I went up to our attic, to take some paper, and one of the paper rolls fell down. There was a Small Tortoiseshell asleep inside, one of those coloured ones that you get in the beginning of the summer. It had difficulties orienting itself, so I probably woke it up.
It was half the size of my fist. Beautiful in colour, really a textbook example. Nokkosperhonen, in Finnish.

They don´t hibernate. They spend the winter as small larvae, going in to cocoons where they emerge in the spring as winged butterflies. So it struck me odd that this one was even alive.
They don’t live too long, only for one summer or a part of it.

It just kept flapping itself around the floor, unable to fly. Since it was so big, I really could hear the beats the wings made, and its body hitting the floor, this slight hissing sound and like tapping a finger on a window. Going around and around, with the inevitable end in sight. And with no possibility of doing anything about it. Forgive me for the lack of photographs, it seemed kind of grotesque to take photos of something in pain.

Time is a funny thing. My EVS ends in the end of December. I never perceived how time passed here. And suddenly it just hits me. It´s going to be winter soon. It´s cold as hell already anyway. Being theatrical and all, my calendar also ends on the 31st of December.
So, when I came here, it was one of the few days of snow. It was really rare, I heard later. For the water to freeze here. The canals and lakes being frozen and children running on them. I even walked on one and the ice held nicely. Creaking a bit though.How funny it is, to know that something is going to end, but not to really realize it. And then you´re left thinking, did you really do all things you planned? Of course you did not. I didn´t. But then again, I did a lot of things that I didn´t even perceive myself doing.I went to Brussels, to the BIFFF horror film festival to work as a projectionist for 10 days. Spent the time in a 4-star hotel with the festival covering all costs.

• I spent two weeks on a sailing ship, on sea. I just met them in Den Helder, and the cook asked me if I wanted to go sailing. I said yes, of course.

• I ran through every single open squat in Amsterdam, talking with the people there. Becoming friends with some of them. I saw them squat a house, and I saw them getting evicted from it. I helped putting up barricades against evictions.

• I worked in a handful of random festivals of music and film.

• I met most of the people that have influenced me. That was weird. To actually be talking to Tim Burton or Amon Tobin. Still can’t get over it.

• I spent one strange month in a Hospital, happily medicated with Opiates. Got to ride an ambulance too. Never did that before.

And none of these had anything whatsoever to do with EVS. I found them. Myself. I suppose it´s a proof of life. That things happen, unexpectedly. Out of the blue. Random patterns, seemingly chaotic, but beautifully in order when you look at them afterwards. And it makes you feel sort of proud, to know that you are the one who found these things.

Well, sooner or later I suppose. So, I wonder how “normal” life is going to taste after this time?

Anyone care to comment on what it’s like? Going back I mean.

-J

 Dear People

I am going to open my heart here a little bit. This is mostly since I went through a moment of revalation this weekend. Or actually, the word closer would be “a reminder.” But please forgive my writing, I have difficulties putting this to words and I want to share this with you before I forget what this feels like. And since I think writing here might be a nice way to get some responses coming, perhaps someone feels something similar and soon I will find all kinds of lovely little awnsers in my mailbox. That would be nice. Yes.

So on with the story then. This will be long.  (and the email is jsyrenius@hotmail.com, by the way)

As some of you might know, I am doing my EVS in Amsterdam, at a place called the Melkweg. There are all sorts of big and influential names connected to this place. If I go to the local bank and fill in the “employer” part on the application form, people at the desk stop, look atme a while, and then back at the form. “So you work at the Melkweg huh? Must be nice?”

The name seems to make things fairly easy. Getting a social security number was a real pain, until when I went to the office to register, and the guy at the desk (quite young) started telling all sorts of stories about Swedish black metal (happily confusing Finland for Sweden) and then seemed to be seeing some sort of king in me, all simply because there was that one name in the paper that said “Melkweg.”

Jealousy or pure curiosity? I have no idea. But it’s curious. Since working there is not that different from anything else. You go to work, you fill in some papers, make some phone calls. Do meetings, arrange stuff, get your hands down dirty with electrical devices and random screwdrivers and bolt cutters etc. Yet some people seem to believe that you get to meet all these “cool people” and “hang out with them in the backstage.” Which you do, of course, but does one really want to spend his freetime in the same place where he happens to work? All day? And also the evening?

