Play of Colors

Same but different.

Since 2004, “Fargespill” developed by musician and composer Ole Hamre and singer and pedagogue Sissel Saue, have shown how international diversity looks like in practice. “Fargespill” is a multi-cultural project in which more than 60 children and young people from over 25 countries participating in the performances made up by music and dance from around the world. Most of the children and young people that are included have come to Norway as refugees and asylum seekers. Several of the children can hardly a word of Norwegian, but still sing Norwegian verses as if they’d never done anything else. This project is being developed and has grown year after year. This CD is a result of several years work and experience. Many people agree that the multicultural show “Fargespill” developed in Bergen deserves a far wider audience and this CD is undoubtedly an attempt to reach even more audiences. But

how does it work without the visual context? Can we still see the diversity of colors when the visual aspects are turned off?

This CD brings us a lot of different melodies, tones, rhythms from different parts of the world packed in 13 songs. These pearls are put together and show us how obvious it is that we are same and for an enrichment that is that we are different. This allows us to have a sense of the richness of different cultures, giving us a bite of each. A Somali lullaby slide seamlessly into a Norwegian lullaby because it is the same mood that makes a child to fall asleep no matter what culture it is born in. On this CD we can hear the Kurdish-Norwegian wedding music, Arabic quarter-tone singing, clapping games, and love music from the Ethiopian highlands. However, this mix shows that it doesn’t happen in music without risk of sounding a bit artificial in some moments. On the other hand, those pure melodies which are almost like some rare recordings from the field, seems more authentic.

Ole Hamre’s artistic grip makes a soundtrack that starts on African may end in Norwegian, or vice versa. Every child who participated in this project has brought a few verses or a melody from the country of origin. In one moment quietly solo song, in the next, dance music with speed and punch. Despite the many beautiful and charming individual contributions, it’s still the whole that makes the strongest impression. In some ways this music crosses borders and builds bridges between countries and cultures, down to the individual level.

“Fargespill” is a multicultural coordinated effort where one mixes styles and cultural expression with a platitude that makes us forget everything called boundaries. When two worlds meet, it may cause a lot of interesting situations. Through the music on “Fargespill” CD we can see how the meeting of different cultures can create a synthesis rather than conflict. That brings the world one step forward and is more than the sum of its parts, because it is something completely new.