Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Page 28

Understanding
Their Power
Dance piece ‘GRRRRRRLS’ comes into maturity
Words: Rex Beckett Photos: Art Bicnick
GRRRRRRLS
Final Performance:
Tjarnabíó Friday, March 10 at 21:00
Ásrún Magnúsdóttir sits in a re-
laxed slouch in a Prikið booth, legs
and arms shifting into stretch-
es of repose as she talks, hands
open and active, her whole face
aglow in a wide impish grin. The
dancer and choreographer is in a
whirlwind of pre-show stress and
excitement as her dance piece
‘GRRRRRRLS’ is on the cusp of its
fourth run of performances. She
seems proverbially and appropri-
ately schoolgirlish in her anticipa-
tion, and utterly composed and
assured about her creation at once.
“It’s quite different now, because
since the premiere I had a baby
and I’ve been off thinking about
other things,” says Ásrún. “They
understood it more, I understood
it more. Something really clicked.”
They would be the seventeen
teenage girls, now aged thirteen
to sixteen, that Ásrún has been
working with since 2015 to cre-
ate the show. The girls came to
take part by responding to an open
call for dancers issued two years
ago. “I didn’t want to have audi-
tions, because I wanted anyone
who wanted to take part in it to
be able to,” says
Ásrún. “Most of
them, but not all,
have done some
dancing, and all
on a different
scale. Some of
them are strict
ballerinas, and
some of them do
different types
of dance.” Ásrún
emphasises that
the girls collabo-
rated on creating
the work, rather than having an
authority figure’s vision imposed
on them.
Girl gang
Her goal was to draw out their
ideas and get them involved in
the process. “They are supposed
to make the material and decide
what we do, how we deliver it and
what goes on stage,” she says. “It
was challenging for them in the
beginning. Now they know each
o t h e r, s o i t ’s
ver y different.
But at first they
were not used
to it. Usually it
was somebody
creating some-
thing on them,
and this time it
wasn’t like that.
Of course in the
end it ’s never
that romantic—
I’m always at the
top, but I try to
make it not feel like that.”
The emphasis of having the
girls put their minds and bodies
into the creative process was a di-
rect way to tap into the power she
sees in teenage girls, and to give
them an outlet to embody what
their role models teach them.
“We have constantly been talk-
ing about which artists in this
scene are important to them,”
explains Ásrún. “They talk a lot
about Reykjavíkudætur and Salka
Sól from Abamadama. These art-
ists have really big influence on
them—women who are creating,
taking power, and speaking out
loud. Being out there, basically.”
It’s this energy she has worked on
channelling into movement; into a
sense of agency, identity, love, and
connection with other girls.
Peer decompressure
Through this process, and since
the first run of the show in August
2015, the girls have fallen into the
flow of creating and communicat-
ing through the process with each
other. They have simultaneously
experienced the growth of the
piece alongside their individual
maturing. “The girls went from
being as young as twelve to now as
old as sixteen,” says Ásrún. “One
of them said to me, ‘I didn’t un-
derstand it last time we were doing
it, but now I get it. It’s about us, our
vision, how we stand together. It’s
Culture Feature
“One of them said
to me, ‘I didn’t un-
derstand it last time
we were doing it,
but now I get it. It’s
about how we stand
together. It’s about
us taking power.’”
Welcome to our new location in Laugavegur 18
Kraum
Laugavegur 18
101 Reykjavík
(+354) 517-7797
www.kraum.is