“Hundred Thousand Dances in the Sky” – an article from the WM call
By: Karen María Jónsdóttir
For more than a millennium and a half nations have used firework displays to demonstrate their power and glory, more often than not to position themselves against other nations, indicating economic and military supremacy. Who doesn’t recognise images form New Year’s Eve at New York’s Time Square when the ball drops at midnight and confetti and fireworks shower the spectators or, when Big Ben announces the arrival of New Year in London with an accompanying firework display on the River Thames.
During the 2014 New Year’s celebrations, the United Arab Emirates, the third biggest oil producer in the Persian Gulf following Iran and Saudi-Arabia, produced a display that was intended to be the most magnificent in history, designed to catch world attention. Half a million fireworks were used in the performance, which reached over 94 km along the shores of Dubai, fired from 400 platforms. It took an American manufacturer ten months to prepare the show, 200 people worked on it and around 100 computers to ensure that all went as planned. With this display Dubai topped Kuwait’s world record from 2012 in number of fireworks in a single display.
But what role do fireworks play for a small nation like Iceland, which does not command an army? Different from many other countries firework displays are not prepared and organised by the authorities in Iceland. Instead the general public creates its own firework shows from the back yard of their homes, gathered with family and friends. For the New Year’s celebration 2013-2014 Icelanders bought 400.000 tons of fireworks which translates to just under 3.5 kilograms per household in the country. About 60% of the fireworks are sold by ICE-SAR, the Icelandic Search and Rescue Association, that operates with 4.000 volunteers on alert at all times, prepared to rescue people in need on land and sea. The sales of fireworks is ICE-SAR’s main source of income so many people perceive it as a communal duty to buy fireworks.
There are no rules as to how much each is allowed to purchase or how the fireworks should be displayed. The only limitation as regards the public is that fireworks can only be bought and displayed between 28th December and 6th January and not between midnight and 9 AM except on New Year’s Eve. That night the main action is between 11:30 PM and 00:30 AM during which the sky above Reykjavik and other areas of residence is literally on fire with the accompanying piercing din.
Last New Year’s Eve saw an interesting experiment aimed at retaining this otherwise unorganised “firework display” as Icelandic homes premiered the family dance-piece KABLAMM, dance piece for 3-6 kg of fireworks. The piece is by a young dance composer, Sigríður Soffía Níelsdóttir, her second firework dance piece of the year, the earlier piece, Eldar – dansverk fyrir 3 tonn of flugeldum (Fires – dance performance for 3 tons of fireworks), premiered in Reykjavík in collaboration with ICE-SAR during Culture Night in August 2013. The script/recipe of KABLAMM was distributed in advance through the regular and social media, for all to participate.
KABLAMM: Recipe for a family dance piece for 3-6 kg of fireworks on New Year‘s Eve.
Ingredients: Bengal flare, sparkler, small fountain, bigger fountain, Roman candle, small noisy skyrockets, two even bigger fountains, Chinese crackers, one noisy cake firework and one big cake.
Preparation:
Go to ICE-SAR outlet to support a good course and buy fireworks. Appoint a firework manager, he manages the display. Appoint a division manager who places the fireworks in an assigned area. Appoint a security manager who has responsibility for everyone keeping in safe distance and wearing safety glasses. Make the fireworks ready. Read the instructions on the fireworks to time the display.
Method:
- Five people stand and light a sparkler – sing loud and clear, “Nú árið er liðið” to generate a dramatic beginning to the performance.
- When the sparkler is half-burnt those same five light a red Bengal flare that they hold in the other hand. The flares are touched in a sequence.
- The flares die out one after the other and the last one with a live flare lights a small fountain.
- The Display manager knows how long the small fountain lasts (let us give us takes 90 seconds) and gives a sign for lighting the mid-sized fountain 60 seconds after the small fountain starts.
- When the mid-sized fountain has burned for 60 seconds a small “punch” is made in the performance. The display manager gives orders to alight four Roman candles and as many small noisy skyrockets as possible, the candles lives for 10 seconds.
- Alight the Chinse crackers and a noisy cake simultaneously as the small noisy skyrockets as preparation of the
- climatic finale.
- Alight the final cake 30-60 seconds after (depends on time-length).
