Reykjavík Grapevine - ágú. 2022, Blaðsíða 11

Find today's events
in Iceland!
Download our free list-
ings app - APPENING
on the Apple and
Android stores
Come and fight for pride rights
Reykjavík Pride Parade
August 6th - Hallgrímskirkja - Free
Perhaps known as the centrepiece
for Reykjavík’s ever-growing pride
festival, the parade winds through
downtown and ends at Hljómskála
Park with an outdoor concert. Or-
ganisers would like to remind par-
ticipants that LGBTQ+ people are still
fighting for their rights, and marches
such as this are part of the longer
struggle. EL
Drive for your life!
The Mario Kart Tournament
August 28th - Arena Gaming Ísland -
2,990 to 3,900 ISK
Are you ready for Iceland’s first ever
Mario Kart Tournament? Convinced he
is the best player in Iceland, organiser
Adam Scanlon has decided to find
out in the best way possible—a full
competition party with pizza and of
course prizes! The icing on the cake is
that all money raised goes to charity,
so you can chuck mushrooms at peo-
ple to your heart’s content, knowing
that it’s all for a good cause. JG
Fun for the whooooole family!
Garden Party
August 13th - 13:00 to 22:00 - Laugard-
alur - 2,000 to 3,900 ISK
The Garden Party is designed to be a
safe and family friendly space. There
will be bouncy castles, food stands,
a bar, a champagne tent (they got
your back, parents), and a great line
up with music by Bríet, Friðrik Dór,
Reykjavíkurdőter, Hipsumhaps and
Mezzoforte. Kids under 18 unaccom-
panied by an adult won't be allowed,
just so you know. I'm not sure if we
are either, cos alcohol and bouncy
castles sound like a combination that
could be too good to be true. KW
Reykjavík Fringe is over for another
year: the hubbub around Tjarnarbíó
has died down, the flurry of wrist-
banded guests marching around 101
have dispersed. Multitudes of posters
advertising shows flap impotently in
Iðnó. But even with the dust settled,
there is still one last act to make a song
and dance about: the winner of the 2022
Reykjavík Fringe Grapevine award!
This year, said award was presented
to ‘A Study Of Choices,’ a performance
piece that predominantly features
contemporary dance, but is so much
more than that. We caught up with
Swedish creators Linda Wardal and
Gustav Lejelind to find out more about
their award-winning show.
“The idea was basically to make
instructions and place three dancers on
stage hearing those instructions for the
first time, and for the audience to see
those three dancers simultaneously,”
Linda says, explaining the basic concept
behind their work. “We realised during
the process that what we were working
on was choices.”
The piece unfolds as thus, with the
dancers—who are completely naive to
the show—standing on stage. Linda and
Gustav sit in a corner, clad in matching
jumpsuits, observing. A warm sound-
scape swells into reality and with it
Linda’s recorded voice, inviting the
dancers to follow simple instructions:
“Touch your knee. Try the other knee.
Which one feels better?” She asks. The
dancers move in the space following the
directions—and their own intuition.
The words are the same but the motions
are different. “Don’t be afraid,” Linda
says kindly. “There is no way to fail.”
“We have so much fun doing this,”
Gustav says, of working with his artis-
tic partner. Gustav is responsible for
the music and sound for ‘A Study Of
Choices,’ whereas Linda, a choreogra-
pher and dancer by training, wrote the
majority of the script. However the pair
worked in close collaboration for the
entirety of the process, feeding back on
and adding to each other’s contribu-
tions.
“Maybe it has to do with my musi-
cal background, that with playing an
instrument I'm used to making music
with other people,” Gustav says on what
drew him toward creating art in this
way. “I kind of brought
that into working
with other other
fields—working with
other visual artists or
dancers. I like what
happens when I do
my thing but it meets
something else.”
“It was completely
collaborative,” adds
Linda, of their process. “We met every
Wednesday evening over a long period.
We have really had the time to think
about this for a long time.”
At some point during this lengthy
creative origin, the artists realised
that they were constantly being faced
with different choices, both within and
outside of their work. “We kept sitting
down and trying to decide different
things, how should this be, et cetera,
and then we started seeing these
choices in a different light,” Gustav says.
“Suddenly, we start asking, should we
do this, or that? Should we have some
dinner now? Or should we do some-
thing else? We started seeing everything
through the lens of choices.”
“You question yourself so much
as a dancer, asking yourself, ‘is this
enough?’” Linda adds. “Maybe that's
where I also question my choices all
the time. So then, this way of giving
the instructions quite fast [in the
show] is also a way of saying it doesn't
matter, that this doesn't have to be your
best choice, but just make
a choice now. There's
something about that, I
think, that is important.”
The outcome of the
choices Gustav and
Linda ultimately made
play out for audiences
in ‘A Study Of Choices’—
until the lens finally
switches to focus on the
audience themselves. The dancers sit
on stage, observing the audience as
they are invited to touch their knee,
or to try the other knee if they prefer.
Nervous suppressed giggles reveal the
slight awkwardness of the crowd, but
the atmosphere is warm. Once again,
Linda’s voice rings out: “there is no way
to fail.”
CULTURE
NEWS
Choose Wisely
‘A Study Of Choices’ Wins The RVK Fringe Grapevine Award
Words:
Josie Anne
Gaitens
Photos:
Elín
Guðmundsdóttir
&
Omen's Eye
Photography
We agree, flowers are pretty funny
You do you, bestie
“Don’t be
afraid. There is
no way to fail.”