The Best of Darkness
by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannsson
to the original music by Sigur Rós and Valdimar Jóhannsson
Embrace your shadow and weakness, embrace darkness!
The darkness is warm and embracing. A place where you can sleep tight and journey to dreamland or return back to your mother’s womb. Be vulnerable. But darkness is also frightening, a kingdom of nightmares and loneliness, the domain of hungry ghosts who wander in search for relieve and satisfaction. Continuously searching for the light that casts a shadow on others, they will never satisfy their hunger, but be stuck in roaring emptiness; a tempest they have us battling forevermore.
The Best of Darkness is the fourth and final piece in a series of work, inspired by darkness and the vulnerability of the human body. The first piece in the series At Dusk, We Embrace was premiered during winter solstice 2017, at Sigur Rós’s festival Norður og Niður. The video installation Life in the Undergrowth in collaboration with Pierre-Alain Giraud, premiered at the opening of the Winter Lights Festival in Reykjavík in February 2018 and was projected on two large oil tanks. The third piece, Variations of Darkness, was specially created for the bright space at Reykjavik Art Museum and performed at Reykjavik Arts Festival in June 2018.
All the work is performed to music by Sigur Rós and under the artistic direction of Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannsson, created in collaboration with IDC dancers.
Dancers: Sigurður Andrean Sigurgeirsson, Elín Signý Weywadt Ragnarsdóttir, Erna Gunnarsdóttir, Felix Urbina Alejandre, Þyri Huld Árnadóttir, Inga Maren Rúnarsdóttir, Hannes Þór Egilsson, Sólbjört Sigurðardóttir and Una Björg Bjarnadóttir.