HVERFA

Hverfa is a requiem to the stage spectacle and an ode to the invisible theatrical apparatus that supports it. In it we are celebrating the back side of a stage curtain rather than its plush front. A hanger on an empty clothes rack rather than a garment for which it is supposedly made. A shifting entanglement of cables and speakers rather than a musical score emanating from the installation. A singing void of the empty audience rather than a
collective body of a choir.

As such, Hverfa is a joyful, irreverent, choreography performed at the threshold where negative and neglected in-between spaces are re-activated and re-evaluated. In their humorous and poetic invocation of the insignificant and invisible, two dancers play a role of the twin like mediums through whom emancipatory passage of the ordinary into the domain of the sacred is enacted.

Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir is an Icelandic choreographer, innovator and pop artist that explores the boundaries between dance and sound through her works.

Dance work by Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir

Premiered November 1st on the big stage, City Theater

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Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir

studied choreography at the SNDO in Amsterdam and contemporary dance at P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels. Since graduating, Melkorka has focused on exploring the relationship between music and dance in her works. She has choreographed movements for theatre plays, dance pieces, and musical works, collaborating with choreographers, musicians, and performance groups such as Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez, the Iceland Dance Company, John the Houseband, Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, and Sigríður Soffía Níelsdóttir and Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson.

An ongoing fascination through her work is combining live music and dance on stage. Her piece "Milkywhale" received the DV Culture Award in 2015 and two nominations for the Gríman Awards the same year. Milkywhale transformed into a pop duet that has performed at music festivals such as Roskilde, Reeperbahn, and Sónar Reykjavík. Her works have received numerous nominations and awards, with Melkorka winning the Gríman Award as one of two choreographers for the piece "Coming Up”.

In recent years, Melkorka has been working on integrating innovation and performing arts through the project "Ok, bye," where keynotes and discussions from entrepreneurs intertwine with artistic performances, music, and visual experiences.

Concept
Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir

Performers:
Ásgeir Helgi Magnússon, Andrean Sigurgeirsson

Set and costume design:
Elín Hansdóttir

Soundscape:
Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson

Light design:
Jóhann Friðrik Ágústsson

Dramaturgy:
Igor Dobričić

Rehearsal director:
Katie Hitchcock

Video:
Afstrakt

Producer:
Milkywhale

Hverfa is a collaboration between Melkorka and the Icelandic Dance Company, supported by the City of Reykjavik, the Artists Salary Fund and the Performing Arts Fund of Iceland.

Sýningarárið 2024–2025

Christmas Dreams

Liminal States

Orpheus and Eurydice

While in battle I’m free, never free to rest

HVERFA

The word “hverfa” means to disappear, to vanish or to evaporate in Icelandic. It is therefore linked to what ceases to be visible or what is invisible, something that has always interested humans. The invisible is closely related to the idea of the supernatural or that which does not conform to laws of nature. Hverfa is a study of human attempts to capture, define and interpret what we sense but cannot see and to give it a physical form. Two bodies on stage search for the absence of a body through physical rituals.

Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir is an Icelandic choreographer, innovator and pop artist that explores the boundaries between dance and sound through her works.  

Dance work by Melkorka Sigríður Magnúsdóttir

Premiered November 1st on the big stage, City Theater