Reykjavík Grapevine - ágú. 2021, Blaðsíða 11

‘Three Men From The North’ are the Grapevine’s 2021 Frin!e
Award Winners
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photos: Art Bicnick & Joanna Jakubek, Provided by RVK Fringe
The IKEA KALLAX shelving unit stands at 77
centimetres high. With four square shelves
and a variety of muted colours, it’s one of those
IKEA pieces you’ll find at probably every single
house in Scandinavia. That said—it usually
holds books and knick-knacks. You probably
haven’t seen it used for acrobatic stunts and
ballet choreography, but that’s exactly what
audiences found at “Three Men From The
North”—one of the biggest hits of this year’s
Reykjavík Fringe Festival.
The show was made by the Nordic Coun-
cil—a circus troupe composed of juggler Merri
Heikkilä from Finland, Swedish aerialist Jakob
Jacobsson, and resident Icelandic circus guru
Bjarni Árnason. The group won the coveted
Grapevine Prize at the 2021 Reykjavík Fringe
awards, but the show is so fantastic we’d hap-
pily write about them, award or no award.
Accidents happen
“It’s a tableau of things that we as northerners
have in common,” Jakob says, distilling the
circus performance down into a few words.
“Adding to that, coming from the north means
handling emotions and dealing with things in
a certain way—there’s a precision and meth-
odology there that we bring to the show.”
‘Three Men From The North’ journeys
through many Nordic stereotypes, from the
funny—a juggling act with accordion cho-
reography—to the serious, such as a mono-
logue about the plight of a repressed Finnish
man accompanied by death-defying aerial
stunts. No matter where you’re from, it’s a
romp through the Nordics that invites you
to giggle at those clichés—IKEA furniture,
woolen sweaters, more IKEA furniture—that
truly define the Nordic psyche.
But the humour of the show comes not only
from their celebration (and sometimes mock-
ery) of their own cultures, but the very actions
of the men themselves. As a trio, they’ve in-
tegrated “mistakes” into their circus perfor-
mances, adding a layer of humility and relat-
ability that’s both unexpected and hysterical.
While the audience is certainly duped the first
time one drops a club or stumbles through a
trick, once they get the wink-wink humour
that each fumble is intentional, they begin to
cheer at both the triumphs of their physical
prowess, but also the moments when they fail.
“Accidents happen,” Bjarni laughs. “We
want to work with failures. The idea that just
because something didn’t go the way I planned
doesn’t mean it’s a mistake. When you start
performing, mistakes can become an even big-
ger fantasy. It can become the best story. We all
know what it’s like to be screamed at because
you spilled on your mother’s Christmas dinner
tablecloth. It’s very human.”
Vulnerable masculinity
One of the most affecting aspects of the show
though is the trio’s nuanced exploration of
masculinity. Nordic men have often been as-
sociated with being both stoic to the point of
irrationality, but also rather whimsical. In
“Three Men From The North”, Merri, Jakob and
Bjarni take this dichotomy in stride.
“[Masculinity] is a theme that, very often,
when you start dealing with gender roles and
norms, a lot of people will back up and get
a little defensive because they don’t want to
hear about those topics,” Jakob explains. “We
don’t try to evaluate or cast judgement but
rather show different ways of approaching
them. Hopefully, it gives people a bit of space
to reflect, not in an aggressive way, but in a
way where people can arrive at their own con-
clusions.”
“Vulnerability is something that we work a
lot with, but not in a sense that is traditionally
showcased,” he continues. “All the things we
do on stage are incredibly fragile in terms of
a stage relationship, so we have to have a lot
of things in sync between the three of us that
puts us in a place where none of us can do these
traditional macho things.” He pauses. “And I
think that kind of masculinity is not shown
often enough.”
With COVID continuing its dark reign, it’s
unclear when the Nordic Council will take
the stage again. But three men in particular
promise to return to Iceland as soon as pos-
sible for an encore run of ‘Three Men From The
North’. In the interim—there’s always another
KALLAX shelf to build.
Check out the Nordic Council on Facebook and
Instagram at @TheNordicCouncil.
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seriously—you’d be doing yourself
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Yes, those are IKEA fabric storage bins they are wearing
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Saunas & Ju!!lin!