Ok, I do remember begging for signatures from Amon Tobin, Laibach, Einsturzende Neubauten and the likes. Which I got. And which did of course, not change anything. There is always a part of me that thinks that if I can get in contact with all these really famous people, maybe some of that magic scrubs off and sticks to me. I keep looking at the drum that I keep in my office, signed by Dillinger Escape plan. Maybe some night it will start glowing with light, magic and will make me a good musician or throw me in to a “magical” elite cast who are just automatically worshipped and respected as influential musicians. Or maybe I will just become “cool.”

Hasn’t happened so far.

The whole point of the story here is this. I fell in love with music around the age of 5, since my dad has a huge record collection of old jazz, blues and rock. It was just the sheer energy of it that I loved, Gary Moore, Billy Idol, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix. These were the records I was playing to my teacher on the 4th grade, while we were singing merry children’s songs that I hated to the very bone.

I cannot remember feeling the same energy in music after around my 18th birthday. In concerts or festivals. I’ve always thought that this was because maybe I’ve grown up since then. Maybe things don’t hit grown-ups so strong emotionally. Maybe it’s a teenage thing. Maybe it just responded to some teenage romantic ideology, subconscious or whatever. Or maybe I just went to too many concerts. Or the music just ran out in the world. It’s not that suddenly music has become unenjoyable. It’s just that the feeling of “power” has been missing for quite a while.

I’ve changed my mind between the 2nd and 3rd of August, this year.

Frustrated at seeing a lot of acts all the time, acts that were just like the ones yesterday, and will be like the ones tomorrow and the day after, I decided to listen to the advice of a friend from Belgium, to gear up with baggy trousers, loose fitting shirts and head off to a folk music festival. Yes. Castlefest in the Netherlands. All sorts of little pointy eared elfs, things in green skin and the occasional kilt-wearing, amazingly accurate, historical reincarnation. I had no expectations of what to meet there, apart from this strage crowd, but suddenly, just a few minutes after passing the main gate, found myself listening to music, almost paralyzed, unable to move because of sheer amazement. A friend had to poke me and ask if I was ok just to get me out of the trance. It was quite simply the music. It was not because it was particularly loud or strange. It was something I had heard before, being a fan of ethnic, world and folk music. It was the sheer, utter and pure raw musical energy radiating between the performers and the public.

Take a crowd of maybe 500 people. Not too much, is it? Now take a band that decides to start playing a modernized version of a medieval tune and suddenly 500 more has appeared and all of the 1000 people are dancing to this extremely dancable tune. All in the same, correct steps for that dance. We move on to walz, Polska, some other jigs and these people seem to know all the steps for these tunes. There was something in that moment that made me realize “this I haven’t seen before.”

Persian music, mixed with Bulgarian folk, Balkan ethnic influences and several more sources, with the players going back and forth from the stage, until even they cannot tell who’s band is it that’s playing. I think the violinist was from the band I saw 2 hours before and the Hurdy Gurdy player seemed awfully lot like the drummer from the previous act. Everybody was just playing like hell and the people dancing like there was no tomorrow. All in all, there was a lot of power in the air.

10 minutes after the concert I found myself sneaking in to the backstage with my recording device to try and steal an interview with the band. Which they did. Happily. With absolutely no arrogance. We sat down, had something to drink, laughed, talked about music and their music and music just in general. I left smiling with a 30 minute interview in my pocket and my hands full with promo copies of records. Only to be blown away again and again by the following artists, to sneak back to the backstage (the security was a little bit asleep) for more interviews and more promo copies with more and more people. In the end, the security got so used to seeing me going back and forward that everyone assumed I was supposed to be there.

Can you copy this to a place that does mass production of culture? Can you put this in a venue? Can you make this spirit in the air by booking big bands? Or is it made by the people around you? I keep seeing sold-out concerts where people come to see the bands, their heroes, do their thing. I have no awnsers to this one. That’s why I’m asking.

So often there is such a huge line, like a Plexiglas wall between the performers and the crowd. And when the gigs are over, we haul the gear to the bus, wave them for luck and off they go to play in another place by the next morning. By tomorrow, I cannot even remember the name of the act. I have to check it from the agenda if someone asks. Even these personal “heroes” of mine have proven to be the same thing. I’ve gone to their concerts. Watched them play the same tunes I’ve been listening to over and over again, usually sounding better on the record, and I get no response whatsoever on a emotional level. In words, the fun is just not there.

