Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.08.2014, Blaðsíða 36

36 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2014DANCE
SALKA. IS
Beautiful photos from
popular tourist destinations, and
your own personal journal
which will make your memories
from Iceland
fresh for all time.
MemoriesH
xIcelandic horses (13)
H
When?
Where?
What did you se
e?
What did you do
?
Whom did you m
eet?
What did you ea
t?
How was the we
ather?
xNjarðvíkurskr
iður, east Iceland
(36)
xLón, Lónsfjörð
ur southeast Ice
land (37)
Everything
in one place
“He put it in our hands,” Brogan says.
“And we had to. We couldn’t not fol-
low this.”
By the next year, the trio had staged
a well-received performance, called
'Dansaðu fyrir mig' ("Dance For Me"),
in Ármann’s hometown of Akureyri.
This initial success snowballed: they
were invited to take the show to Eg-
ilstaðir in East Iceland, where Pétur
grew up and where he and Brogan
met and co-founded the experimental
theatre group Tilraunaleikhús Austur-
lands. Shortly after, they were asked to
debut the show in Reykjavík as part of
Lókal, an annual international theater
festival.
“When we started, all the techni-
cal aspects were set aside,” says Pétur.
“So kind of by accident, we found that
it is really suited to traveling and festi-
vals. You just rip it down in one place
and put it back up in the next. There
are hardly any props or anything on
stage.”
“Just my grandfather’s armchair,”
Ármann interjects, explaining that he
just moves his well-worn, red uphol-
stered chair, bought sometime around
1940, out of his living room and into his
car before driving to wherever the next
performance is.
“We thought the first show would
be it,” says Brogan. “We didn’t push
it, we got invited. Now we’re taking it
abroad—we’re following the demand.”
Becoming a great dancer
I arrive early at Tjarnarbíó for our in-
terview, sneaking into the theater to
watch a bit of the rehearsal for the
In early 2012, 49-year-old Ármann Einarsson, a music school principal with a potbelly
that he frequently, fondly, pats, sent a Facebook message to Brogan Davison, his son
Pétur's girlfriend, who is also a choreographer and dancer. “It said, ‘Hæ, Hæ: This is a
formal request,” recalls Pétur, himself a theater artist and director. Having nursed a life-
long dream to dance on stage, Ármann asked Brogan if she would be willing to help him
achieve this goal. “I’d been thinking about dancing for so many years,” he says. “When
I was sixteen years old, I loved going and dancing at balls. I’ve been dreaming about it
since then. But then I got my belly, got fat. Got old. And I wondered, could a normal per-
son perform in a contemporary dance?”
Words
Larissa Kyzer
Photos
Matthew Eisman
‘Dansaðu fyrir mig’ Tjarnarbíó
When Dreams
Become Realities
Brogan Davison, Pétur Ármannsson and
Ármann Einarsson talk creative collaboration,
artistic growth and family ties
www.dfmcompany.com