NOW (NÚNA) FESTIVAL JOINS FORCES WITH LÓKAL TO BRING WESTERN ICELANDIC ART, FILM, PERFORMANCE AND THEATER TO REYKJAVÍK AND HOFSÓS!
September 2 – 6 , 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
28 August, 2011
Icelanders might be forgiven for thinking someone has left a truckload of smoked Manitoba Goldeye in downtown Reykjavík to grow warm and ripe in the sun. No, that smell is the approach of Now(núna), a festival of Western Icelandic culture that will bring art of all sorts to Iceland on the weekend of September 2-4, with an additional event in Hofsós on September 6.
For five years in Manitoba, Canada, six artists of Icelandic descent have mounted a program of events called Núna (now), in which Icelandic artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, dancers and performers have been invited to show their work in Winnipeg and in the area known as the Interlake where hundreds of Icelanders settled many years ago. Now, in collaboration with the LÓKAL international theatre festival, the Núna (now) Curatorial Committee has decided to, in the words of CC member Caelum Vatnsdal, “bring the mountain to Mohammed for a change.”
The Icelandic program includes The Island, a new performance piece from Núna (now) Curatorial Committee members Freya Olafson and Arne Macpherson of Winnipeg and Ingibjörg Magnadóttir and Friðgeir Einarsson of Reykjavík. Magus (Re) Genesis by Winnipeg artist Jaimz Asmundson is an experimental piece involving film, performance and sound; Sergeant & Victor is a one-woman performance piece by Deb Patterson which explores elements of the Icelandic settlers’ history in Winnipeg; and Phopophilia is the seductive concoction of 2boys.tv, a performing duo from Montréal.
The program also includes short films from Winnipeg director Matthew Holm, whose uproarious confabulations include The Lost Bundefjord Expedition and Man of the North-West. And, from 11:00 to 23:00 each day, in the lobby of the Tjarnarbíó, all are welcome to join in on the Collage Party, a free-wheeling (and free!) event in which anyone who likes can sit down and make some art of their own, or else just hang out and chat with the artists and the curators of Now (núna).
The Núna team is grateful to the LÓKAL international theatre festival for making this possible, and also to our sponsors: The Government of Iceland; Iceland Naturally; Icelandair; Cash Store Financial; Shelter Canadian Properties; Indus Automation; the Manitoba Arts Council; þfí; Skipti and Landsvirkjun.
For locations and times, please visit www.nunanow.com or www.lokal.is.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEW REQUESTS CONTACT
Ragnheiður Skúladóttir
[General manager of Lókal ragnheidur@lokal.is]
Tel: +354 895 6871
or
Tristin Tergesen
[Production Manager for núna (now) info@nunanow.com]
Tel: 1-204-641-1691
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PHOBOPHILIA
Friday, September 2, 21:00 & 23:00 | Saturday, September 3, 18:30 & 22:30
Sunday, September 4, 15:00 & 17:30
Tjarnarbíó, Reykjavík
Tuesday, September 6, 20:00
The Old Packhouse at the Icelandic Emigration Center, Hofsós
Twenty-four spectators are led to a secret location to witness a peculiar interrogation. Phobophilia unfolds through a complex meshing of sound, action, ritual and video projection. Using its micro-cinema of Cocteau-inspired projections shown on an elaborate, ever-shifting pop-up book, Phobophilia is a surrealist and dreamlike examination of fear, pleasure, voyeurism and the visual archive of war. The Montreal based transdisciplinary duo Steven Lawson and Aaron Pollard (2boys.tv) will perform Phobophilia, co-presented by Lokal International Theatre Festival. Inspired by Jean Cocteau and his relation to the moving image, Phobophilia is an exploration of the role of the poet in an age characterized by fear. A delicate and miniature performance work using a complex messing of sound, action, ritual, projection and audience participation to ruminate on the artist as catalyst to question “belonging,” “citizenship” and “otherness.” Phobophilia was presented in Winnipeg at Núna (now) in 2008.