And here, in the middle of a forest area, listening to something I’ve never heard of, my socks are spinning in my feet out of electricity.

Rock, Indie, Emo, Jazz, Blues, whatever. The difference is not in the music, but in the whole context. How the whole place resonates with “energy” and some weird vibrations that seem to be going between everyone. In most the acts I see at Melkweg, I see no energy. I see nice poses, things that look good on photographs and films. I hear music that is played exactly as it is on the record. I see arrogant rock stars waving in and waving out every day. I see sound engineers who look like they haven’t slept in a week.

And I wonder, where is this mystical point where the love for music crosses over to the area of random, vague fame hunting, fan pleasing and these incredible auras of arrogance and egoism. Where is it, that the love for arranging concerts and events changes over to a routine where everything becomes this same mass of “I hope it sells.”

For me, I never want to see music stuck in dirty halls where beer is cheap and you hear only half of the concert because the guy next to you is trying to shout over the music about how much he likes the band. Where you have to first 2 rows of guitarist-drooling 16-year old girls and behind them there is a line of boys head banging and going around in moshpits. I want it without the stink of beer, girls in push-up bras, miniskirts and drunken idiots, excuse my language again, trying to get under those miniskirts.

I am tired of seeing music where the 2 ruling emotions are aggression and sexuality. I want music where you can smile, just simply feeling happy about being there.

Personally, my patience has run out for all the merchandise that every act brings along, every day the new t-shirts and the lines for signatures in front of the backstage door. My patience has run out for all the people in the fan outwear, the certain colour codes of certain genres, even with the word “genre.” Maybe that’s why I like world music so much? You just stuff everything you can’t put anywhere else in to two places. One is World music and the other Progressive. Lots of variation in these two babies.

Is it my perception, being in the middle of this “cyclone” of fame and great names making me immune to their music? Or is it so, that listening to these people all day, every day, over and over again, everyone sounding like someone else and nothing I would remember. And for me, the power is just not there. Of course, a lot of people are enjoying the concerts I have been hating and scolding. Most of them are sold out, in fact. So is it just me, or does this whole thing smell extremely complicated to awnser?

Has music really become an institution? Stuck in a wheel of fame, fortune, record markets and the need to fit in to 3.55 minutes. And if there is a future for music, is it really in closed halls? Where, pardon my words again, you stuff new musicians in at light speed rate to keep a hold on the income.

It can be good. Sure. But I haven’t felt anything touch me like this musically in years. In fact, I think this weekend I realized something about what music really is and what it’s real meaning. Simple joy, energy that makes you move your feet and body, the people around you that you see. You smile at them, maybe a cute girl or boy smiles back, and concious of this energy connecting everyone there, you feel a strange, almost animalistic bond without saying a single word.

So, here starts my venture to find more of such music in Amsterdam, and beyond. And since I have absolutely no idea what to do with these interviews and reviews I keep taking and making, I will just start posing them here. I hope you don’t mind. But if you do, please let me know since I’d hate to write stuff people don’t want to read.  Maybe someone else wants to write here about something they’ve seen? Just an idea. But I’d like to hear other views, just for fun.

Now there is a question to all of you who read this. Like I said, I have difficulties putting this to exact words. And that is also why this text is so long and its 00.30 in the night at the moment. But if feel like you understood or connected with at least a part of what I wrote, please tell me about your experiences with it. It can be anything, really. Tell me about how you love Billy Idol’s “sweet 16″ or whatever you feel like. I’m not going to write an essay, quote you or anything at all about what is said.

So, the email is jsyrenius@hotmail.com just in case you don’t want to make it public.

And I promise to write smaller articles in the future.

See you

-Jussi

The integration to Amsterdam, and Melkweg, has been an extremely easy process for me.
Holland, and Amsterdam in particular, have a very long history of accepting expatriates and in this process the whole culture has formed around the idea of “you leave me alone and I´ll leave you alone.
And yet most of the people are friendly and open to discussion for strangers. Now for a Finn, this is quite weird. If I would go and speak to any stranger in the public, not only would this person look at me in a strange kind of way, but the nearest 5 people would also be wondering about my sanity.

