ALICIA SIGUE EXPLICÁNDONOS SU VIAJE A TRAVÉS DE LA GENTE QUE VA CONOCIENDO. AHORA ANDA POR FINLANDIA. ¿A QUIÉN NOS PRESENTAS HOY ALI?



Sorry to have disappeared from this blog for such a long time. Finland has been a very different experience than Oslo. We arrived in the dark and cold month of December. Winter made me and the people around me hibernate into the warm walls of the houses, into our little cozy sauna. It is now in May, with Spring slowly making its way through the cold, that we are waking up, stretching our bodies and becoming active. Now I am back with a little story from Finland.

In faraway Finland I met a little charming and inquisitive fairy. Her name is Aime (pronounced as it would be read in Spanish/Finnish) and she spreads sweetness and happiness all around. She lives with her parents and Topi the dog in a little house near Helsinki. I have been very lucky to have them during my stay in Finland. Aime always makes me instantly happy with her big smile and curious eyes, and her parents have taken wonderful care of me, and also Alberto during his visits.

Aime would like to share with you what a day is like for her.

She is an early riser, like all little fairies and by 8:00 is bright and up.
At around 10, after a breakfast of porridge, she goes out to play, no matter the weather or the temperature.
11:30 is time to go back home, eat and get some sleep. Fairies need to recover from their outbursts of emotions.
Aime wakes up at 14:00 to a cozy and warm house, full of energy once more until 17:00 which is time for dinner and 19:30 is story time and getting prepared for a night of sweet dreams.

Aime likes to make friends. She loves the sauna and will stop anything she is doing when the time comes, she says pschiiiiiii when she gets inside. Aime smiles and is happy when playing, reading books or seeing her parents come home. She also gets sad sometimes, especially when things do not go according to her plans. As a fairy she always knows what she wants to do!
Aime told me: “I have many favorite books. Books with pandas are great. Books where I can
point at things or find hidden objects or characters are also great. I also like to imitate the characters in books. And I love cars and trucks!”
All fairies and even ordinary people in Finland like Moomin, and some of his friends Sniff and little My. If you are curious about the Moomins: http://www.moomin.fi/moomin.htm
Here is a photo of Moomin:

Ane Lillehammer studies the Master in Higher Education at the University of Oslo. We spent a whole semester together, going through the ups and downs of being a student. She invited me to join her Gyrokinesis class which was relaxing and just great for body, mind and spirit! I will miss her too, now that I am in Tampere, Finland, for my second semester of the programme.

Where were you born? Where did you grow up?

I was born in Stavanger and lived there until I was 16 when I moved to Oslo to attend the Norwegian National Ballet School. After a year I moved back to my parents in Stavanger to take the IB diploma, spending most of my lively teenage years in my hometown. During these years I met Ulrik, who is now my husband. I studied dance in Stockholm and have, since graduating in 1999 lived in London, Leeds and Oslo.

When did you start dancing and why?

I started dancing when I was 5 years old, after nagging my parents for a few years. Like so many young girls I was always dancing around in the living room not leaving them much choice. However, when I finally reached the age of five I was allowed to join a ballet class, and since then dance has been an integral and important part of my life :D

What is it you like about dancing, yoga, gyrotonic...?

Dance has always been a part of my life, expressing myself through my body has been a natural thing for me. I have always enjoyed moving by dancing, skiing, gyrokinesis or yoga. It is such a wonderful feeling to coordinate the muscles and your whole being towards a purpose, whatever that purpose might be….. Our bodies have the capacity to express so much, and play an important part in human communication (consciously and unconsciously). In yoga the combination of training the mind and the body has a particular appeal to me, and the same is applicable for gyrokinesis. I believe that the holistic approach is a healthy one – and the effects can be felt and is evidence in itself.

