Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.05.2014, Blaðsíða 62

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 06 — 2014
For the Reykjavík Arts Festival, she
has teamed up with Icelandic experi-
mental theatre group VaVaVoom and
local-yet-global music label Bedroom
Community for a music theatre piece
entitled ‘Wide Slumber.’ The perfor-
mance is based on Angela’s book from
2006.
“My friend, the visual artist Matt
Ceolin, had been in the process of
building 250 insects out of metal and
acetate and I wanted an excuse to re-
search sleep and dreams more. So I
decided to see what would happen if
I would breed these two subject mat-
ters—entomology and the science of
sleep—together,” Angela explains.
“What happens if we bring two seem-
ingly unrelated things into the same
territory? Do they share a lexicon at
all? Are there structural components
that relate to each other? I started to
notice that both disciplines sometimes
call on the same subjects. Like music,
for example. Butterflies have scales on
their wings and we have scales within
the musical lexicon. And I liked how,
in the word lepidoptera [the study of
moths and butterflies], ‘opera’ is al-
most there. So I started to look at the
words as materials.”
No Jazz Hands
During the 2009 edition of Iceland Air-
waves, Angela visited Greenhouse Stu-
dios, the studio of composer/producer
Valgeir Sigurðsson and the headquar-
ters of Bedroom Community. Bedroom
Community is somewhere between
a record label and a collective; they
release records by numerous artists
but each and every
album is at least
partly recorded in
said studio and/or
created to a degree
by the three found-
ing fathers: Valgeir,
Ben Frost and Nico
Muhly. Having had
“a hardcore fan-
crush on all things
Valgeir” for a
while, she gave him
a copy of her book.
Before long, he
expressed the de-
sire to write mu-
sic to the words.
“Angela is preoc-
cupied with the
actual sound of the
words and when
she reads them out
loud, the poems
become like mu-
sic. Valgeir immediately caught on
to the musical and auditory quality
of the text,” explains Sigríður Sunna
Reynisdóttir who performs the role of
the Weaver in the piece but is also the
co-creator and producer. “He left the
book with me and I began to envision
images and sets. It took us a while to
make sense of what sort of beast we
were breeding; was it opera? A concert
with stage design? But we came to the
conclusion that it was music theatre.”
Angela clarifies: “Not musical theatre.
There are no jazz hands. I think of it a
bit like a music video coming to life.”
Embodied Words
“The original poem doesn’t really
contain characters,” Sigríður Sunna
says. “It’s extremely polyphonic and
doesn’t identify its speakers. When we
adapted the text we needed to create
characters to embody the words. We
are working with an ensemble of very
different voices and
wanted to embrace
that when coming up
with the characters.”
Enter the cast:
Ásgerður Júníus-
dóttir, a much-loved
Icelandic mezzo-
soprano, is The Lepi-
dopterist, a schol-
ar-scientist in the
older romantic vein,
slightly androgy-
nous like Ásgerður’s
voice. Sasha Siem is
a British-Norwegian
composer and singer
who plays ‘The Som-
nopterist’ (Angela’s
word for sleep scien-
tist). “We envisioned
a retro-futuristic
character, almost
like an android with
her proper British
enunciation or a software component
of the actual sleep laboratory,” says
Sigríður. These two extreme charac-
ters never meet but are bound by their
relationship to the Insomniac, the ‘ev-
eryman’ or ‘dreamer’ of the piece sung
by Alexi Murdoch, a Scottish singer-
songwriter. Alexi and Sasha have both
recorded with Valgeir in Greenhouse
Studios and are thus part of the ex-
tended Bedroom Community family.
Neither has performed before in Ice-
land.
Angela elaborates: “The Somnop-
terist governs the night time but also
recuperation, rest, recovery and res-
toration. The Lepidopterist is almost
perverse to my imagination. She is full
of passion, discovery, curiosity. Words
in her mouth are almost like sex. The
Insomniac is in this interstitial zone
where there is both anxiety and arous-
al. Then we have The Weaver. She’s
almost like the author in a book. She
pulls the strings and makes everything
happen; she’s the puppeteer.”
Crazy Metamorphosis
Wide Slumber is structured to mirror
the life cycle of a moth, going from egg
to larva to pupa to imago, and pairs
that process with the sleep cycle.
“Coming from a background in
puppetry, the element of metamor-
phosis was a very juicy component for
me,” Sigríður says. “It was interesting
to envision props, for example, that
could change shape. I’ve never been
as interested in the natural sciences as
I am after working on the piece. How
crazy is the process of metamorpho-
sis really, once you think about it? To
many a religion, the very cycle seemed
to prove the existence of God, because
who else would come up with anything
so insane!?”
“Of course, the story of the ugly lar-
va becoming a butterfly is borderline
cliché. But when you look at a butterfly
up close it’s quite a nasty looking, hairy
insect. It’s almost like a bat. We en-
joyed this contrast. Our aim was never
to just make a pretty butterfly show.”
“I first came here to read at the International Nýhil Poetry
Festival in 2007. Before I knew it, I was on stage with [lo-
cal rock group] Reykjavík!, chugging Southern Comfort at
three o’clock in the morning. Soon enough, I found myself
yearning for Iceland as if it were a lover.” After visiting fre-
quently over the subsequent years, Angela has now settled
here permanently and learned to swallow her syllables.
No Pretty
Butterfly Show
VaVaVoom and Bedroom Community turn dream
larvae and insect pupae into winged songs
Words by Atli Bollason
Photo provided by Bedroom Community
“We envisioned a retro-
futuristic character,
almost like an android
with her proper British
enunciation or a soft-
ware component of the
actual sleep laboratory.”
INFO

Wide Slumber is playing in
Tjarnarbíó on May 24, 25 and 26.
Tickets are available at midi.is
and artfest.is.
Andrea Ösp Karlsdótttir:
SAGA: Wakka Wakka
Productions
Can you describe your project/
exhibition/performance in seven
words or less?
Heartfelt, interesting, and funny
puppet show for adults.
How do the extremes of Iceland
impact your work? And/or how
you work?
The extremes of Iceland are shown
very well in this particular piece.
The highs, the lows, the Viking
spirit of the Icelanders, and the need
to have everything immediately.
Northern lights, volcanoes, horses,
and puffins all play a role.
Are there any hidden gems left in
Reykjavík?
Absolutely, but if I told you they
wouldn’t be hidden.
If money, time, and the physical
laws of nature were no object,
what would your dream project
be?
Let’s just say it would be big! Espe-
cially, if I were the only one not af-
fected by the physical laws of nature.
Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir:
Art & Space, Flow Nordic
Affect chamber ensemble
The theme of this year's Reykjavik
Arts Festival is "Not Finished",
referring to the continual nature
of the artistic process. That said,
how do you know when a work is
finished?
The magic of music performance
is that it takes place in the here and
now. It’s something you create and
share and experience with your
audience. And even if you record a
work and release it on an album as a
“finished” product, you’re very likely
to return to that particular piece
and to keep evolving with it. So, it is
indeed never finished. It’s a fun but
never-ending journey.
Can you describe your project/
exhibition/performance in seven
words or less?
Flow, across time and space, and
between people.
How do the extremes of Iceland
impact your work? And/or how
you work?
Music from old manuscripts is being
rediscovered while new compo-
sitional computer softwares are
being tried out in Harpa. For us as
an ensemble, it comes naturally to
perform both the dance music of the
17th century as well as the exciting
new contemporary compositions.
What is the best part of Icelandic
summer?
That’s easy, it’s the endless summer
light spread across the sky and all the
moments of awe it evokes.

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