MAGUS (RE) GENESIS (Winnipeg) Live Film & Music Performance
Friday, September 2, 21:30
Iðnó
Now (núna) will premiere the live performance of Magus (re) Genesis, a multi-format, process-based experimental film that explores the root of artistic creation. The film documents visual artist C. Graham Asmundson’s body of work over a rigorous six-month period.
Filmmaker Jaimz Asmundson, Graham’s son, uses cinematography and editing as magical weapons to ritualistically birth, destroy and resurrect his father’s work. Through psychedelic imagery and machine-gun editing, the resulting film is a stylized, hyper-kinetic, cinematic manifestation of the Asmundsons’ personal exploration of occult ceremonies and experiences. Working this uncommon practice, the father/son team explore mind-altered states and invoke unnatural resurrections; where unforeseen demons and other spiritual forces are often released.
The collaborative performance will involve Jeremy Pillipow performing the score and sound design live, while filmmaker Asmundson edits and creates live composite layers of footage using VJ programs. These will go along with another three video channels of footage that will be pre-synched together using the Video Binloop. The setup of this performance will mirror the 6-month enclosure of Asmundson’s father, C. Graham Asmundson, in the “white room” during the making of the film, in which he created 4 paintings. This performance creates a full dimensional experience that surrounds the viewer as the world of the film envelopes the room in a multi-channel video performance as well as expand the length of the piece to approximately 20 minutes.
THE ISLAND
Saturday, September 3, 19:00 | Sunday, September 4, 18:30
Tjarnarbíó
The third premiere for the inaugural Now (núna) is a collaborative performance entitled The Island by Freya Olafson (Winnipeg), Arne MacPherson (Winnipeg), Ingibjörg Magnadóttir (Reykjavík) and Friðgeir Einarsson (Reykjavík).
The project facilitates an artistic bridge between two distant but similar places: Iceland and Winnipeg. The project focuses on our cultural and contemporary encounters with the phenomenon of isolation and its profound personal, geographic, historical and emotional connotations.
This co-production between Núna (now) and the Lokal International Theatre Festival in Iceland has been in development since May 2009 with the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, the Winnipeg Arts Council and The Icelandic Ministry of Education and Culture. After the premiere in Reykjavík it will be performed in Winnipeg as part of núna (now) in May 2012.
LOST EXPEDITIONS: THE FILMS OF MATTHEW HOLM
Friday, September 2, 21:30
Iðnó
Winnipeg-based filmmaker Matthew Holm has been contriving his rare and precious cinematic baubles since 2000. Holm’s approach to filmmaking is simple: take an established genre he loves (Arctic exploration pictures, baseball movies, dirigible films and musical westerns so far) and make his own short, poetically precise version of it, lovingly handcrafted to emphasize those aspects of the genre he is most taken with.
His first film, The Lost Bundefjord Expedition (2000), dramatized the first attempt to manhaul across the formidable inland ocean of Lake Winnipeg, and the tragically hilarious results garnered several awards for Holm. His second, Spring Chickens (2002), was based on an eerie dream, and told the uncanny tale of the Grunthal Chickens baseball team and their legendary, superannuated batsman Jam Jam Samson, played by Weakerthans singer John K. Samson.
His third picture was lost almost as soon as it was finished, so has very rarely been seen. Zeppelin Pilot is Holm’s most spectacular and ambitious project: a WWI tale of lighter-than-air warfare from the Hun’s side of things. Holm’s fourth short, a commissioned work called Man of the North-West made to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the storied cooperative the Winnipeg Film Group, is a Mounted Police musical with entirely sung dialogue and a cast of hilarious numbskulls.
With Caelum Vatnsdal, Holm has directed two documentaries. Teardrops in the Snow (2003) is an eccentric behind-the-scenes peek into the making of Guy Maddin’s biggest movie, The Saddest Music in the World; while Journey to Cannibal Island takes viewers on a perilous journey to a mysterious island in the middle of Canada.
