Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.04.2013, Qupperneq 32

From Plumbing To Poetry To
Hard-Hats And Bouncing Back
Norðurpóllinn bids farewell to its house and looks forward to its next adventure…
32The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 4 — 2013
Rumour has it in Reykjavík that Norðurpóllinn is
quitting. They’re not. In fact, the quirky theatre
group is more enthusiastic than ever, despite the
fact that a huge road is about to be plonked over
the company’s ‘house’: an ex-factory building used
by Norðurpóllinn as an experimental space for
artists. “We always knew that we were losing the
house,” says Íris Skúladóttir, sipping a coffee and
keeping half an eye on her young daughter who is
running about with a rather dangerous looking hot
chocolate, “but we’re optimists. We hit a wall and
we bounce back. New doors are opening.”
Íris is one of the four people who set up the inde-
pendently run theatre company in 2009 to provide
physical space for performers to use: from actors
to artists, poets to painters, and professionals to
children. It relocated to its current home in a large
industrial building on Seltjarnarnes in 2010 and has
generated some of Iceland’s most inventive work
in recent years. In fact, it has produced as many, if
not more, performances than ‘Þjóðleikhúsið’ (“Na-
tional Theatre”) and ‘Borgarleikhúsið’ (“Reykjavík
City Theatre”) every year, and its focus on grass-
roots theatre means Norðurpóllinn has served as a
crucial outlet for the creative minds of Reykjavík to
experiment and express themselves. So what’s all
this gossip about Norðurpóllinn losing its house?
DERELICT FACTORY
TURNED THEATRE
It turns out that the group has been fighting for
their house from the get-go. In 2010, Íris and her
friends Arnar, Denni and Gríma stumbled upon an
abandoned factory in Seltjarnarnes. And in true
Grotowski-style, they adopted this run-down build-
ing and their theatrical love child, Norðurpóllinn, as
we know it today, was officially born. But it was not
an easy birth.
“The biggest challenge we faced was to get the
house going, transforming the setting into a use-
able space,” Íris admits, “and the house was a to-
tal mess and we had to do everything ourselves.”
Without any financial support from the local fund-
ing bodies in Seltjarnarnes, Íris and company were
forced to use their connections and call in favours
from friends and family, including fellow actors. As
actors are not well known for their skills in plumb-
ing or fire-safety, it is a wonder that the house is
still standing.
Yet if they are anything, actors are resourceful:
cue paint-wielding thesps dashing madly about
the derelict building, painting wildly and frantically
blocking holes in the wall with plastic bags. Such a
scene pretty much forms the basis of the Norður-
póllinn house’s physical creation. In fact, “the fac-
tory setting is an element of the house,” says Búi
Bjarmar Aðalsteinsson, Íris’s boyfriend and fellow
organiser of Norðurpóllinn. “In a factory there is an
element of making, of raw manufacture. That was
the spirit of the space as we were creating it, and is
the spirit of the house now.”
It seems that creativity, raw energy and sheer
determination paid off, as Íris and friends virtu-
ally built a multi-functional performance space and
grass-roots theatre out of nothing. Luck and impro-
visation of course lent a helping hand, but wiring
lights and moving a brick wall halfway across the
room on top of all the other crazy things which life
threw at them was not really a matter of luck, but of
hard work and dedication. Of course, Íris looks back
and laughs at this period of mayhem, though it is
clear that this was a time of great stress, especially
after Norðurpóllinn officially opened on February
17, 2010.
“We had official maintenance men come and
check the house on quite a few occasions,” ex-
plains Íris and, in spite of working day and night to
get the house ready, “they already wanted to shut
us down in 2010. What’s more, we had three shows
running at the time.” But like all challenges thrown
their way, the artisans-come-handymen at Norður-
póllinn met it head on. Equipping themselves
with hard-hats and flameproof paint, they smiled
the smug-smile of victory when, a year later, the
straight-faced maintenance inspectors admitted,
somewhat begrudgingly, that they had ‘zero com-
ments’ and the house was fine: Norðurpóllinn had
finally ticked all of the boxes.
WHERE ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
With the go-ahead given and the paint on the walls
still wet, Norðurpóllinn opened its doors to the
public in 2010 and enjoyed great success. In 2011,
it ran a performance of ‘Fjalla-Eyvindur og Halla’
written by one of Iceland’s most famous play-
wrights, Jóhann Sigurjónsson, which was nomi-
nated for the Gríman awards. In a poll which con-
sidered the number of plays each theatre produced
annually, Norðurpóllinn was ranked third highest in
Iceland, trumped only by Þjóðleikhúsið and Borgar-
leikhúsið.
Yet Norðurpóllinn is more than just a theatre; it
has held everything from poetry readings and bel-
ly-dancing classes, to school plays and the Reykja-
vík Dance Festival. Jón Gnarr celebrated his birth-
day there, and the huge Reykjavík-Bergen-Nuuk
event, which saw bands from all over Iceland, Nor-
way and Greenland, was just another one of many
exciting events forming Norðurpóllinn’s repertoire.
The company also places strong emphasis on
theatre and workshops for children, encourag-
ing kids to get involved and think creatively. ‘The
Maze,’ a play written and directed by Íris herself, of-
fered an interactive experience for the young audi-
ence. “We even had real grass,” Íris says,“ and had
to keep the lights on at night to help it grow”
Such opportunities for real experimentation
with physical setting is limited on the fixed, prosce-
nium arch stages of bigger theatres in Iceland, and
this is exactly what Norðurpóllinn wants to avoid:
in the Norðurpóllinn house, you can do what you
want. Literally. Paint the walls yellow, stick a pond
in the middle of the room or glue furniture to the
ceiling (although the latter has yet to be done). In
the Norðurpóllinn house, anything is possible.
“People need that,” Íris says, “I mean, knowing that
they can do anything. People need a space with no
restrictions.”
TO BE DESTROYED TO MAKE
ROOM FOR A ROAD
Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way.
Whilst Iceland is happy enough to build roads that
veer around elf-stones, the luck of the land-spirits it
seems is not with Norðurpóllinn. The local council
in Seltjarnarnes is plonking a shiny new tarmac-
wonder over the company’s house; performing on
a roadside may certainly be ‘experimental,’ but it is
not really ideal.
But Íris and her boyfriend Búi are not sad. “We
set out to create a theatre and ended up doing so
much more. We became events managers, created
a space to rent to painters and poets and hosted all
kinds of children’s workshops. We’ve swept floors
and mended light-bulbs, and we’ve created this
organic, wonderful space,” Búi says proudly. And
Íris is adamant that this doesn’t mean the end for
Norðurpóllinn. “Although the physical space is go-
ing, Norðurpóllinn is continuing,” Íris says. “New
doors are opening. We’re not quitting, we’re not
going anywhere. This is the chance for something
new.”
But the house itself will continue being used right
up until the first block of cement is torn down and
Norðurpóllinn is hosting a fantastic line-up over the
next month before it embarks on its next house-
hunting adventure. So ignore the rumours: the
house might be going, but Norðurpóllinn and its
quirky, creative spirit is here to stay.
- Anna MIllward
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