisted of many of the bereaved families and others affected by the tragedy.

According to Karlsen, who regularly produces the popular “Top-20” shows, this entailed a focus he was unaccustomed to as a producer of mass-mediated music entertainment. He was much more familiar with the idea of constructing a musical product with the potential to “reach out through the television screens”. Instead, the production team had to focus on shaping an atmosphere at the venue itself which could provide an adequate space for sorrow, grief and compassion. This was not about entertainment or about catering to an audience of dedicated fans. As many attending the event could testify, it appears that this approach was successful; they felt that the whole atmosphere was marked by the producers’ respectful and compassionate attitude to them as mourners.

To me, this focus highlights the notion of the live music performance as a tool for affording a relevant space for coping with emotions. Becoming more aware of this aspect also had an influence on my own research approach as I found it essential to deal with accounts of audience responses during the event itself, responses that were not plainly noticeable to the television viewers. This involves the heart-rendering emotional outburst from a bereaved father as well as the spontaneous reaction of large parts of the audience during the final performance, when they rose to their feet and joined in with Sissel Kyrkjebø’s singing of “Til Ungdommen” (To the youth). As I discuss in my chapter, the event obviously had wider connotations – of national consolidation, of transnational Nordic understanding, and of defending policies of multiculturalism and inclusion. Still, these must all be understood in relation to the basic idea shaping the event: the musical enactment of compassion for a grieving audience.

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