Dance

Is there anyone who isn’t vulnerable?
In the darkest hours of the year 2017, in the cold December of Reykjavík, choreographer and artistic director of Iceland Dance Company Erna Ómarsdóttir and artist Valdimar Jóhannsson were invited by Sigur Rós to create a new dance work to their latest music for the Norður og Niður (North and Down) Festival, which was the band’s answer to the consumeristic hype of the capitalism-driven Christmas holidays. The company then set out on its own electrifying quest to reveal and confront the haunting uncertainties and inner demons that can twist and upturn lives in the absence of light. The work was inspired by the dark burdens of the patriarchal and power- hungry institutions that have oppressed the masses throughout history, and in a sense became a tool for the artists to exorcise these ancient demons from their souls and bodies.
In this powerful final work of a four-part series focused on the night within and vulnerability of the body, the ethereal rock music of Sigur Rós – some previously unreleased – is teamed with the company’s leading-edge contemporary dancers. The emotive performers roar, scream, become limp or highly charged as they wrestle with old ghosts yet also find the way to embrace darkness as a place to rest, dream, and be at one with themselves. A must-see reflection of our times.