Interview ROMEO UND JULIA
Interview with Erna Ómarsdóttir and Halla Ólafsdóttir
by Christina Güllich
»Monster, fairy, angel and devil: a nature force« – this is how you have been described by the press. Why?
ERNA: (laughing) Why… Ah, it’s hard to say about oneself. I guess it has to do with the mixture of something very soft and sweet on the one hand and something demonic or monstrous on the other. It’s the contrast which I find fascinating. And I use a lot of screaming. It’s one of my favorite hobbies by the way; screaming and head banging.
HALLA: Maybe also because you often appeal to so called »male« activity stereotypes: To be loud, to be too much, even using references from black metal. I think seeing a small woman doing that, twists the idea of femininity. It also has to do with very preconceived notions of what dance is supposed to look like. What are we allowed to call dance? Both of us work a lot with pushing that boundary.
ERNA: Yes, it is also a little bit of a rebellion against what a dancer should look like on stage. For example my mother said that I should not be singing because I was so out of tune. But my reaction was: I love to sing – I want to sing – and I will find my own way. And I started to use the voice as a dance. I like working with the voice in the same way that I do with movement: With the texture and the emotion of the voice. So all physicality, all the different qualities of it, merge into dance. And Halla and I are quite on the same page there.
So these even brutal aspects of your works – the screaming, the seemingly ugly and harsh – are not about triggering unpleasant feelings in anyone – neither the dancer nor the audience?
ERNA: No. It often even has a healing, cleansing effect. I can see it with dancers, who are not used to work with breathing and screaming, they almost get high. So it can be the opposite of what the audience might experience. They often start to see for example screaming as something ugly – and I see a power and beauty in the darkness and ugliness. Because, what is beauty for western society, I don’t find so interesting very often. There are many different sides of beauty.
HALLA: It’s probably half-half: Often a part of the audience says »Oh, I wish I could scream with them«, some decide that this is very evil. But it doesn't originate from an evil place. For me it’s more about healing and putting things out there. And when we are using some clichés that we all know that are out there in society, we don’t want to confirm those clichés; we are using them to create a new reading, by putting them on top of and next to each other.
Music, theatre, dance: What is dance able to accomplish, which the others can’t?
HALLA: With dance you can express, what can’t be put into words. You can work with the abstract and put it together as an image. In theatre you often have a script. You tell a narrative, a story. Dance can have seven layers of narrative happening at the same time. And it’s about moving people, to create a longing for movement – in the sense of moving your body parts, but also movement in space or movement as a social movement. And there’s a lot of joy that dancing can bring you when you are in the moment and you f&#@ing go for it.
ERNA: Some singers and musicians are also great dancers and performers. But often when I watch a theatre piece or a concert, I think »Why don’t they do something with their body?«. There is something about being able to use nothing more but your body. It’s your instrument, you don’t need anything else. And the freedom of moving as you want: Somehow we are allowed to do all these strange movements, that don’t need to have to express one certain meaning.
HALLA: And there is a lot of knowledge that dancers have: Physicality, technique, interpretation – to work with emotions and abstraction. And it’s such a collective work. They are used to work in big groups. And have practiced to take responsibility for their own bodies and for others in the group.
What’s most important to you in your interpretation of »Romeo and Juliet«?
HALLA: One important question for us was: Why do we repeat history? Why should we do »Romeo & Juliet« - again? One answer to that has political aspects: Very often the so called master of a production is one genius and he is often a man. Shakespeare was a man and Prokofiev was a man. And they are both considered geniuses by society. Now we are co-authoring it as two women. So it’s not about one famous genius but about collectivity and collaboration.Then there is this collective knowledge which is already in the room: People usually know the play, some even know the music. We don’t have to repeat what the audience thinks is going to happen, but we can use it in order to talk about certain themes and aspects, which we find interesting in the story.
ERNA: One thing that was important for us in the beginning was that Prokofjew originally wrote a different ending – a happy ending. This fact, that he decided to change the story, was a bit of a key for me: We can change the story. We can cut, select and focus on details, we can ask ourselves why a character is behaving in a certain way – and we can follow that. Another important aspect in the process is the history of the story itself: We enjoy listening to different interpretations from everywhere very much: how the story has been changed and interpreted since it was first written. And what we find is: Originally it used to be much rougher, more erotic, more sexual, and more brutal. For example Juliet had way more text that was more sexual; text which was later cut. The story has been modified a lot in order to represent a more romantic idea of love.
How do you proceed when you develop a choreography? Do you first take the story or the music or something else?
ERNA: Usually we work more with themes, emotions and energy – rather than with stories which already exist. Often we work together with musicians who create the music in the process, inspired by the dancers – and vice versa. In this case it’s different: There is a story and the music is set. And these are both in it: liberation and limitation. Also there is already existing material from the past, which we bring back in here and rename it by putting it into a new context. We work a lot with layering things.
HALLA: Concerning the music we like to ask ourselves: What does one expect, hearing this music? Then sometimes we go with it and sometimes against it. We work very associatively. This is the freedom when you work with dance, you don’t have to use the spoken word. Shakespeare did it great, it’s there, people can see it, and they can read it. We don’t have to repeat that story again. We are more into using the themes in order to create these many narratives at the same time that can be interpreted in many ways – rather than telling just one narrative, one story.