Unfortunately awareness of body language and the importance of developing these aspects of human life seem to decrease in importance in everyday life for a lot of people. You can especially see this in children growing up today. Their motor skills can be extremely poor (something I have witnessed as a dance pedagogue). They sit in front of computers and television sets instead of moving around, climbing trees, skipping and jumping. In Norway today there is less physical exercise in school than when I grew up. Policy makers are so interested in Pisa indicators like scores on maths and language that they fail to take into consideration empirical data that shows that physical exercise actually enhance and facilitate learning.

What inspires you? What kind of shows/plays have you been working in? Which one did you enjoy the most?

Movement in itself is something that has always inspired me. I have done different sorts of performances - from small venues to larger ones. I really enjoyed being on tour in Norway with performances for school children – contributing to artistic experiences to the younger generation. My final performance was in october 2006. I was the assistant choreographer in the production Peer Gynt in Cairo, Egypt. The performance marked the end of the celebration of the Ibsen year 2006. One of the dancers in the ensemble broke his foot in the first performance, so I had to step in and do the choreographies he was dancing in the second one. The whole production was an experience, and I have a lot of good memories from it. Working with Stuart Hopps was a real pleasure, and he taught me a lot, both on a professional and a personal level.

What made you"change" your life and enter the course Master in Philosophy in Higher Education?

I always knew that I wanted to do a masters degree, but as a dance artist I wanted to do as much work in dance while I was still young. In addition I also wanted to be sure that the master I chose would be something that I was interested in. Seeing as I was already working, there was no point in doing a masters just for the sake of it. If I was to invest two years of my life in something I wanted to be sure it was something I wanted to do. I also applied for the master in comparative and international education, but ended up in the M.Phil programme. The reason why these programmes were interesting to me was that I have been interested in the link between education and development for some time, and when I discovered these masters I saw that I might be able to develop further in that field.

What play, movie, book, poetry, painter, painting, dancer, actor/ess, food, music... would you like to share/recommend to the readers of the blog?

Last week I saw a great production of “Erasmus Montanus” (1722) by Ludvig Holberg at the National Theatre in Oslo. The actors did a fantastic job. All the ingredients like the set, costumes and lighting came together to make a good holistic impression. In particular the actor who played Erasmus, Henrik Rafaelsen, was wonderful. His body language was hilarious - really portraying the dedicated philosopher with a blind faith in the truthfulness of logic. Being a student in higher education at the University in Oslo, as well as just having finished the history module, made the play even more meaningful to me this time. I remember I enjoyed it when I read it many years ago, but seeing this production at this point in my life added to the depth of the content in the play. For all higher education students this satirical comedy should be a must!! I haven’t laughed so much in a long time!

When it comes to dance there are a lot of amazing choreographers out there, but when having to choose there are two choreographers that work closely together that I would like to mention: Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leòn. They are strongly affiliated with Nederlands Dans Theater, but their work can also be seen performed by a few other companies, the Norwegian National Ballet included. If you ever get a chance to see any of their work DO! It is amazing!

I have now finished with the first of the tour steps of my master. My next stop is Tampere, Finland, starting on the 2nd of January. I left Oslo on a snowy Sunday, happy and sad, with two bags and a million experiences, feelings, memories and friends. One of these friends is the special person I will talk about today.

Iyad Abdualrub is from Palestine, born in Riyadh. He grew up in Qabatya and it is the only place where he feels really at home. He worked at the Arab American University of Jenin where he taught communication skills and English speaking and listening skills. He is married to Hege, a very intelligent and sweet Norwegian who also worked at the same university. This year they decided to embark in the adventure of living in Norway and Iyad enrolled in the Higher Education Master at the University of Oslo.

We have come to call him the “positive Palestine”, because he is charming, happy and always has nice stories to share about his home, his traditions, his olive trees and wonderful tasty Palestine food. When you ask him about home, his face shines and he can talk and talk and talk with sparkling eyes and gestures. When I asked him what does he understand by being a positive Palestine, he answered “I think being positive means to feel confident and strong, to love and enjoy the life. and to believe and work for peace and justice for all people. Palestine to me it is like the olive tree...its branches are the sympol of peace, its fruits are filled with energy, its leaves are always green, its trunk is strong and its roots are deep.”

