Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2013, Síða 41

All Tommorrow’s Parties
41
A Gourmet Experience
- Steaks and Style at Argentina Steakhouse
Barónsstíg 11 - 101 Reykjavík
Tel: 551 9555
argentina.is
MADE IN ICELAND www.jswatch.com
With his legendary concentration and 45 years of experience our Master
Watchmaker ensures that we take our waterproofing rather seriously.
Gilbert O. Gudjonsson, our Master Watchmaker and renowned craftsman,
inspects every single timepiece before it leaves our workshop.
Will there be an international
presence at the festival?
E: Our company, Shalala, is part of
a European network called Enparts,
so we used that connection to bring
in more people this year. It’s the first
time that the festival has such a big
international programme. There are
artists from Norway, Denmark, Brus-
sels, Berlin, Japan, Iceland. Hopefully
that will give it a fresh new flavour.
They Sell Sanctuary
You two are also premiering a piece
during the festival. Tell us about that.
E: It is called ‘To The Bone’ and
it is about the Black Yoga Scream-
ing Chamber [“the box”] that we are
building. This is really a box that can
save your life. If you have any prob-
lems, you just go in there and you can
really come out a better person. It’s
like a sanctuary. The idea is that it’s
a place to scream without disturbing
any other people or be thought of as a
crazy person.
V: The performance piece is sort
of an “introduction session” about
the box—how it should be used. It’s
kind of an autobiographical piece
too, about ourselves and how the box
was born. It’s very difficult to explain
it. I think the box should be as com-
mon as public toilets. In every day life
there are things that happen to you or
other people, you feel so happy that
you want to scream, but you would be
frowned upon by doing it in public.
So will the box just be part
of your performance or does
it carry on elsewhere?
V: There will be four or five boxes
all around town, actually. There will
be one in Mál og Menning, which I
think is very nice. Sometimes I want
to scream in a bookstore, if I’m like,
“I can’t believe this writer did that
again! Oh my god!!!” There will also
be one in Hafnarhúsið. We don’t know
all the places yet. The plan is to con-
quer the world with them. First, we
get it into all institutions in Iceland
and then bring it abroad.
The first box will be opened a
week before the festival. Mayor Jón
Gnarr will inaugurate it. Then they
will be open for the public. In each
box there will be a recording de-
vice, which will record every single
scream. Once the box leaves one lo-
cation, all the screams will be mixed
into one screaming mantra. I’ve done
it two times before and to hear 140
screams mixed down to two minutes,
that has an effect on you.
E: It’s beautiful.
We asked Erna and Valdi the ever-so-frustrating question of selecting a
handful of shows in the festival that are unmissable. They did not easily
oblige our demand. “I think people should try to see everything,” Erna says.
“If they just buy a pass and take time off, it is possible for someone to see
everything. This is what people do abroad when they go to festivals. They
try to see everything.” Unfortunately, most bosses in Iceland are less forgiv-
ing of the old ‘I need a week off for a dance festival!’ excuse. Finally, they in-
dulged us with five shows that the working Joe and Jane can get to, without
exceeding their vacation days.
Scape of Grace
Human bodies meet musical amplifiers in this
performance at Hafnarhúsið. Attempting to
meet and meld with the dynamics and energies
that the two entities produce, the choreography
is about both dissection and symbiosis.
Soft Target Installed
This premiere by Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir is
picking up where she left off in 2010 with her
piece ‘Soft Target.’ The continuation examines
the identity game we play and how it affects
our personal sense of trust and generally hav-
ing our shit together. Sunn O))) collaborator Pe-
ter Rehberg provides musical accompaniment.
Evaporated Landscape
Everything is ephemeral in the world Mette In-
gvartsen has created. In this choreography, as
quickly as something becomes recognisable it
becomes fleeting, with natural and futuristic
objects masquerading as one another. Rather
than focus on existence, this piece is all about
the relationship of dissolution.
Contact Gonzo
Hailing from Osaka, Japan, this performance
group keeps it close by clashing their bodies
together in various encounters. Ranging from
violent confrontation to tender brushes, they
constantly toe the line between tension and re-
lease, seeing just how far bodies can go against
each other.
Nothing’s For Something
This piece by performance duo Fieldworks
takes place in the Kassinn theatre, but stay on
guard. They have built a reputation of leading
their audiences astray in seemingly normal sit-
uations, only to entirely flip the script of what is
expected in a particular environment.
Five Not-So-Easy Pieces
Art