Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2007, Side 27

Reykjavík Arts Festival
B10_RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 05_2007_REYKJAVÍK ARTS FESTIVAL
Grand scale happenings featuring artists and performers
from all over the world are presented at this year’s Reykjavík
Art Festival, taking place at various venues across the city
and the countryside from May 10 to May 26. The festival has
been held biannually since 1970 and annually since 2004.
Since its early days the festival’s organisers have aimed at
promoting arts and culture to the public by bringing together
a broad spectrum of local and international artists and offer-
ing a varied programme of contemporary art exhibitions and
world-class events.
This year the festival will open with a ceremony at the
National Gallery of Iceland on May 10. Among performances
at the opening event are the Hamrahlíðarkórinn choir, a co-
operative project between Ghostigital and artist Finnbogi
Pétursson featuring an unusual composition for concert and
radio transmitting and a concert with the music group Ko-
nono No° 1 from Congo.
The Art Festival overlaps with the French Pourquoi Pas?
festival, now in its final days, and together the two bring
us the world-renowned French street-theatre group Royal de
Luxe for a three day extravaganza in the city centre. In coop-
eration with the music festival Rite of Spring, the extensive
programme also includes Goran Bregovic along with forty
musicians from the Balkans, performing the Tales and Songs
for Weddings and Funerals at Laugardalshöll on May 19.
There sure will be enough to choose from during the
three-week period with art exhibitions, concerts and theatre
performances scheduled every day. Among the highlights
not already mentioned are from the multi award-winning
Swedish jazz-trio E.S.T, playing Nasa, performances by the
San Francisco Ballet, theatre group Cheek By Jowl staging
Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, two new Icelandic plays and an
exhibition of Icelandic design that will open at Kjarvalsstaðir
on May 19.
For a full programme, see www.artfest.is.
The French Kunz family, visiting Iceland for the first time dur-
ing the Reykjavík Art Festival, is no ordinary theatre group.
This strange looking threesome is an amazingly magical cir-
cus team starring the philosophical clown-juggler Mr. Kunz,
mime-artist Ivika Meister, and composer Olivier Manoury.
Mr. Kunz is the alter ego of Nikolaus Maria Holz, who gradu-
ated from the French circus school The Centre National des
Arts du Cirque. In 1998 he founded his own theatre com-
pany Pré-O-C-Coupé and in 2003, he had fully created his
fascinating character, which is a cross between a clown and
illusionist.
The show Les Kunz has been described as a burlesque
cabaret where puppets, acrobats, music, illusions and the
art of juggling are combined into an extremely joyful piece
where the characters, unable to escape their tragic destiny,
face what’s coming with great humour and ridiculous acts
while mocking the whole absurd seriousness of life. Critics
have praised the Kunz family’s performance as hilarious, sur-
prising and poetic but most of all top-class entertainment for
people of all ages.
The group will not only perform in Reykjavík but also in
Egilsstaðir and Akureyri. The shows will take place at the
Reykjavík National Theatre on May 11 and 12, The Akureyri
Theatre on May 13 and 14 and Valaskjálf in Egilsstaðir on
May 16 and 17.
Clown-juggler Kunz
The retrospective My Oz scheduled to open at the
Reykjavík Art Museum on May 11 is the first large-scale
exhibition of the works of artist Roni Horn in Scandinavia.
Including photographs, sculptures, drawings and books,
the exhibition is intended to give a good overview of
her works, selected in collaboration with the artist with
the aim of reflecting the connection she has with the
country. In conjunction with the exhibition, a new book
on the artist will be published.
In the small town of Stykkishólmur located on the
Snæfellsnes peninsula another Roni Horn exhibition is
in development. The Roni Horn Vatnasafn / Library of
Water presents the artist’s sculpture installation inside
Stykkishólmur’s former library building, a project dedi-
cated to weather, water and light in Iceland. Horn has
replaced stacks of books with glass columns containing
water gathered from Iceland’s numerous glaciers and
glacial rivers. The opening will be celebrated with a
reading with Roni Horn and Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir
on May 12.