He would like to share with you, dear readers of the blog “Un lloc, un món”, a different vision of Palestine, not the one we see on television everyday, but a little bit of the inside, of the positive Palestine, of their lives, their capacity to enjoy in hard times, to live and cherish being together, the olive season, the food... life. Here is a website where you will find a different view of Palestine, an active society, full of events, music, thoughts and energy: www.thisweekinpalestine.com

I will not be sharing so many moments with Iyad the next semester, he has promised to come and visit us in Finland. We will miss him terribly, but I also know I have made a new friend, a very special one to me, for the times we have passed together, but also because he is a positive Palestine and has shown me how to focus on the positive to be stronger. Thank you Iyad!

After the hard studying for the oral exam, a friend of mine and I visited Stockholm (Sweden), one of my favorite capitals in Europe. We ended up staying in Eva Larsson’s home, a beautifully decorated reformed house in the centric Södermalm neighborhood. We were really very lucky! She lives in a quiet, peaceful house, with wooden floors, white walls and lots of beautiful details. I was particularly fascinated by the ceramics in her house which she makes (!), so I decided to write my next section in “Un lloc, un món” about Eva Larsson.

Després d’una temporada d’estudi intens per l’examen oral, una amiga i jo vam decidir anar de visita a Estocolm (Suècia). Una de les capitals europees que més m’agraden. Vam acabar dormint a casa de l’Eva Larsson, una casa antiga recentment reformada i decorada amb molt de gust, situada al barri cèntric de Södermalm. Tot una sort per a nosaltres!! Ella viu en una casa tranquil·la, amb el terra de fusta, parets blanques i plena de detalls creatius. Em va fascinar especialment la ceràmica que tenia, i que després vaig descobrir que feia ella (!), de manera que vaig pensar que escriuria la meva següent entrada al blog d“un lloc, un món” sobre l’Eva Larsson.

Eva was born in Borås, a town near Göteborg on the west coast of Sweden. When she was 17 years old she took off to travel all around the world for a year. After that she began her education in art and moved to Stockholm, where she has lived ever since.

L’Eva va néixer a Borås, una ciutat propera a Götenborg a la costa oest de Suècia. Quan tenia 17 anys va marxar de viatge per tot el món durant un any. Després va tornar i es va instal·lar a Estocolm, on ha viscut des de llavors, per començar la seva educació en art.

At the beginning she was mostly painting and drawing but at one point, by chance, she was offered a place in a Ceramic studio at Södermalm. The material and a longing to combine her work with pictures with a function made her take the place and discover ceramics. That is the story made short, of how she began working with ceramics.

Al principi es dedicava principalment a dibuixar i pintar, però un dia per casualitat, li van oferir una plaça en un estudi de ceràmica a Södermalm. El material i el desig de combinar el seu treball amb imatges amb una funció van fer que acceptés i descobrís la ceràmica. Aquesta és la història molt i molt resumida de com va començar a treballar amb la ceràmica.

After years of experiments with the material and all it’s possibilities, Eva got more and more interested in the design and functions. Her inspiration comes from nature’s forms and varieties, even if, as she says, her shapes are often very clean and simple.

Després d’anys d’experiments amb el material i totes les seves possibilitats, l’Eva cada cop es va interessar més en el disseny i les seves funcions. La seva inspiració ve de les formes de la naturalesa, de les seves varietats, tot i que, com ella diu, les seves formes són sovint molt netes i senzilles.

Lately, she has discovered a technique that makes it possible to transfer photographs on to the glassed surface of ceramics. This has opened up for many more possibilities which she is currently working on.

