After a month long winter workshop in Reykjavík, an R&D for the new Icelandic translation for We’ll Dance on the Ash of the Apocalypse by author Melissa-Kelly Franklin and now in the translation of Urður Norðdahl, we were excited to do a staged reading accompanied by live music by the talented Hallvarður Ásgeirsson.
Enter omicron.
Oh well, we’re used to this by now? Appropriately enough, this play is all about resiliency, hope, love and finding joy. And boy do we love this play and its message.
So we created a virtual table read instead.
The illustration we spontaneously made to affirm the fun, light and engaging atmosphere of our virtual table read.
We filmed it today, January 22nd, and with four hours before premiere we tried some simple editing - to no luck. Five crashed editing programs later as we rushed to our promised virtual premiere with the rawest of raw reads.
As it should be! Sometimes all you need is an iPhone staring at two performers sitting at a table telling you a beautiful story, in the anticipation of sharing the staged version this summer at Reykjavík Fringe Festival. We hope this sharing creates a buzz for this summer’s show, helps us secure more sponsors and partners, as well as being a lovely cherry at the end of such a fun, sincere and beautiful process.
SO! Enjoy this beautiful read. I know I did with all my heart. We had such fun creating it. The writing is stunning, the translation on point, the actors bring their whole selves to every rehearsal. As it was filmed today it’s not yet subtitled, but unless five more editing programs crash we will drop the English subtitles this week between January 23rd - January 29th.
Sincerely,
Director Sólveig
P.S. Icelandic winter nature took full participation in the background of this little read about the climate crisis. We love it.
EDIT: The reading was removed from our open Vimeo on March 3rd to allow audiences to experience it anew come summer 2022
