Hello from Norway!

The South Participants of PULSE 6 have now been in Norway for about 3 weeks and have already completed one important project; FeriePULSE. FeriePULSE is a low threshold holiday program that aims to give children and youth that does not have plans for their holiday an opportunity to participate in a holiday activity based on music and dance. FeriePULSE is offered in various school holidays and this was the first time it was arranged during the autumn holiday. 46 children and youth between 7 and 17 years and 4 peer educators participated in the project in Bergen.  Together we developed a music and dance show inspired by South African and Norwegian music traditions.

2018 is an important year for several local cultural institutions; Bergen’s main concert arena Grieghallen and Bergen Cultural School is celebrating their 40 years of existents, and NMF their 100th anniversary. Saturday 20th October the three events was marked with a family concert and HøstPULSE was invited to perform their show together with the well-known professional orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

To see the children from HøstPULSE and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra sharing one stage playing, dancing and singing Norwegian and South African music together was truly an amazing experience.  We have no doubt that the experience gave the children a feeling of achievement and mastering which is one of the goals, PULSE is working to achieve. We believe that if children are given an opportunity to share stage with professional musicians at an early age, this will inspire and motivate them to continue with after school activities. We also believe that this will have a positive effect on children and youth in the audience – Grieghallen was full that day!

Photos by Martin Sibiya

written by Chief Zwane