Reykjavik Arts Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and preparations have been under way for the past two years planning ahead for a mind blowing 3 week festival in June. It should come as no surprise that the worldwide epidemic of Covid-19 has now interfered with these plans and it is clear that the people of Reykjavik will not be ready for a city-wide festival in June, even if the worst of the epidemic might be behind us at that time.
The festival is devoted to both its audiences and artists and wants to find a way to materialise the programming without compromising anybody’s safety.
Reykjavik Arts Festival has now made an agreement with all of its artists, partner institutions and venues to launch the full programme of the festival, in spite of the situation, on Friday 3rd of April just as planned. The programme will be accessible from the festival’s website in full, including descriptions of the events and exhibitions, full credit lists and venues. The only thing left out in the programme will be the dates of the events.
Reykjavik Arts Festival will deliver its programme – even if it takes a full year to do so.
The theme for this year’s festival is Worlds, which feels highly fitting at these strange times we live in. Worlds collide and worlds open up in the overflowing programme. An Australian acrobatic circus company, a durational dance performance for infants, Víkingur Ólafsson’s recital of Debussy and Rameau, new work by composer Anna Thorvalds performed in a planetarium with visuals by Sigurdur Gudjonsson and the amazing durational performance from Lithuania; Sun & Sea (Marina) which won the Golden Lion at the Venice biennale last year, are but a few of the highlights of this years’ edition.