Últimament ha descobert una tècnica que fa possible transferir fotografies a les superfícies de la ceràmica. Això ha suposat per a ella un munt de noves possibilitats en les que està actualment treballant.

Her latest finished work is a study on hands and their expression possibilities. She was intrigued by the different expressions/emotions that appeared by the slightest movement of the hands. This work ended up in a exhibition at Kaolin in 2004.

La seva última obra és un estudi sobre les possibilitats d’expressió de les mans. L’inspirava les diverses expressions i emocions que apareixien amb qualsevol lleu moviment de les mans. Aquest treball va culminar amb una exhibició a la galeria Kaolin el 2004.

You can find Eva Larsson’s ceramics in Kaolin, Stockholm (www.kaolin.se), Galleri Hantverket, Stockholm and during the summertime at Heagård (Halmstad). You can also see some of her work on her own webpage: www.evalarsson.com. I strongly enourage you to take at least a glance on her work! Enjoy!

Podreu trobar les obres de l’Eva Larsson a Kaolin (Estocolm, www.kaolin.se), Galleri Hantverket (Estocolm) i durant l’estiu a Heagård (Halmstad). També podreu veure la seva obra a la seva pàgina web: www.evalarsson.com. Us animo a tots a fer, com a mínim, una ullada a les seves petites obres d’art! Disfruteu!

ALICIA ESTÁ DE VIAJE: NORUEGA, FINLANDIA, PORTUGAL... EN SU VIAJE CONTEMPLARÁ MUCHOS PAISAJES, HARÁ FOTOS DE MONUMENTOS Y TAMBIÉN CONOCERÁ A MUCHA GENTE. UN LLOC, UN MÓN JUSTAMENTE LE HEMOS PEDIDO QUE NOS HABLE DE ESO: DE PERSONAS. ES EL MOMENTO DE VIAJAR CON ELLA PERO HACERLO A TRAVÉS DE RETRATOS EN PRIMER PLANO, DE MIRADAS DE OTROS. ALICIA NOS CUENTA SU PERIPLO EN ESTA NUEVA SECCIÓN A PARTIR DE TODA LA GENTE CON LA QUE SE VA ENCONTRANDO.

First of all, I would like to welcome you to my section in Un lloc, un món. I must say I am very honored to be able to participate in this blog which I constantly read!
In this section I would like to share with you some of the people that I meet during my adventure around Europe and which, for some reason become special to me. At the same time, they will recommend a movie, a book, a poetry writer, a painting... or maybe even a traditional recipe that they are fond of.

Primer de tot, voldria donar-vos la benvinguda a la meva secció a Un lloc, un món. Haig de dir que és tot un honor per a mi poder participar en aquest blog, que llegeixo constantment!
En aquesta secció m’agradaria compartir amb vosaltres algunes de les persones que vaig coneixent durant la meva aventura per Europa, i que, per alguna raó es van convertint en persones especials per a mi. Alhora que recomanaran una pel·lícula, un llibre, un poeta, una pintura… or potser fins i tot una recepta tradicional que els hi agrada.

Today I will talk a little about Nadiya, my dear buddy, and a very special person.

Avui parlaré una mica de la Nadiya, la meva estimada buddy, i una persona que considero molt especial.



Nadiya Konovalova was born in Horlivka (Ukraine) but lives in Oslo since August 2006. For Nadiya, Oslo is a city of many faces, some of which she loves, and some of which she hates, and… Oslo is not the most beautiful place in Norway (and I must say I totally agree with her perspective!).

Nadiya Konovalova va néixer a Horlivka (Ucraïna) però viu a Oslo des de l’agost de 2006. Per la Nadiya, Oslo és una ciutat amb moltes cares, algunes que estima i altres que odia, i... Oslo no és el lloc més bonic de Noruega (i, haig d’afegir, que jo estic totalment d’acord amb la seva perspectiva!).

