Reykjavík Grapevine - 15.08.2014, Side 37

37The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2014 DANCE
upcoming show, just days away. Pétur
is sitting in the front row, handling the
musical cues and making suggestions
as Brogan and Ármann practice a new
dance sequence that is being added.
Pétur turns around as I take my seat.
“We always have to have some new
material,” he laughs. “We don’t want to
make it too easy for him.”
From the look of the practice on
stage, “making it easy” is definitely
not the primary goal. Brogan dem-
onstrates the choreography and then
asks Ármann to repeat it. He does this
with varying levels of success and se-
riousness, punctuating his attempts
with self-deprecating jokes or little
teasing digs at his teacher, who is los-
ing patience.
“Ármann, do you know what you’re
doing?”
“Yes… Nei… No. Wait.” He thinks
for a moment.
“No. You don’t know. You haven’t
taken it in.”
“I can talk you through it.”
“Yeah, but the hardest thing is do-
ing it.”
She demonstrates the sequence
again, and he repeats it after her, add-
ing some hand gestures.
“Lose the thumb. It’s a bit too
James Bond. Do it again.”
He runs through it again, this time
with music. Pétur suggests that it’s
lacking energy, so Ármann repeats it,
although he doesn’t remember all of
the choreography.
“Just do it right, Ármann,” says Bro-
gan. “If you want to be a great dancer
you have to apply the directions.”
They work a bit more, adding in
some movement which, as far as I
can tell, is based on Ármann’s bored
fidgeting in a post office earlier that
day. It’s a funny moment—he suddenly
freezes, closes his eyes, and then be-
gins to twitch his arms like he’s getting
some sort of shock.
“I like that, with your eyes closed,”
Pétur says. “You’re going inwards.”
They run the full sequence from the
beginning again. Mistakes are made,
and Brogan gives Ármann some notes.
“I should teach you the clarinet,” he
jokes.
“I don’t want to learn the clarinet.
Again.”
Pétur restarts the music. “It’s so
hard,” Ármann says, in Icelandic, be-
fore starting over.
“This is your dream, baby,” says
Brogan. “Again.”
Learning to improvise
After a few more run-throughs, they
decide to call it a day. Ármann looks
tired, but still relatively jovial; Brogan
looks somewhat sceptical of their
progress. Pétur makes peace: “It’s a lot
to remember, and we’ve been working
on this all day. We’ll fine tune it tomor-
row.”
We head out to the lobby and I ask
about the choice to integrate new ma-
terial so close to a performance. Bro-
gan explains that most of the chore-
ography is set and has basically been
perfected. “But we really want to push
him as a dancer. To learn to improvise
takes a much longer time.”
“I don’t need to rehearse—I’m a star
now,” Ármann jokes. After a look from
Brogan, he clarifies. “I need to prac-
tice, but not too much. I’m getting old.
If I practiced every day, my body would
just give up.”
This is not to suggest, however,
that he doesn’t take the project seri-
ously. “I’m 100% dedicated,” he says.
“You can always do better. The show
is our baby. We have to nurse it. Feed
it.” He shakes off the suggestion that
it must be difficult to not be able to
master certain techniques or moves.
Holding his arms out from his sides,
fingers pointed, he says, “What I can
contribute is to maybe stretch my arm
a little bit more.”
This experience marks a triumph
for Ármann, but he doesn’t have any
illusions about dancing becoming his
full-time occupation, or really any de-
sire for the show to be anything other
than what it already is. Just by virtue
of trying at all, he’s accomplished what
he set out to do and been an inspira-
tion for other people.
“There was a lady in Akureyri who
saw the show and then three months
later, she had put up her own photog-
raphy exhibition,” he says. “She said, ‘I
want to do something for myself, I want
to live my dream.'”
It occurs to me that having now
realized his dream, the more difficult
realities of being a dancer, even in the
short-term, might have taken some of
the fun out of the process.
He disagrees. “I don’t allow it to be
ruined by stress or anything. Like with
practicing: if I need to every day for a
month, then okay… I don’t want that all
the time. It has to be kept…”
“On your own terms,” Brogan inter-
jects. “What you do is just for you.”
Ármann shakes his head. “You
have to compromise,” he says. “You
do.”
So much talking
Each performance of “Dansaðu fyrir
mig” is unique, incorporating impro-
vised monologues as well as a series
of spontaneous questions that Brogan
poses to Ármann during the piece.
“The show takes in whatever new cir-
cumstances,” she says. For instance,
“if we had a drunken night out before,
we might talk about that.”
There aren’t really any boundar-
ies, any prohibited subjects. “If the
topics don’t serve
the show, then
they don’t come
in,” says Pétur. “It’s
not just drama for
dramatic purposes.