Roni Horn Retrospective
New York artist Spencer Tunick is renowned around the
world for his remarkable photographs featuring groups of
nude people in various public spaces. Since 1992, Tunick
has used the human body as the subject in his abstract
creations, capturing images of volunteers posing in the
nude in the name of art. His most famous installations
include more than a thousand models at Ibirapuera Park
in Sao Paulo and New York’s Grand Central Station, a
great mass crowding the escalators at the Selfridges
department store in London and a record number of
7000 Spaniards posing in Barcelona.
At the moment, Tunick is organising a photo shoot
in Iceland. This time around he’s not planning a massive
nude-parade, only portraits of Icelanders in different
outdoor locations. On May 12, a new exhibition featur-
ing his most recent works opens at Gallery i8. Some of
the photos on display have never been viewed before
while others were shot in Iceland during his last visit,
showing an individual or a small group in rural as well
as urban settings.
Spencer Tunick’s Nude Installations
RVK_GV_INFO_REYKJAVÍK ARTS FESTIVAL_B11
The Culture House - Þjóðmenningarhúsið
Hverfisgata 15, 101 Reykjavik
Tel.: +354 545 1400, www.thjodmenning.is
This exciting new multimedia exhibition tells the story from
an island’s dramatic birth from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean
through its forty year history to the current day – and beyond,
glimpsing the future 120 years hence.
The exhibition explains the Government’s
unique decision to submit an application
to UNESCO to designate Surtsey
a World Heritage Site.
Open from May 8th 2007. Open daily 11-17.
Ticket gives admission to all exhibits at The Culture House including Medieval Manuscripts - Eddas and Sagas.
Adults 300,- Senior citizens 200,- Students and children free. Admission free Wednesdays.
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tickets sold at www.sinfonia.is or tel. 545 2500
All concerts take place in Háskólabíó unless otherwise noted.
fl group is the main sponsor of
the iceland symphony orchestra
FridAy, May 11th @ 7:30PM
reykjavík arts festival 2007
Conductor ::: david Björkmann
Soloist: Heléné Grimaud
H. Berlioz ::: roman Carnival, Overture
J. Brahms ::: Piano Concerto no. 2
C. debussy ::: L’aprés-midi d’un faune
M. ravel ::: La valse
FridAy, May 18th @ 7:30
reykjavík arts festival 2007
Conductor ::: Andre de ridder
Soloists ::: Hanna dóra Sturludóttir,
Merryn Gamba, Clemens Löschmann,
Tom raskin, Sebastian Noack,
Leigh Melrose, Christian Tschelebiew
and davíð Ólafsson
H. Hallgrímsson ::: die Wält der
Zwischenfälle
THurSdAy, May 31st @ 7:30PM
shostakovich last symphony
Conductor ::: rumon Gamba
Þ. Magnússon ::: Það mótlæti þankinn ber
r. Wagner ::: The Valkyrie:
“Wotan’s Farewell”
d. Shostakovich ::: Symphony no. 15
SATurdAy, June 2nD @ 2.00 PM
SATurdAy, June 2nD @ 5.00 PM
family concert
Conductor ::: Bernharður Wilkinson
Soloists ::: Selma Björnsdóttir,
Andrea Gylfadóttir, Valgerður Guðna-
dóttir and Björgvin Franz Gíslason
Narrator ::: Örn Árnason
Kristlaug M. Sigurðardóttir &
Þorvaldur B. Þorvaldsson ::: Fruit Basket
THurSdAy, June 7th @ 7.30 PM
carmen
Conductor ::: Nicolae Moldoveanu
Soloists ::: Guðrún J. Ólafsdóttir
Garðar Thór Cortes
G. Bizet ::: Carmen (short version)
TueSdAy, June 12th @ 7.30 PM
“those where the days”
Conductor ::: Bernharður Wilkinson
Soloists ::: ragnheiður Gröndal
eivør Pálsdóttir
icelandic evergreens
FridAy, June 29th @ 7.30 PM*
pink floyd the wall
Soloists ::: dúndurfréttir
roger Waters ::: The Wall
*Concert in Laugardalshöll Sports Arena
Two unique exihbitions:
The Settlement of Iceland
and
Egils saga
Open daily from 10 am to 7 pm
R E S T A U R A N T
Open from 10 am to 9:30 pm
Tel: +354 437 1600
www.landnamssetur.is
A must do
for the visitor...
SetTlement
centre
the
I N B O R G A R N E S