Previous experiments with fireworks and dance
Looking back earlier examples of experiments combining dance, choreography, and fireworks can be found in Iceland; the first documented firework dance performance dating from New Year’s Eve 1871. On occasion of the premiere of the play Nýársnóttin, by local playwright Indriði Einarsson, college students flocked on to the frozen lake in central Reykjavík posing as elves and goblins for an elven dance around the bonfire holding on to blazing torches. Other locals joined in on the ice. This became a custom spreading to other areas and is still maintained in many places in Iceland.
At the New Year’s celebrations in 1910 sources reveal another “choreographed” firework display in central Reykjavík. Fireworks were launched from each side of the brook that ran through town dividing it east and west, a brook that runs from south from the lake were the elven dance had taken place 40 years earlier to the harbour in north. On the east bank was the residence of the baker Daníel Berhöft but on the west lived physician Andrés Fjeldsted. They arranged skyrockets and suns in rows and agreed on specific rules for alighting them so that each display would function as a response to the other. The local inhabitants assembled to observe, creating a special atmosphere as the rockets were launched on either side of the brook.
It was where this same brook joins the sea in Reykjavík harbour that the firework dance piece Eldar – dansverk fyrir 3 tonn af flugeldum premiered on Culture Night 24th August 2013. Níelsdóttir’s emphasis in the Culture Night’s firework display was on bringing the dance closer to the population so people could enjoy the experience of the choreography in its purest form; experience the beauty of movement, the power of simple forms and nuances in colours. “It was my objective that the audience could discover a peace of mind, that 80 thousand individuals could stand joined together focused on the energy and beauty of Reykjavík for seven minutes and 45 seconds”.
The dance artist Níelsdóttir has been fascinated with fireworks for a long time. “This mix of light and explosion appeal to me like magic”, she says, and describes how she composed a firework pieces as a teenager in her home garden on New Year’s Eve. But differing from the oil barons of the Persian Gulf and kings and military leaders in earlier centuries, Níelsdóttir’s firework performances do not strive to be the biggest and most expensive. “Fireworks shouldn’t divide people; they should unite people in dialogue in the city we live in, which is in this case Reykjavík”.
The relation between fireworks and dance
Níelsdóttir says that firework displays and traditional dance pieces have much in common. “The firework display is in essence the sound and movement of light which is exactly the material of dance composition: music and dance. The light simply takes the place of the dancer and the explosions are the music. The light moves or dances in accordance to a predesigned procedure like in a dance piece that is created step by step. Emotional variation is generated through interplay of speed fluctuation and energy, precise timing and colouration”. With regard to the creation of Eldar Níelsdóttir says: “I build the firework display in the same way as I build a traditional dance piece. I begin with research work where I explore the material that I am working with in a cultural and social context and through that the conceptual grounding of the work takes shape. Then I draw up a rough frame based on the ideas and decide what I want to communicate with each section. Then I begin designing the performance”.
The fireworks are the dancers in the Níelsdóttir’s performances and you could say that they also audition like dancers in search of roles. “I ask myself what type of dancers I want. Do I want male of female or do I want twins that will do everything identically? Is this firework a soloist or is he better suited for group scenes? Am I searching for a dancer that can shoot off across the floor in acrobatic style or one that can move really slowly?” In this context Níelsdóttir studies the fireworks as types, “the fountain is in constant flow, the cake grinds quickly with much rattle but suns hang nearly still and silent in the air”. Níelsdóttir thus identifies both feminine and masculine features of the fireworks that she then matches together in accordance to specific ideas about roles and texture.
The rhythm of the explosions forms the music of the piece, “that is why I didn’t want to play any music in Eldar. I think the music in the explosions is the neatest”, says Níelsdóttir. From this a beautiful soundscape is generated. “Sound and experience is so closely related. When you watch a horror film you become scarred not necessarily because something horrific is happening but because the music enhances that sentiment”. It’s similarly in this performance. When Níelsdóttir wanted to magnify the impression of the light in the sky, accelerate the pulse and create a “vow” sensation then an extra row of sounds only were launched. “But that’s just a trick”, says Níelsdóttir.
“Then there was the costume. Do you want this dancer to be wearing a red dress and this group in green in contrast? What meaning does that generate?” Níelsdóttir worked quite some time on putting together the palette of the piece and studying its meaning for the piece as a whole. According to her it is the same with the colouring of lights in theatre that they encourage a specific experience or dramatic moments where for instance red is connected to love and heat. On the other hand Níelsdóttir wants to give the audience space for the own interpretation “as the experience and background of each individual differs from the experience of others you will never be able to tell the audience to experience something in one way and not in another. And that is terrific”.