When you put that
stuff into a theatri-
cal context, it flat-
tens out, becomes
synonymous with
something out of
‘America’s Got Tal-
ent.’ Everyone has
their tragedies. So
we focus more on
everyday experi-
ences.”
All the same,
Brogan says, they
don’t shy away from
personal things
that might be con-
sidered more “dra-
matic.” “We talk
about my depres-
sion,” she says.
“And that’s full-out
cliché, emotional-
porn therapy. But
then Ármann starts
playing the clarinet
over me. It’s what
we do with it.”
“The challenge
for you,” Pétur says
to her, “was to
speak and put your-
self on stage with-
out any facade. The challenge for Ár-
mann was to learn the choreography.”
This opens up an obviously familiar
and on-going conversation between
the pair, which they begin to discuss
between themselves, as much as with
me.
“I was so bored with going to the
theater and not connecting,” Brogan
says. “I wanted to be vulnerable—I
didn’t even want to dance. Ármann
just wanted to dance. I just wanted to
talk. Dancing has been a lot of pain for
me; I’ve been doing it every day since
I was five. It’s not just ‘dance and feel
free and the whole world dances with
you,’ it’s not that way for me. So let’s
get real, let’s talk about things.”
I suggest that it has to be doubly
exposing and complicated to be work-
ing through these deeply personal
topics on stage alongside one’s part-
ner, one’s parent—or one’s partner’s
parent, as the case may be.
“I’m like a parent to both of them,”
Pétur says. “There are a lot of role re-
versals, negotiating of power. It can be
really fragile. But I think we’ve done a
really good job with this. If it isn’t fun,
then we can’t do it. As soon as it be-
comes your job…”
“But this is my job,” Brogan says. “I
want this to be my job.”
“But do you want this to be your
family?” Pétur asks.
“Yes.”
“What do you want more?”
“That’s a good question.”
Ármann laughs and excuses him-
self for a moment. “It’s always like this.
So much talking.”
Space to develop
Constant communication and debate
is clearly an integral component of
Brogan and Pétur’s collaborations, as
is the opportunity to apply their own
differing influences, perspectives, and
experiences. Although they continue
to work together—their next project,
a theater piece called “Petra,” about
Pétur’s great grandmother, who spent
80 years amassing an enormous min-
eral collection in her garden, will debut
at this year’s Lókal—they also have a
number of independent projects.
Outside of the dance classes that
she teaches, Brogan, who was born
and educated in England, recently
spent a month per-
forming in a piece
in Norway, com-
pleted a residency
in Lithuania, and
keeps up a steady
stream of chore-
ography projects
and performance
roles in Iceland.
After graduating
from the Icelandic
Academy of the
Arts in 2012, Pétur
spent six months
completing di-
recting internship
at Schaubühne
Theatre in Berlin
and was the as-
sistant director of
'Bláskjár' ("Blue
Screen"), a pro-
duction staged
at the Reykjavík
City Theater in the
spring.
Going forward,
their plans remain
very open and
flexible. “We’re so
young. As we’re
starting out, it’s
good to have a lot
of time and space
to develop,” says
Pétur. Coming back
to 'Dansaðu fyrir
mig', he notes that,
“What we have been doing up until
now has been an exploration. We don’t
really know if this is a dance piece or
a theater piece—we haven’t had to de-
cide. Whatever can best convey what
we’re feeling or thinking, that’s what
we’ll do.”
Kaldi, Icelandic
microbrewery
Stella Artois
White- and red wine
Sparkling wine
Cocktail of the day
NEW BAR MENU
Bergstaðastræti 37
Tel: 552 5700
www.galleryrestaurant.is
gallery@holt.is
Selected drinks
at half price
All you need
in one place
www.handknit.is
ONLY
SWEATER
SELECTION,
NO KNITING
MATERIAL
“I need to practice, but
not too much. I’m get-
ting old. If I practiced
every day, my body
would just give up.”
Since its debut, “Dansaðu fyrir mig”
has been performed in Canada as
part of the Núna/Now festival, as
well as at the Mousonturm theater
in Frankfurt, Germany and Norway’s
Bergen International Theatre. Up-
coming shows will be at Tjarnarbíó
in early September 2014. Brogan
Davison and Pétur Ármannsson’s
next collaboration (also in English),
“Petra,” will debut on August 29 at
this year’s Lókal International The-
ater Festival in Reykjavík. See dfm-
company.com for all future dates.
INFO
This show is part of the Lókal theatre festival programme. Learn more about
Lókal and all the delights it has to offer at www.lokal.is