M E - H E L H E T A :
G u n i l l a M a d e g å r d
E D U C A T I O N A N D
O C C U P A T I O N S - M Y C V
Having an allround non-specialised disposition I was as young very indecisive of what kind of education and future occupation to choose. Thus, as I din´t like to confine myself to just one of my interests and didn´t seem to fit in anywhere or just everywhere, I therefore in my great constraint initially followed the path of least resistance and tried to fullfill my fathers dream of me becoming an opera-singer.
As it didn´t turn out too well and not being the right path for me, it took me on to a journey with many harsh implications. I never was the great musician my father dreamt of, and I didn´t have the patience to undertake the long-time efforts required for that. Afterwards though, I can value all of that education and training, with which I was occupied during the first half of my life; having increased my receptivity to the kind of issues treated in the field of modern matriarchal studies - especially those who are intertwined with the aesthetic / shamanistic ones. Apart from that, have I, as long as I can remember - ever since I was a little child and began to ask questions about why men should master over women, which I found deeply appalling, been wondering over that issue. Under no conditions I could accept such a weird order as “natural”, but eventually came to suspect its being imposed on us by the church.
As my father served as a church musician, me and my sisters had to assist him by singing in his choirs, and therefore I spent a lot of time listening to the sermons in the church on sundays. After having been told the weird story of Adam and Eve, my suspicion that there was something very unfair done by God to Eve was arisen very early. The Swedish feminist and writer Birgitta Onsell expresses a similar experience from her childhood in one of her books.
Later I will return to that.
EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONS - MY CV
1968-9 Studied music history at the university in Lund, and took violin - and song lessons from the most prominent teachers in town. But didn´t feel convinced that I was on the right path
My new planning was to study musicpsychology in Heidelberg in Germany, why I studied German at the university for one year, but it stranded due to financial complications.
Took my exam as a s.c.”rythmic-teacher” in the Dalcroze-institut in STHLM 1974, and worked as a music teacher in elementary school. But had not yet found the way I wanted to teach, critical of the traditional way of teaching music.
Eventually I developed my own methods called "praxial music"; partly consisting of drama & theater exersises as well as of some features in the African Ngoma concept which incorporate song, dance, rytm & drama exercises - in order to develop basic prowess for life; such as attaining selfconfidence through bodily control and selfexpression, increasing sensitivity to other peoples communicatively expressiveness and to contribute to a creatively flexible and sensitive interpersonal communication and cooperation.
My workshop was called; Fantasin i rörelse (that is something like: ”The Imagination on the Move”), whereby I combined many different methods, partly from drama & theatre acting exercises and music-listening to evoke the inner imagery, and as well as some useful ingrediencies in the african Ngoma koncept connecting the selfexpression with the autentic emotional roots, integrating song / voice / dance / drama / physical acting / mim / burlesque / words / poems etc.
Choir leader for amateurs in s.c. ”Alla- kan- sjunga -kör” (”Everybody -can -sing-choir”) mostly using folk music from all over the world, especially South African choir music for four voices with the steps and movements that goes along with it, evenso in this case using the integrated Ngoma koncept.
Worked as a deputy theater consultant in Småland, to teach and organize courses to amateur actors and teachers in elementary school, preschool teachers and youth recreation leaders.
Singing in a high lifeband with musicians from Congo-Zaire.
Teaching afrodance and physcial theater exercises to amateur actors in theatergroups out on the swedish countryside.
Studies in music psychology at the university of Uppsala for the famous and splended professor Alf Gabrielsson
Author of the essay: OM BARNS MUSISKA EKOLOGI OCH KUNSKAPANDE FÖRHÅLLANDE TILL DEN HELA ANALOGA GESTALTEN
- something like ”About the ecological / musical mind of children and their spontaneous use of complete integrated forms / figures of aesthetic selfexpression to expand their knowledge and personal development”, wich rendered a credit from both my professor Alf Gabrielssons and Susan Osten, one of the most famous experimental theater-directors in Sweden.
Building my own home here at My Childhood Paradise on Öland.
Here, I have been studying on my own the last 18 years; MMS and philosophy of science, preferably the ”new” paradigm of system theory initially developed by Ilya Prigogine.
Although I am more of a layman, than a professional academic, I consider my knowledge in philosophy of science and methodology being fairly good and in any case much better than most of the academics, together with whom I have been involved in discussions about science online, in the last ten years.
