Beckett inspires dance

'Ice "oh" lation' is the name of a new half-hour solo dance piece premiering in Reykjavík on 9th December. The piece was created by choreographer and all-round visual artist, Andreas Constantinou and will go on to London in January.

Andreas is British-Cypriot and has lived in Iceland for nearly a year due to landing a job at Klassíski Listdansskólinn dance school - a job he is very much enjoying. "We have a really nice mix here. And there is government funding, which is an achievement for this school anyway, because there hadn't been until this year. Now it's getting bigger and bigger and making contacts with conservatoires abroad."

'Ice "oh" lation' is a project he is undertaking on top of his day job, purely for the love of it and the strong desire to remain hands-on. His enthusiasm is infectious and his smile shows excitement about the show, but it also hides the nerves associated with presenting a very personal project to the world.

"It's a new piece of work I've been working on now since August, working with one of the dancers from the Icelandic Dance Company, Guðrún Óskarsdóttir. One of the best dancers in my opinion…she's an amazing dancer and a beautiful performer."

The theme of the piece is easy to guess from the title. "It's come from my experiences of coming to a culture where I don't speak the language and because, as a Cypriot, I'm naturally very open and outgoing: very communicative," Andreas explains. "Icelandic culture seems to be much more reserved, and less communicative. So the piece deals with communication and isolation."

But the piece is not confined by such things as narrative. It seeks to illicit feelings in the viewer. "As long as somebody goes away feeling 'isolation', but not necessarily in the context of a narrative context, I'm happy. I hope it will affect everyone in different ways."

Andreas believes that what Samuel Beckett does for the theatre is very much like dance in the way it is presented and the way it makes the audience feel. He describes himself as a total absurdist and created this piece using Beckett as inspiration.

The dancer has her head in a box for much of the performance. That is fairly absurd, but as the natural point of human focus is the face, Andreas believes that he can divert even more of the viewers' attention to the movement itself by obscuring the face.

Another fascinating element is the use of two video screens showing distorted human movement throughout the show. "In this show, I take very subtle naturalistic movement and I totally manipulate it, so it's played forwards, backwards, it's speeded up, slowed down, it's cropped - as many things as you can do as possible without losing the essence of the movement."

This is not an exclusive event: whether it goes well or badly on the night, it is guaranteed to be memorable and at only half an hour in length, it is suitable for everyone - even if they have never stepped foot in a dance studio before. But as Andreas is "unfortunately a bit of a perfectionist", one suspects the evening will go without a hitch.

'Ice "oh" lation' is on at Klassíski Listdansskólinn (Grensásvegur 14) at 17h00 and 19h00 on 9th December and entry is 1000kr. Alternatively you can see it at The Place in the highly respected Robin Howard Dance Theatre in London on 30th January.

Alex Elliott