Reykjavík Grapevine - mar 2020, Qupperneq 15

An Icelandic Woman & A Polish
Woman Walk Into A Theatre…
...and form the first international theatre
company in Iceland
Icelandic theatre has a long and distin-
guished reputation in its native tongue
but, to date, is all but inaccessible for
non-Icelandic speakers. The recently
established Reykjavík Ensemble Inter-
national Theatre Company is bringing
about change to the status quo with a
troupe of artists from a wide variety of
countries, backgrounds, languages and
disciplines, forming the first interna-
tional theatre company in Iceland. The
ensemble will soon make its theatri-
cal debut with its first play, ‘Polishing
Iceland.’
The vision begins
Conceived in late 2019, the Reykjavík
Ensemble was born from a cosmic
meeting between artistic director
Pálína Jónsdóttir and writer Ewa Mar-
cinek. “Ewa was recommended to me
by people I had reached out to because
I had an idea for a project with Polish
artists in Reykjavík,” explains Pálína. “I
shared with her my vision of establish-
ing an international theatre company
in Reykjavík, because it was obvious to
me coming back to Iceland after many
years of living in New York that the so-
ciety had changed a lot. I was feeling
massive social changes here in terms of
becoming a multicultural community.
I was shocked when I discovered that
that was not translating into participa-
tion in the theatrical scene. I thought
that I should do something about that.”
With a background in literature, Ewa
knew that this dream could be made
into reality. “I am a writer and I had ex-
perience of that being possible within
the writing scene with the likes of Ós
Pressan,” says Ewa. “So when Pálína
said ‘I would like to do it in the theatre,’
I was like, ‘Yeah, I know international
artists and writers here.’”
An emotional story
In addition to co-founding the com-
pany, Ewa is the writer of ‘Polishing
Iceland,’ which was first developed with
the play’s dramaturg, angela rawlings.
“It’s based on a text I started writing
in a creative writing workshop she was
doing for women immigrants in early
2015,” says Ewa. “She dragged this text
from me in a way. It’s an autobiographi-
cal story and I felt those emotions there
boiling and she knew how to make me
brave enough to write them. It’s a very
personal story about a breakup in Po-
land—it’s divorce in the piece—and
then sexual abuse and then the protag-
onist comes to Iceland and she’s strug-
gling with that.”
The story is conveyed through a
dream-like translingual physical the-
atre production, amplifying the emo-
tions in the text through movement
and finding the comedy and the dy-
namics in the difficult, dramatic text.
“Straight theatre is very text-based
and with a structure that lends itself
to that,” says Pálína. “Physical theatre
allows space for the gestures to be very
present and for there to be no hierarchy
between physicality and text — finding
interesting ways of spelling the words
with your vocal cords or your physical-
ity.”
For Ewa, seeing her work go from
page to stage has been emotional. “I
was joking that the auditions were like
multiple orgasms for me because it
was so funny and touching,” she says.
“I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry at
times. Once I just lost it. There is a lot
of personal drama but so much comedy
in it, so it’s a beautiful contrast.”
Words:
Rex Beckett
Photo:
Art Bicnick
Words:
Alexander Le
Sage de Fontenay
Photo:
Evil
Suburban Kids
CULTURE
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Cue the fanfare: The Reykjavík Ensemble International Theatre Company is here
Performance
‘Polishing Iceland’
will play on March
11th, 15th, and
25th at 20:30 at
Tjarnarbíó. Tickets
are 3,900 ISK.
EP
Music collective
Evil Suburban
Kids’ next event
will be on March
7th at Bravó
with their usual
line-up. On April
4th, ESK brings
Detroit musician
DJ Assault to
Gaukurinn to
perform alongside
LaFontaine &
RumDrum, Elli Grill,
Side Project and
DJ Thaison.
scene, which to them feels almost
non-existent. “Yes, there may be
two or three bars where some form
of house and techno is played, but
Iceland doesn’t get to experience
clubbing like the rest of Scandinavia
and Europe,” they lament. “We want
people to be able to experience this
as close as possible until a proper
late-hours CLUB—not bar—opens
its doors.”
Hope for the scene
ESK are positive and see hope for the
local scene. “Great events happen
once in a while but a proper venue is
the number one thing that’s miss-
ing,” they say. “Right now, the agen-
da is simply to release some insane
tunes, put on crazy parties and make
the scene great again. We have three
or four releases ready to go and we
want to bring foreign artists to play
with us as well.”
DJ Assault
ESK’s next party will be held on
March 7th at Bravó with their usual
line-up. On April 4th, they will bring
the well-known Detroit musician
DJ Assault—known for ghettotech
songs ‘Sex On The Beach’ and ‘Ass-
N-Titties’—to Gaukurinn. “The man
is a legend, he played in Iceland for
the first time in 2018 and wanted to
come back,” they say. “Free shots for
anyone who writes ‘Ass-N-Titties’ on
their neck with a Sharpie!”
No Blast Beats, No Stage
Sól Tér Sortna II
March 14th - 19:00 - Hard Rock Café
- 1,500 ISK
Sól Tér Sortna returns after a two
year slumber to brighten the
depressing, sucky Icelandic winter.
This time, four black metal bands—
Kontinuum, Nexion, Nyrst, and
Forsmán—take the stage to bring
doom and destruction with blast
beats and tritones. Fun fact: the
name comes from The Völvuspá,
and literally means blacken the sun.
It doesn’t get much more black
metal than that. Or maybe it does.
But we in Iceland don’t believe in
burning down churches. SPO
We Stan A Bald Queen
Sasha Velour: Smoke & Mirrors
March 16th - 19:00 - Harpa - 5,900-
12,300 ISK
“Don’t joke about that,” the Thinking
Queen extraordinaire, Sasha Velour,
crowned winner of Rupaul’s Drag
Race once famously said. We at the
Grapevine know that one thing you
can never joke about is conceptual
drag art—and particularly
conceptual drag art unlike anything
you’ve ever seen before.
Coincidentally, that is what Miss
Velour will be bringing to the Harpa
stage on her ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ tour.
Remember: Be the strange you wish
to see in the world. HJC
Welcome To Flavourtown
Food & Fun 2020
Until March 8th - Various
Restaurants (Check online!)
If you’ve never checked out the
Reykjavík Food and Fun Festival,
now would be your time to start.
The “culinary circus,” as the official
site describes the event, is ongoing
through March 8th, and pairs
renowned international chefs with
Reykjavík’s best restaurants for a
culinary competition and edible
extravaganza. Each set meal is
priced at 8,990 ISK (more with wine
tastings)—trust us, that’s a deal for
the quality of food you’ll get during
one of our favourite festivals. HJC
Make The Scene Great A!ain
Local music-collective Evil Suburban Kids brin!s re!ular
dance events, US !hettotech musician DJ Assault and
European clubbin! culture to Reykjavík
Evil Suburban Kids (ESK) is an emer-
gent collective hosting regular dance-
music events around town that show-
case broad-minded DJs and musicians
who feel a need to revitalize the city’s
clubbing culture. After making con-
tact with their headquarters, they
declared to me their present state of
mind collectively and anonymously.
Not too serious
As a group, ESK takes things seri-
ously, but not too seriously. “We are
heavily influenced by Paris Hilton’s
DJ sets, dank memes, music from the
90s like electro, techno, ghettotech
and everything above 160 BPM,” they
say. “We especially love Russia’s un-
derground clubbing-culture—a bit of
slav-vibes can’t go wrong.”
The clubbing experience
The collective’s main agenda is to
freshen-up the Reykjavík clubbing