This is where for me, Scandinavia ends and Europe begins. It´s not the weather, the food or the language. You can see these anywhere nowadays, in any form. It´s the people, and the raw emotion vibrating from them and in here, it resonates around the frequency of “you´re welcome.”

The work and project at Melkweg is still forming after one month, but I do have a very strong view and idea of what I hope will happen during the next 11 months. And I was careful to leave enough space in there to be surprised. Like you people who are reading this. And I do hope somebody is reading this. I am, at least.

Maybe some other volunteers have encountered problems, or things they could have planned a bit differently, something they think they should have discussed before the project, preparation etc. etc.   Those of you that can say “yes” to this, I hope you can join me in putting together a list of things and hints to remember. I mean the EVS program description says a lot of practical things, but does not say it all.

For example, I am extremely happy that I asked something about the house before I came so I knew to bring my own curtains and stereos. These kind of practical things that are really not essential, but maybe make life a LOT more pleasant.

Ok, if anyone is interested, I have a blog running at samael.vuodatus.net. Most of the entries are in Finnish and you can email me at jsyrenius @ hotmail.com and you can find me at facebook under jussi syrenius.

Leif, 25, from Kulturzentrum Schlachthof (Bremen, Germany) doing a 10 months EVS at Mejeriet (Lund, Sweden).

Before going abroad as a volunteer, Leif was involved in the culture centre Schlachthof were he was working as a trainee in public relations and organisation of events, taking care mainly of press relations and communication. As Schlachthof is part of Trans Europe Halles, Leif got the opportunity to go to an EVS seminar in Metelkova (Ljubljana, Slovenia) where he learnt more about the European Voluntary Service and the real chance it represents to gain more experience while spending some time in a foreign country.

Being also a musician, Leif wanted to know more about the Scandinavian musical scene. So many Scandinavian bands are known in Germany and abroad. Do they have more labels in Scandinavia? How do they promote efficiently their bands? An EVS at Mejeriet was sure the right opportunity to discover the unique Swedish musical scene from the inside.

When he arrived at Mejeriet, Leif began to work with the various associations in charge of the concerts, then he spent some time working with Trans Europe Halles’ coordination office and now he is working with the different labels of the house. He even had the chance to forge links with some other Trans Europe Halles’ members in Norway, Touscene in Stavanger and Parkteatret Scene in Oslo. All that moving contributes to make his EVS a multiple experience. He got the possibility to compare many different work’s structures and management’s schemes and he is now able to consider the pros and cons of the different systems.

However, according to Leif, it is quite difficult to find out your role as a volunteer. Indeed, an EVS is neither supposed to stand in for a permanent job within the organisation, nor supposed to be a holiday camp. So you have to be useful to the organisation without being essential either. What Leif has experienced is that on the one side no one said they did not need him, but on the other side no one said they did. In such a situation, it is not easy to show some initiatives; until you realise that you are actually free to initiate things by yourself.

At Schlachthof, Leif was working mainly with press relations, communication and promotion. During his EVS at Mejeriet, he really improved his social and communication’s skills, as well as his European awareness. As a matter of fact, he got to realise that he was more European aware in Sweden, than he was in Germany. And that has given him the will to start an exchange project between Swedish and German bands. But that idea also rose from being a musician himself and living one year without playing in a band. Missing playing definitely led him to initiate such a project.

Before his EVS, Leif didn’t know much about Mejeriet or even about Sweden. Of course, he had a lot of clichés in mind about Scandinavia, but he did not really find them. Basically, he just packed his stuff, took his car and waited to see what he would enjoy from going out from his surroundings. And he got a lot of experience from it; experience, but also awareness that there will always be people around with whom he will enjoy working. He has proven to himself that he can adjust to another situation because on the one hand, he has enough trust in people even if he doesn’t know them and on the other hand, he is not afraid of new things and changes.

Leila Hatteea

Three more persons are getting ready to start their EVS abroad at a TEH centre.

Welcome to the blog Silvia Busilacchi who will be sent by Buenaventura to Mains D’Oeuvres, Silvia Janoskova who will be sent by Stanica to P60 and Paola Daniolo who will be sent by Buenaventura to REX!

