Meet last year's participants: The nudibranch

Interview with The nudibranch and Una-Luga

Perhaps you also crossed the colorful and wonderful slime tracks of the nudibranchs at the Kulturhavn Festival? At Orientkaj, the fascinating creatures from the seabed moved around among the audience and communicated in their own way. Later they performed together with the musicians from Una-Luga. Find out more about the ideas behind these performances here:

Snails are marine animals that live on the bottom of the sea. Through evolution, they have lost their shell, so they have had to find new ways to defend and protect themselves. Instead, they have been enveloped in a lot of shapes and colors that they have absorbed from the food they have eaten down on the seabed. The colors are very strong, so they use them to protect themselves. Although they look delicious, they are poisonous. So their beauty is actually also their shield.

There are 3,000 species in different shapes and colors and they also live in Denmark.

The inspiration arose mainly from perhaps not being able to understand some alien beings. You can't just decode what the snail is going to do and where its eyes or butt are. So it offers a huge curiosity, and it could be exciting to express that curiosity out into the world.

The eye contact and the meeting with children and adults is beautiful, because they look at you in a completely different way than you would normally be looked at. We are really ourselves, but we are looked at with different eyes and that creates a completely different feeling inside the body. The approach and the open mind are special. It's not often you get to look into a child's eyes and see their reaction - it's quite magical.

Some children also pick up on the little sounds we say. Then we have a language together that we didn't have from the start and we are together in the unknown without words, which has so much rationale, logic and boxes in it.

The snails have a different calm and pace than we have in everyday life. Una-Luga's music also speaks to that. The immersion that the poetry in the music and the costumes offers means that the children can sit for three quarters of an hour and be totally immersed. We come back to such a primal sense of calm, which is a nice complement to the tempi that are otherwise in the art and television we are presented with on a daily basis.

We met each other and found out that we have a shared fascination with snails and slimy tracks in common. It's calm and creating alternative, abstract spaces where people can hopefully forget themselves for a moment because there's a level of something that's strange but also recognizable so you don't get startled. It's a strange space that you can find your way around in, where you can forget yourself and not judge yourself, because we have enough time for that otherwise."

What is a nudibranch?

It is a sea animal that lives on the bottom of the sea. They are snails that through evolution have lost their shell, which means that they have had to find new ways to defend and protect themselves, because they cannot escape into their shell. So they have been enveloped with a lot of shapes and colors that they have absorbed from the food they have eaten down on the seabed. So they have morphed into their surroundings.

There are 3,000 species in different shapes and colors, which protect them because they show signal danger by having very strong colors on them. So their beauty is actually also their shield. In their tentacles they have poison, so when larger predators eat them, they are spat out. They actually look pretty delicious, but they're not. Then they are poisonous when you touch them.

They also live in Denmark. Once a year you can go on a short weekend stay, where you can dive for nudibranchs at Lillebælt. There is a Facebook group called "Nøgensnegle i Danmark", which is run by a man called Jørn. And there are such beautiful pictures of a lot of forms of nudibranchs.

He answers his emails with "best fishes".

How did you come up with the idea of ​​acting as slugs?

The inspiration came from the fact that they are hermaphrodites and cannot be put in boxes, but they are just down at the bottom of the sea. It made sense in a senseless time.

The thing about maybe not being able to understand some alien beings, you can't quite decode what it's going to do and where its eyes or butt are. So it offers a huge curiosity - And that curiosity could be exciting to express in the world.

One of the things that is beautiful about it is the eye contact and the meeting with children and also adults, because they look at you in a completely different way than you would normally be looked at. We are, after all, ourselves, but being looked at with different eyes creates a completely different sensation inside the body. The approach and the open mind are special. It's not often you get to look into a child's eyes and see their reaction is quite magical.

Some children also pick up the little sounds we say like snails. Then we have a language together that we didn't have from the start. Then we meet in the strange.

We have experienced quite a few times that the children follow along and make up stories about what the snail wants or where it is going. "You just have to follow along, it's going home to the forest!"

It is being together in the unknown without words, which has so much rationale in it and logic and boxes. It is not the adults who say the children must go along. 

If the children get scared, we also make snails, so we mirror each other.

The snails have a different calm and pace than we have in everyday life. Una-Luga's music also speaks to that. The immersion that the poetry in the music and the costumes offers means that the children can sit here for three quarters of an hour and be totally immersed. It touches me a lot with Nøgensneglene and Una-Luga's music.

We come back to such a primal feeling of basic calm, which I am hugely drawn to and which is a nice complement to the tempi that are otherwise in the art and television we are presented with on a daily basis.

You give small clams to the children - what are they?

Small gifts from the sea.

What is it that you give those gifts? 
It's a physical memory that you take home, so maybe you can draw some slightly longer slime trails. It's an exchange and you catch their eyes instead of just passing by.

How did you connect the music with the snails?

We met at another cultural event inside the Skuespilhuset, where there were tentacles on stage and beautiful dream universes. Then I went over and asked who they were. It was Una-Luga.

In that universe, there are some snails that are often on stage. So there was a shared snail fascination. We have a lot of common slimy commonalities, which is tranquility and creating alternative, abstract spaces where we facilitate something where people can hopefully forget themselves for a moment because there's a degree of something that's strange but also recognizable, so it's not like you get startled. It's a foreign space that you can find your way around in, where you can forget yourself and not judge yourself, because we have enough time for that otherwise.