Which themes or aspects of »Romeo and Juliet« are most important to you?
ERNA: The most important aspect for us is the representation of women. How women are supposed to be – make babies, run the household, be pretty and so on. And of course it works both ways, also for men. Patriarchy is not good for anybody. It keeps men down as well as women. Or better said: It keeps all people in certain roles; which we would like to get away from. We try to achieve this by shifting the roles constantly: One can be Romeo now, then there are two Romeos, then a whole group can be the wet-nurse.
HALLA: In this context we also look at archetypes of women’s appearance in society. Watching a ballerina, it seems like she is not even sweating. She is almost a perfect model; gravity seems to have no impact on her bones. But all the hard work, all the pain, all this physical and mental abuse that this person had to go through nobody can imagine. And in the 19th century ballet dancers even had to work as escort girls after the shows. We want to deal with these hidden aspects, which are also there. So we work with these big heavy bodies that are loud, that scream, that are not only light and pretty.
ERNA: Another aspect is the freedom of love. Juliet doesn’t want to marry Paris but goes with Romeo. On stage it is usually a man and a woman, who represent love. But of course there’s also love between two men, between two women or let’s say … a person and the sky. Love can be represented in so many ways. In our society, where homophobia is on the rise again and love is being used as a marketing tool, it seems important to bring this up.
HALLA: Also interesting for us is the idea that it’s a story about rebellion. There is this monarchy, these two houses, these rich families and we have these two people rebelling against it. They do the worst thing imaginable: they connect ties between these two institutions. So we are very much into this rebellion against the institutions that are controlling society. And we have the theme of death; death not only as a tragedy, but also as a rebirth of something. In this play, the death of Romeo and Juliet is the reason for the families to make peace with each other.
ERNA: Sometimes when we pick certain themes, it’s more about generating a feeling than representing a certain story line. Where an audience might think »Why are they cleaning the floor?« or »Why are they wrestling?«, we negotiate emotions on a metaphoric level. We are also dealing with the different themes through Sunneva's costumes, Chrisander's set design and Valdimar's video work.
How do you use props in your production?
ERNA: For instance we are using cut off hands like in horror films. This horror/blood splatter association has a bit of a scary and brutal aspect, but it also has a slapstick feeling. Then again the hands are used as something very tender and caring, they can even seem like roots, or you can see them as flowers.
HALLA: There’s a lot of shape-shifting, many associations are possible. We are using props or dance material which you see first established as a certain thing. But then it comes back as another thing with a different meaning.
Do you work in a different way with male or female dancers (e.g. concerning body language)?
ERNA: No, we try not to. That’s the politics in this play. All of these 20 dancers we have could be women, all of them could be men in the play. We assign the roles rather to the people than to the gender.
HALLA: It’s so easy to fall into patterns. We try to avoid gender stereotypes. If we use stereotypes, we put them really in front, like the muscles in the costumes. Otherwise we try to break stereotypes for example by letting women lift men, men lift women, women lift women and men lift men.
What is most challenging about the work?
ERNA: We are developing the dance performance in the moment, in collaboration with the dancers. Sometimes we have to go many circles before we get to the thing that we want to see. We stay a lot in the unknown. That can be frustrating – for us and for the dancers. It’s a challenge for everybody, but it also pushes you and the dancers that we are working with are giving live to the work.
HALLA: And Shakespeare, Prokofiev – there are a lot of expectations around. Even though you start out saying »We’re going to challenge the expected and the stereotypes«, the heaviness of history is still hovering over you and it is hard not to feel that pressure.
When do you know, that the piece is ready?
ERNA: Sometimes we don’t know until the last minute. Some things are clear quite early, some need more time. In the end it hopefully becomes what it has to become and will just take a life of its own.
HALLA: Hopefully we are creating a monster (laughing). A beautiful monster.
With what kind of prior knowledge and attitude should someone watch the piece?
ERNA: I think it’s fine not to know so much beforehand, it could free you from expectations. But for those who know the piece and are waiting to see a certain story: Watch it with an open mind.
HALLA: And question yourself: What are my expectations and why do I have them – in relation to the story, in relation to dance, in relation to the theatre as a place and an institution.
Is there something especially Icelandic about your way of working and creating?
ERNA: There is something about the natural environment that we grew up in. We are very lucky, but at the same time nature is very strong. It gives and takes a lot of energy. It´s so much bigger than you – in everyday life, nature is a constant actor in Iceland. We both have a lot of energy – maybe there is a connection to our origin.
HALLA: And the tradition of storytelling is deeply rooted in the Icelandic culture. Stories have always been told at the dinner table; stories that travel mouth to mouth, develop, change and live their own lives.
ERNA: Maybe our interest in how »Romeo and Juliet« has been modified through the ages and working with this aspect ourselves has got something to do with our culture. And then of course dance is something that is not in our tradition like in other countries. So maybe because there is no dance tradition in Iceland, we allow ourselves more freedom.