The firework display at Culture Night has for years been launched from sea with the spectators positioned along the shore i.a. for security reasons. This year it was decided that the display would be moved on land and that the city centre with its iconic cultural buildings used as theatrical stage. Thus the firework display Eldar was made as a site-specific dance piece that was launched from the National theatre, the Customs house and from a side-pier of the Harpa concert hall. The buildings came in fiery dialogue surrounding the audience that created a forceful atmosphere that was manifested in the audience grasp for breath.
„In the same manner as when I compose for a dance company the most difficult part of producing the performance is stepping back on opening night and letting go. Hoping that all the preparation work will pay off, that all the dancers will make the right moves, that the lighting technician will turn on the right light at the right moment and the sound operator will adjust the volume appropriately”. When it comes to a firework display a dress rehearsal is not possible like in the theatre. “You just get the one chance and it has to be perfect”. Níelsdóttir says you just have to cross fingers and hope that all igniters are in working order, that the timings will hold, and most important of all … that the weather will be alright.
Dialogue of different worlds
A firework display has featured as the finale of Culture Night from the beginning of the festival in 1996 but the show has been produced by ICE-SAR for years. Forty valiant rescue team volunteers attend to the preparation and procedure of the display while the display management has been in the capable hands of the accountant and rescue team volunteer Svava Ólafsdóttir that doesn’t hesitate to stand in the midst of the fire and give orders about who should alight what and when. Níelsdóttir says it has been very interesting working with ICE-SAR. The team was accustomed to their own procedures in preparing the firework display. “Then I came in and wanted to do all the things that are forbidden in such displays”. She says she joined with several ideas and many quite big. “Ólafsdóttir and her team have organised the display for twenty years and it was terrific to get advice about what was indeed possible to do under the circumstances. But at the same time my ideas really stirred things up”. In the end the display was expanded both in terms of ideas and execution.
Níelsdóttir says it understandable that people had been perplexed when the wish was put forward to match together a choreographer and a rescue team in creating a firework dance piece. „It was a challenge to merge these two completely different worlds but at the same time an immensely exiting because it opened for so many opportunities. The worlds had indeed more in common than we anticipated”. Eldar would however never have achieved what it finally did but for that everyone that worked on the project were passionate in letting things happen says Níelsdóttir. Everybody joined forces to meet the challenges that came up in the process and solve security issues. “That is why this all worked out as well as it did”.
Teaching dance literacy
The objective of Eldar was from the beginning to bring the dance closer to the general public and use for that purpose a medium that all Icelanders are familiar with and have themselves played with, that is fireworks. By framing Eldar systematically as a dance performance in all promotional material and facilitating the public with devices and tools to read and understand the dance a unique opportunity arose to overcome in one go the multiple subjective and tangible barriers that the dance form is faced with in Iceland. The media participated in framing the event as a dance piece and delivering the keys to its reading to the public. Interviews with Níelsdóttir appeared in the printed media and on radio and television. She explained how the fireworks were conceived as dance, the way the piece was structured, and how it was possible to read patterns, colours, and the energy of the dance piece as a spectator.
As Eldar hit the final note of Culture Night it became an agreement with Erna Ómarsdóttir, the artistic director of Reykjavík Dance Festival 2013, that the firework performance would constitute the upbeat of the dance festival that was about to commence. Sixty thousand people were gathered in central Reykjavík to observe Eldar – dansverk fyrir 3 tonn af flugeldum. One hundred and ninety thousand watched the direct broadcasting of Eldar on state television as the display was recorded by 12 TV cameras. Together, 80% of the Icelandic population watched the performance and judging from the media coverage and the following discussions in the social media it is clear that it spawned a dialogue on the nature of dance and the ways in which it can be watched, experienced and read.
Eldar has since been aired again in state television, in around New Year 2014. To follow up on the discussion that took place following the premiere on Culture Night, Níelsdóttir composed the new dance piece for New Year’s Eve, the family dance piece KABLAMM: dansverk fyrir 3-6 kg af flugeldum and distributed the script/recipe to the public through regular and social media. It is not documented how many households responded to the challenge and produced KABLAMM but with the vivid remembrance of Eldar in mind one can let oneself dream of the country’s 100 thousand homes posting their own dance pieces on the dome of the sky.