COLLAGE PARTY Paul Butler (Winnipeg – Toronto) Visual Arts
Friday, September 2 – Sunday, September 4, 11:00–23:00
Tjarnarbíó (Lobby)
Tjarnargata 12, 101 Reykjavík
Free, all welcome to drop in at any point during the weekend
Note: Please bring any old magazines or pictures of any kind, along with glue, scissors and any other tools or material you think may be useful.
What is a Collage Party? The invention of Canadian artist Paul Butler, it is an opportunity for artist and civilian alike to luxuriate in a purely creative atmosphere for hours or days at a time. Materials such as magazines, paper, scissors and glue are there; music is playing; and a relaxed and social atmosphere pervades the space. Soon everyone is creating at their own pace and in their own way, and the party is on! Activities include drawing, painting, sculpting and of course collage, and as each new creation is finished and put on display, the space itself becomes first a gallery and then an installation and finally a wild and untamed large-scale group art project. But it never stops being a party.
Since 1998, Paul Butler has hosted the internationally renowned Collage Party, a traveling experimental studio he devised as a forum for ideas, inspiration, and connections with a wide range of participants. Dozens of these events have been held across North America and Europe in public museums, commercial galleries, schools, and non-profit art centers.
SARGENT & VICTOR
Friday, September 2, 21:30
Iðnó
Now (núna) will also premiere the production of “Sargent and Victor” by Deb Patterson, the 2010 Cultural Capitol of Canada Theatre ambassador. This new solo play is created from a series of first person accounts gathered through interviews Patterson conducted with past and present residents of the iconic Winnipeg intersection for which it is named, the early urban settlement of immigrant Icelanders. Drawn to the area by a fascination with how neighbourhoods evolve, Patterson has created a mash-up of voices and stories creating a haunting narrative infused with a potent honesty that comes from her capacity to touch difficult and often dark subject matter with humour and grace.
While Patterson, a well-known playwright and performer, collected and compiled the interviews, she kept the words as close to the original speeches as possible. “I tried to catch every intonation right down to the ‘ums’ and the ‘you know’s,” says Patterson. “I really wanted the people’s voices to come through – to give them a chance to be heard in their own words.” Drawn to the area by a fascination with how neighbourhoods evolve, Patterson has collected stories and created a theatrical mash up of voices. For decades, this little patch of our city has been a refuge for people fleeing conflict and strife, arriving from all over the world. “How many tears can this tiny piece of land soak up before it becomes saturated?” asks Patterson. “What happens when that flood of anguish overtakes us? This is what I wanted to explore.”
New Icelander est une performance de danse interdisciplinaire créant des liens entre les expériences interculturelles des ancêtres de Freya Björg Olafson au 19e siècle et son identité actuelle en tant que Canadienne d’origine islandaise, native des prairies manitobaines. Les ancêtres de Freya se sont installés sur un rang nommé Nes, près des berges de la rivière Icelandic, au Manitoba. Cette terre était un cimetière anonyme pour près de 80 Islandais décédés de la variole durant les premières années de leur arrivée au pays en 1875-76. L’imagerie de la série New icelader a émergé du heureux hasard qu’a suscité cette connexion avec le passé. Tout d’abord présentée au Festival Nùna (now) en mai 2007, grâce à l’appui du Conseil des arts du Manitoba, la performance a depuis voyagé du Canada jusqu’en Autriche, en Islande et aux États-Unis.
s p e c i e s est une exposition de corps en mouvement qui tente, dans un but scientifique, sensuel et social, de complexifier notre expérience et notre compréhension du corps vivant. Subtile, souple et sublime, l’échine est un dénominateur commun à toutes les espèces vertébrées. C’est avec une précision dépourvue de logique que deux corps vivants résistent à une seule identité, circonscrits dans un espace et allongés dans une construction, déconstruction et reconstruction temporelle les transformant en formes, en impressions et en sensations méconnaissables. L’unité et la disparité de ces caractéristiques refont surface, laissant place à la réflexion.
