Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.09.2010, Qupperneq 36

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24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2010
for several years now, Iceland has
been building an international rep-
utation for producing a rich and di-
verse range of independent dance
makers. The depth of this relatively
new community is growing at a
fascinating rate, and taking huge
strides towards building an envi-
ronment upon which the art form
can be sustained.
The trend up until now has been that
equal numbers of Icelandic dance
artists have chosen to work abroad
as much as they do at home—largely
because the conditions for making
and sharing dance in Reykjavík have
a long way to go before this city can
offer the sort of fertile soil that some
of its European neighbours can offer
(think Berlin, or Brussels). Of course
Reykjavík will never become the New
Berlin, nor should it aim to be, but in
its own way, the city is demonstrating
great ambition and has the potential to
offer a wholly different type of breeding
ground for dance making in Iceland.
Much of the appeal attached to
continental cities such as Berlin is the
geographical location, which permits
artists quick access to other hotspots,
enormously improving touring possi-
bilities and providing natural meeting
points for the roaming international
community. The qualities of Reykjavík
are in many ways the stark opposite.
Reykjavík, rather than large and cen-
tral, is small and isolated, but these
qualities are not to be sneered at, and
by no means to be misconstrued as
negative. On the contrary, Reykjavík’s
qualities are an opportunity, as well as
a challenge. The city’s isolation can be
an advantage, allowing the dance com-
munity to nurture a unique environment
that is left to develop undisturbed, and
the size of the city makes the arts com-
munity incredibly localised (every artist
working in walking distance of every
other), which makes the possibilities
for collaboration and creative encoun-
ters unavoidable.
ISOLATION
This being said, the risk with isolation
is that a scene becomes out of touch
and two dimensional—remaining con-
tinually unchallenged by developments
taking place elsewhere. Plus, local
tight-knit, everyone-knows-everyone
communities can lack the critical space
that is required to be able to openly ac-
cess the successes and failures of in-
dividual artists and their work, leaving
the scene vulnerable to stagnation and
thirsty for criticism.
Currently Reykjavík is not charac-
terised by either of these extremes, and
plenty of groundwork has been done
already to push the scene in the right
direction; many exciting groups and
dance makers have been coming out of
the woodwork, including Hnoð, Hrey-
fiþróunarsamsteypan, Leifur Þór Þor-
valdsson, and Margrét Sara Guðjóns-
dottir (to name just a few); the last
seven years have seen a strong festival
legacy develop: artFart and The Reyk-
javík Dance Festival; and courses such
as the Contemporary Dance BA and
Theatre – Theory and Practice BA, es-
tablished by Iceland’s University of the
Arts, have all helped tackle the chal-
lenges that Reykjavík faces. Yet there is
plenty more to be done and the dance
community and its wider supporters
are waking up to this. Cue the autumn
and winter of 2010.
The final quarter of this year is now
being heralded by many as an era of
change, and an opportunity to shift
the way in which dance is made and
shared in Iceland. Signý Palsdóttir, Of-
fice Manager of Iceland’s Department
of Culture, declared at a public forum
hosted by the Reykjavík Dance Festi-
val that “Now is the time for dance!”—a
statement that is hard to refute when
considering the array of events and de-
velopments taking hold in the coming
months.
VITAL PLATfORMS
Firstly, although now past, it seems im-
portant to flag up The Reykjavík Dance
Festival, which took place over the first
weekend in September. At its best,
the festival serves as a vital platform
bringing together a national and in-
ternational dance community to share
and explore the best that Iceland’s
dance scene has to offer. The festival,
crucially, provides a pretty compre-
hensive overview of the dance activity
that has been taking place in Iceland
over the year and provides a space for
reflection on the current state of the
Icelandic dance scene. The most excit-
ing element of the festival is that much
of the work presented is being shown
for the first time, making it much less
predictable what the overall quality of
the work will be.
The second event in the coming
months is the fascinating development
that is taking place at the National The-
atre this winter which, for the first time
in the playhouse’s history, is present-
ing four new independent dance works
as part of one season—a move that is
described by Karen María Jónsdóttir,
President of the National Dance Asso-
ciation, as “an unprecedented shift”.
Thirdly, and possibly the most ground-
breaking news, is the City of Reykja-
vik’s move to provide initial funds for
the first ever National Dance House to
be created. Opening at the beginning
of October, the new dance space will
be installed in an old biscuit factory on
Skúlagata and will immediately serve
as a vital resource for the independent
dance scene. Ásgerður Gunnarsdót-
tir of Hreyfiþróunarsamsteypan—one
of the four groups presenting a new
dance work at the National Theatre—
explains that “this development is
enormous. Before this news was an-
nounced, Hreyfiþróunarsamsteypan
were struggling to find a space to start
working on their new piece. Now we
will be the first of many to make use of
this new opportunity.”
Finally, the fourth big event tak-
ing place this autumn and winter is
Keðja—running from 8th–11th October.
Ása Richardsdóttir, who managed the
event, described it “first and foremost,
as an opportunity for all involved in the
performing arts to explore, question
and celebrate the art of dance”. With
sixteen artistic events of various shapes
and sizes, plus various seminars and
talks, this international encounter is an
opportunity for dance professionals to
mingle with their counter-parts from
across the oceans; an invitation to the
curious beginners to check out some
of the most exciting contemporary per-
formance work taking place in Iceland
at the moment. And according to Ása
Richardsdóttir, it is also about some-
thing a lot bigger. She explains “I think
this is an opportunity for all Icelanders
to begin to rethink, reshape and re-
charge their future; to treat society in
the coming year as an open, critical,
and constructive laboratory—bearing in
mind that our success will, to a large
extent, depend on our ability to unleash
the true creative forces we have.”
The question of whether or not Keð-
ja will be able to reach those heights
will not be answered of course until
after the event, but from looking at the
programme of events—with highlights
including Saga and Friðgeir, Leifur Þór
Þorvaldsson, Erna Ómarsdóttir, Kviss
Búm Bang and many more—it seems
safe to say that this event is going to
provide some thrilling encounters, and
should be marked on the calendar as a
“DO NOT MISS!”
Overall the final quarter of 2010
looks unavoidably like a period of fer-
vent activity and exciting possibilities. It
is clear that there is a lot of work to do,
but it is easy to feel hopeful when you
look at the track record.

Reykjavík Is Dancing
Dance | Dance Dance
For more information on Keðja go to www.Keðja.id.is.
For all other dance information go to www.dance.is
ALExANDER ROBERTS
“The city’s isolation can be an advantage, allowing
the dance community to nurture a unique
environment that is left to develop undisturbed,
and the size of the city makes the arts community
incredibly localised”