Reykjavík Grapevine - 26.08.2011, Blaðsíða 29

29
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2011
Dance | Party
Nine years ago, a group of six danc-
ers and choreographers searching
for a platform to show their work
brought the Reykjavík Dance Fes-
tival into being. Since then, the
festival has taken on incarnations
ranging from a line-up of solos in
2003, when money was tight, to a
high-production-value couple of
evenings in an empty warehouse by
the harbour in 2007. This year’s fes-
tival, which takes place September
5 through 11 at locations around
downtown, breaks records for both
the number and diversity of per-
formances, installations, films and
courses on offer.
We spoke with two of the nine dance
artists that make up this year’s team
of organisers. Ásgerður G. Gunnars-
dóttir works with the performance
group Hreyfiþróunarsamsteypan, and
has been involved with the festival
since 2009. This year, she has taken
on a leading role in festival coordina-
tion (“basically RDF is what my life re-
volves around these days,” she says).
Steinunn Ketilsdóttir will premiere her
piece ‘Belinda and Goddess,’ created in
collaboration with Sveinbjörg Þórhalls-
dóttir, at the festival; she also has been
involved in running RDF since 2006.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE FES-
TIVAL?
Ásgerður: Reykjavík Dance Festival is
first and foremost a platform for inde-
pendent Icelandic dance makers and
dancers to show their work. Its future
goal is also to import more international
pieces and introduce them to Icelandic
dance audiences.
Steinunn: The festival is also a place
for Icelandic choreographers living and
working abroad to share their work with
the Icelandic audience. For instance,
this year Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir
[who is based in Berlin] will come to
the Reykjavík Festival with a new piece.
In 2007, we started inviting interna-
tional guests to the festival: presenters
and directors of festivals, theatres and
dance organisations around Europe.
This has opened up many doors for the
Icelandic dance community.
HOW WILL THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL
DIFFER FROM EARLIER EDITIONS?
Ásgerður: This festival is quite a lot
bigger than the earlier ones. We are
adding programmes, and this year we
have a special section dedicated to
dance short movies and installations.
Steinunn: We also have two work-
shops this year for the first time. One is a
dance workshop with a teacher named
Inaki Azpillaga, who is renowned in
Central Europe and has been teaching
at some of the biggest dance festivals
around the world. There will also be a
workshop with an agent from Germany
for Icelandic performance artists; the
topic will be marketing of performances
internationally.
Ásgerður: Then I also forgot to men-
tion, the festival will issue out a festi-
val newspaper, which will be released
on the fifth of September. The goal of
that is to cover dance as we would like
to see it being covered. There will be
interviews with fine artists, musicians,
dancers and dance makers, the sched-
ule, interviews with participants around
the subject of dance and its situation
here in Iceland.

WHAT KIND OF WORK WILL BE
SHOWN AND IS THERE A PARTICU-
LAR PIECE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR-
WARD TO SEEING?
Ásgerður: There are a lot of collabo-
rations between Icelandic and foreign
artists. For example, John the House-
band, a performance band, consists of
artists from Iceland, Belgium, Germany,
Spain and Sweden. Then there is also
a collaboration between Icelandic and
Israeli dancers [‘> a flock of us >’].
Then the Swedish dance maker
Alma Söderberg will perform her
piece, ‘Cosas,’ that got selected into
the Aerowaves, a cross border dance
performance network, this year. There
are also Icelandic choreographers per-
forming, for example Lára Stefánsdót-
tir, Helena Jónsdóttir, and Sveinbjörg/
Steinunn. And there are newcomers,
such as the group TANZ, which is a col-
laboration between newly-graduated
dance, theatre and music-makers from
The Icelandic Academy of the Arts.
It is too hard to choose [one piece]…
I think I look most forward to seeing all
of those local and international artists,
writers and artistic directors meet-
ing and mingling, creating networks
and discussing the constantly growing
dance scene here!
Bigger, Better, Still DIY!
Reykjavík Dance Festival 2011
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Is 'modern' and 'interpretative' dance all obscure and hard
to understand/relate to? Or is it 'a totally valid form of ex-
pression'? Here at Grapevine, we sorta love it!