Maribor isn’t one of the Europe’s biggest city’s, a bit over 150 000 people, but I really appreciate how Pekarna has helped us with contacts so we get to see all that is happening. It also feels like Maribor is a festival town – we will see it continues in spring.

Being an EVS volunteer can some times be tricky, you are put in the situation between a steady implored person and just a hang around. There for it’s really important that you can have a good dialogue with the place you work/volunteer/help in.

I would really recommend that you already have a project you want to realize before you go on an EVS.

For me my EVS has been a possibility to create. I have time to work with the Pro downloading films animation, plan a documentary about the effect the international community has had in Kosovo and start planning for video activist screenings in Maribor. It’s been great to be here!

Sincerely,

////Alex Veitch

Here’s a text I wrote for Wave Magazine about the festival I’ve been working with at REX in Belgrade.

Created out of the belief that a good film experience can last much longer than its screening time, the third edition of the Free Zone Film Festival will soon begin in Belgrade. On Friday November 9th, the Cannes Jury Award winner “Persepolis” will open the festival, which is dedicated to using film as a means to promote human rights and foster debate on socially and politically urgent issues in the world today.

While mainstream movie theaters most often showcase a world of stereotypes and unachievable ideals, film festivals can provide access to alternative depictions of reality. Films produced by independent authors far from Hollywood studios are often as painful as they are eye-opening – but at their best, they leave their viewers with the feeling of freedom and responsibility that comes with being an active citizen. In these cases the art of film can actually make a difference.

Another kind of hero
“Casual and meaningless heroism dominates most of today’s films. This year’s ’Free Zone’ offers you a different kind of film hero in feature films and documentaries which have finally arrived in Belgrade from various world film festivals,” says Marko Popovic, the film selector of the festival.
Among these heroes is Marjane Satrapi – the rebellious girl depicted in “Persepolis,” a film adapted from the graphic novel of the same name. ”Persepolis” is based on the director’s own childhood in Iran during the revolution and her teenage years in the West, where she was sent for her safety but could never feel entirely at home. Other heroes include the “indigenous” soldiers of North Africa in ”Days of Glory,” who fight for the French Army during World War II but find they are denied the basic rights taken for granted by their French counterparts. There is also Michael Moore, scrutinizing the for-profit health care system in his latest documentary, “Sicko,” which will have its Serbian premiere at Free Zone.

Two Croatian films selected
From the regional film scene, two Croatian films have been selected for inclusion in Free Zone. “Bad Blue Boys,” directed by Branko Schmidt, speaks about the impossibility of Croatian war veterans reacclimating to today’s Croatian society. “In 4 Years,” which won director Nebojša Slijepčević the 2007 European Documentary Network Talent Award, follows 26-year-old Damir, who is determined to become a Hollywood star in spite of being completely paralysed after a car crash.

Short films highlight different views on Europe
New to this year’s festival is that every screening will include a short film. Each of the shorts comes from a different European country and was produced within the project “Visions of Europe,” launched in conjunction with the 2004 enlargement of the EU. Directed by respected European filmmakers – including Theo van Gogh, Aki Kaurismaki and Peter Greenaway – the films deal with problems that are highly relevant in Serbia, such as borders, immigration, bureaucratic institutions and the power of the government and large corporations.

Free Zone is not only an increasingly popular annual film festival, but also a part of a broader initiative that runs throughout the year under the auspices of the Rex Cultural Centre. Rex hosts monthly screenings of socially engaged films, and a selection of these are then shown in the Free Zone Festival Tour, which this year visited 15 Serbian cities.

Visit the Free Zone Belgrade website, www.freezonebelgrade.org, for the festival program and extensive background information about the topics dealt with in the films.

Anna Weitz, Free Zone Belgrade Festival team

In the near future it will also be possible to go as an EVS-volunteer to the TEH member centre Polymer in Tallinn, Estonia. They recently applied to become both sending and hosting organization and hope to be ready for this for the next deadline 1st of November 2007. To read more about Polymer, please visit www.kultuuritehas.ee

Apart from Polymer, the cultural centre Subtopia in Stockholm, Sweden, also applied to start working with EVS. They will start as a sending organization only. To read more about Subtopia, please visit www.subtopia.se