She is my “buddy”, which in the University of Oslo means, volunteering to help new students (national and international) to integrate during their first two weeks. Buddies are generous and kind, or so Nadiya is. She organized activities and games, and was our support in every way while we all felt lost and small. I must say she has done a great job with our group and has become a very special friend to me here in Oslo.

Ella és la meva “buddy”, que a la Universitat d’Oslo vols dir, ser voluntari per a ajudar als nous estudiants (nacionals i internacionals) a integrar-se durant les seves primeres dues setmanes. Els buddies són persones generoses i amables, o almenys així és la Nadiya. Ella va organitzar activitats i jocs, i va ser el nostre suport mentre tots ens sentíem perduts i petits. Haig de dir que ha fet una molt bona feina amb el nostre grup i que ha esdevingut una amiga molt especial per a mi, aquí a Oslo.

She studied to be an English teacher in Ukraine and then, due to an experience with a Rudolf Steiner school, decided to come to Norway to study the Master in Special Needs Education at the University of Oslo. She is now working on her thesis on the challenges for parents who have a child with autism, and at the same time working in a school with autistic children and in a home for handicapped.

Ella va estudiar per a ser professora d’anglès a Ucraïna i llavors, degut a una experiència amb una escola Rudolf Steiner, va decidir venir a Noruega per a estudiar el Màster en Educació Especial a la Universitat d’Oslo. En aquests moments està treballant en la seva tesis sobre els reptes dels pares que tenen un/a fill/a amb autisme, i, alhora, treballa en una escola amb nens autístics i en una casa per a discapacitats.

Nadiya would like to share with you, dear readers of Un lloc, un món, a Norwegian film called “Tatt av kvinnen” or “Gone With the Woman” by the diretor Petter Naess. It is based on the book with the same title by the author Erland Loe (1993) which unfortunately is not translated into English (or Spanish).

Nadiya voldria compartir amb vosaltres, estimats lectors d’Un lloc, un món, una pel·lícula noruega anomenada “Tatt av kvinnen” o “Gone With the Woman” del director Petter Naess. Està basada en el llibre amb el mateix títol de l’autor Erland Loe (1993) i que, desafortunadament no està traduït a l’anglès (ni al castellà).

As you can find on the FILM'S WEBSITE, the summary goes as follows: “Gone with the Woman” is the story of He, a male who hasn't even got a name. And, without him fully grasping how it comes about, his life is invaded by a woman. From this point on, he struggles to tackle the situation; He could try to throw out the invader, or try to adjust to the circumstances. He opts for the second alternative, and decides to fall deeply in love. As He himself puts it: "I will start already by tomorrow."

Com trobareu a la web de la pel·lícula, la història és la següent:”Gone With the Wind” és la història de He, un home que no té ni nom. I, sense que amb prou feines se n’adoni, la seva vida acaba envaïda per una dona. Des d’aquest punt en endavant, intenta sortir-se’n de la situació; He podria intentar treure l’invasor fora de casa, o intentar adaptar-se a les circumstàncies. He opta per la segona alternativa i decideix enamorar-se profundament. Tal com He diu: “Ho començaré ha des de demà”.

This film has been quite a success here in Norway, as was the book when it was published. It is somewhere in between a drama and a comedy, full of Norwegian humor. When I asked Nadiya what she considered “Norwegian humor” to be, she said, after some reflection, that it is a contradictory matter, serious but tremendously funny, intelligent and complex and at the same time the kind of humor that makes one laugh without being based on the negative side of people or things.

Aquesta pel·lícula ha estat tot un èxit aquí, a Noruega, tal com ho va ser el llibre quan es va publicar. És una cosa entre drama i comèdia, ple d’humor noruec. Quan li he preguntat a la Nadiya què considerava “ l’humor norueg”, m’ha dit, després de reflexionar, que era un tant contradictori, seriós però molt divertit, intel·ligent i complex i alhora un tipus d’humor que fa riure sense basar-se en la part negativa de les persones o les coses.