The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 13 — 2015
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Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir Occupation “I’m an actress, a director and an author. And a mother. And a wife! And a brother and a sister and a friend. A very good friend!"
ing a rock star. You’ve practised the song, everybody knows the song, and you can start over if you have to. And then in between songs you’re allowed to say whatever, you can take up all the space you need. There is this incredible freedom. EÓ: I agree.
Let it go You mention the pause as being a kind of “window,” Erna. You used the same metaphor, Halldóra, when you accepted a Gríma [at the Icelandic Theatre Awards] earlier this year. You said that when one is presented with a window one has to use it to say what one feels has to be said. Are there things you feel you have a responsibility to express given your positions or prestige? EÓ: When I realised that dance was not just about moving your body, that it was possible to use it to express everything that one wanted to say, it became really important to me to pursue it. Because I’m so bad at talking and at expressing myself with words. So this was my way. HG: For me it’s that as I get older I’m realising more and more where I need to shoulder responsibility. It’s also because I’ve been raising a bunch of kids, and I’ve been learning to teach them to take responsibility and also learning when I need to step in and when not to. I feel like those things go hand-in-hand. But I also have a very strong need to do things that are just for fun. Just nonsense. EÓ: You have to have both. HG: And I just say: The more nonsense the better. There is so much truth in silliness, so much unexpected truth that sneaks out. And if you don’t allow yourself to get a little mixed up and mess around a bit, you’ll stop surprising yourself. EÓ: Absolutely.
Background
HG: A year ago I decided my motto would be: More nonsense. Don’t take everything so seriously. EÓ: Often when we’re working in groups, the best things happen during the coffee breaks, when everyone’s just relaxed and goofing around. HG: The nonsense seems like it doesn’t come from a deep place but it does. The truth seeps through. EÓ: I think that once you start working with people who allow themselves to be silly, you get this feeling of freedom. You just realise suddenly: Yes, this is allowed.
Shake it off The two of you are working together in a upcoming production of Njáls Saga which will be a collaborative effort between the Reykjavík City Theatre and the Icelandic Dance Company this fall. EÓ: Yes. It’s not going to be Njála by the book, more like speculations out from the text. HG: Whatever speaks to us. EÓ: I think that could be quite interesting. HG: And I think it varies quite a lot what Njála inspires in each and every person. EÓ: Yes, exactly. HG: And maybe there’s some freedom in not letting the Njáls Saga specialists tell us what’s in Njáls Saga. There’s already been a lot of that. So this is more like, where does Njáls Saga turn on our creative juices? And isn’t that also completely valid? Instead of always just being on a strict literary level. To see what other parts of the body it speaks to. So the performers will be very involved in making up the show?
HG: Yes, that’s the idea. When you go into this kind of project, you first realise how incredibly little you know about it, and kind of want to talk about it as little as possible because you’re supposed to be an expert before you even begin. EÓ: I feel that when one does this kind of project, it’s most often because one is curious, and, yes, maybe doesn’t know all that much about it. So it becomes like a research project. Often something that one is a little bit afraid of. Njáls Saga is a very exciting project, and a little different than what the company has been a part of before. We’ve collaborated with the theatre in the past, but then it’s been more like musicals, 'Mary Poppins' and the like. This is a new kind of collaboration. HG: There’s more creative energy, somehow. EÓ: Yes, and everyone a part of the creative process, the actors and the dancers are all part of that. HG: I can’t wait. EÓ: The process is almost more exciting than the end result. Of course it will be great if the result is something interesting but it’s also important that the process be something juicy. They are so fun, these processes that are not just about doing exactly what the director tells you. HG: You don’t know when you set off what the result is going to be, you just know that there is something you have to get off your chest.
John, I’m only dancing It hasn’t been all that common recently to mix theatre together
with different art forms like dance and music. Not on the stages of major theatre institutions in Iceland, at least. With the exception of some musicals. EÓ: That’s true. But there are a lot of individual artists who do cross-disciplinary work. Although it seems to confuse people and even make them angry if an artist tries to step out of his or her main genre. We are always trying to put things into boxes and keep them safe in the boxes. But the three visual artists who we are collaborating with on the show that will be the opening performance of the next Reykjavík Arts Fesival, ‘FÓRN’ [“SACRIFICE”]—Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Matthew Barney and Ragnar Kjartansson—all of them are freely stepping in and out of their genre. So I thought it would be great to collaborate with them on something that we don’t know what to call, but for now we’re describing as a borderline musical. This piece ['FÓRN'] is very much about these main rituals that we have and what they mean to us today. And at the same time, it is simply an ode to artistic creation. Because it’s, well, kind of important. Art and religion used to be very connected from the beginning, but now the two have separated. Before, all the artforms served different religions to make them more powerful and fill them with spirit, but what if it could be the opposite? There is so much spirit in the art itself, and it can even save lives. I would say, at least for me, that it saved my life to find dance or to have found myself in dance. When people talk about art as some kind of worthless thing that shouldn’t be supported financially by the state, I don’t understand it. It’s hard to understand something like that when one has always
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“I was born and raised in Reykjavík. I studied music from the ages of six to twenty—flute and saxophone. I was an au pair for a year in Berlin when I was 18—before the wall went down. I played in a rock band as a teenager until I was 22. Then I went into theatre school, aged 23, and have been working in film, theatre, television, radio, as a clown and a host of parties, and as a director and author, ever since. Most of my work is at the City Theatre now. I’ve won some nominations, and some awards. I’ve been to places, and come back... I fell into a cult once! And then came out. I’ve fought to be happy. But I am happy."
Education “I’m not a professional musician now, but I studied it—I learned improvisation, which helps with the acting! It was the tónlistarskóli school in Reykjavík and quit when I got pregnant. And then, I studied theatre.”
Upcoming Projects “I’m working on Billy Elliot now. I went the world with my family, you see, and when I got back, I thought this would an easy job... but it is the toughest job I’ve ever taken! I have to dance and sing and act, working with children. I’m also rehearsing 'The Seagull' by Chekhov, working with a director named Yana Ross—she’s very interesting, one of the hottest things in Europe at the moment, as a director. I’m very excited about it. And of course, I’m doing 'Njáls Saga' in the winter. I’m very good at losing my child in films and theatre—it seems to come up a lot. There’s some tragedy in me, I think, that directors link to."