As part of the Storytelling Project, which has been possible thanks to the support of Signatur Stiftelsen, a group of Dream Orchestra students will attend four workshops on Swedish Medieval Folk Music and focus on the ballad called Vallevan or Valivan, considered one of the oldest Swedish ballads to be found and preserved and dates from the XIIIth century.
Lisa Moberg has designed four workshops around this Medieval ballad that tells the story about the sailor and conqueror Vallevan.
Explaining the form of the ballad and the way the 20 stanzas can be narrated, the goal is to discover together with the students, the different emotions that are generated in the verses; and propose a new musical and narrative version.
The ballad tells the love story of a young lady who has fallen in love with Vallevan and refuses to marry anyone else. One day Vallevan disguises himself as a princess and shows up at the woman's house asking her to teach him how to plant. When Vallevan (still in disguise) decides to leave, he asks her to come with him on the boat. For a time, the young woman agrees. But when she already decides to return to her house, Vallevan forbids it. There he reveals to her that she is not a princess, but that he is Vallevan.
From then on, the narrative of the medieval ballad takes different paths. But for the DO workshops, teacher Lisa, who also works at Dream Orchestra Lövgärdet, chose the version where there is a happy ending between Vallevan and the young woman.
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