‘bØN Odori – in the making of a land’ Møn started with the workshop Nr 1 ‘Når arkiverne er i bevægelse’ (When the archives are in motion). The workshop is made in collaboration with Lokalhistorisk Forening Møn and Møns Museum. In 1985, people who felt missing Møns’ stories formed a group and set up the association. Their archiving activities are run by passionate members and it is all voluntary works. The archive in their office is consisted with articles, photos, books, hand-made song books, post cards – any sort of printed materials that (local) people bring and donate to them.  

A sounding metal tube and a Japanese tea ceremony opened the workshop. We used a few of the museum collections for the tool of the tea ceremony. Great variety of participants with different background came together. After a group introduction, the participants were led into the office of Lokalhistorisk Forening Møn and selected one material – articles, stories or visual materials anything which they wanted to study. And then, they carefully created three keywords.

After a short break, JOU facilitated warming up bodies as a group in an intimate circle shape. While they keep this shape, they introduced those three keywords each other. From the key words, the participants created individual movements and presented each other. Thereafter, the participants have practiced  a short movement and a pattern from “Kocho-Kawasaki“, which is one of old Japanese Bon Odori song from Gujo city. “Kocho” means an old melodic tune before western 12 scale was introduced. At the end of the workshop, Kocho-Kawasaki’s movement transformed into their own individual movements.  We closed the workshop with sharing our reflections.