Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.07.2016, Qupperneq 50

“Icelandic singer-songwriter Mugison already has a reputation
abroad for bleak magic, on record and in solo appearances..”
“This is Beck on an Iceberg,
Björk with a headache
..a towering talent”
“Mugison is Tom Waits
harmonising with Will
Oldham, and all the vistas
Beck is supposed to
suggest shoot up.”
Mugison
performs his own songs both in
English and Icelandic
VERY MANY TIMES A WEEK
LENGTH
60
MIN
STARTS
8:30
PM
PRICE
25
EURO
TALK ING WILL BE 96% IN ENGL ISH BETWEEN SONGS
OPEN 7-21
BREAKFAST,
LUNCH & DINNER
T EMPL AR A SUND 3 , 101 RE Y K JAV ÍK , T EL : 5711822, W W W.BERGSSON. IS
Art Street50
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 9 — 2016
Before the city was swept up in
the Icelandic men’s football team’s
performance against Austria on
June 22, a different kind of perfor-
mance took place at Ingólfstorg.
A group of young actors dressed
in football uniforms danced their
way down Austurstræti before
turning the downtown square into
their stage, miming in slow mo-
tion the actions of Iceland’s latest
national heroes.
It’s hard not to miss the the-
atrics of Götuleikhúsið if you’re
spending any time in Reykjavík
this summer. Their performance
at Ingólfstorg was just one of a se-
ries of daily performances they’ve
been holding on the streets of
downtown since May 30. Götu-
leikhúsið, a project of Hitt Húsið
that is currently in its twentieth
year, aims to bring theatre to the
public while providing youth with
valuable work experience.
Developing young tal-
ent
The nine actors in Götuleikhúsið
(“The Street Theatre”) range in
age from 17 to 25 years old, and
are selected from over 100 people
who audition, according to Jón
Gunnar Þorðarson, the program’s
art director. The actors are paid
by the city of Reykjavík to develop
and perform public theatre on the
city’s streets for Reykjavíkingar
and tourists alike.
Jón says that over the years, Gö-
tuleikhúsið has been an important
part of developing Iceland’s young
acting talent. “You can look at the
National Theatre or the City The-
atre, and the majority of Icelandic
actors have been in this,” he says.
“They’re performing every single
day for two months, and twenty
different performances through-
out the summer, so it’s a very good
school.”
As someone who has directed
theatre in Iceland and in the Unit-
ed Kingdom, Jón says he helps to
guide the performers and provide
feedback. “But they make every-
thing themselves,” he adds, from
developing the concepts behind
performances to pulling the dif-
ferent pieces together. “It’s a
brainstorming process.”
Bringing performance
to the people
Some of Götuleikhúsið’s perfor-
mances tackle difficult subjects.
On June 24, the performers held
signs on Bankastræti displaying
words such as “kærleikur” (“love”)
and “jafnrétti” (“equal rights”).
They were dressed in clothes and
masks to make themselves look
like elderly people, and hobbled
from around the city to Bankas-
træti before hammering the signs
into the ground. Finally, the actors
watered the signs in an expression
of hope that the ideas expressed
on them would take root.
“We try to respond to what’s
happening. Like we did this foot-
ball thing two days ago when Ice-
land was competing. And this,” Jón
says, gesturing to the performers
on June 24, “is because tomor-
row we are voting. And we just
thought, well, maybe we should
do something, and these are the
words and the things that they
want the President to think about,
and people to think about when
they are voting for the President.”
Jón says he hopes people un-
derstand why funding projects
such as Götuleikhúsið is impor-
tant. “Even people that don’t like
to go to theatre, everyone needs
to see this. And they accidentally
see this street theatre, and I think
people like it,” he says, adding that
Götuleikhúsið will be continuing
to perform daily shows around
Reykjavík until July 22. “But the
fun thing is also that anything
is possible. Shakespeare said the
whole world’s a stage, and this is
the stage.”
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Götuleikhúsið
Turns Reykjavík
Into A Stage
“Even people that don’t like to go to theatre,
everyone needs to see this.”
Words ISAAC WÜRMANN Photo ART BICNICK