LÓKAL is a performing arts platform that produces and introduces contemporary performance to audiences in Iceland and connects local performance practitioners with fellow artists and presenters from abroad. With base funding from Icelandic Ministry of Education and Culture and the City of Reykjavík, LÓKAL programmes and organizes the biannual Reykjavík performing arts festival SPECTACULAR – in happy partnership with Reykjavík Dance Festival.
LÓKAL 2019 will take place in September. Dates tba.
Programme of the 2018 edition of SPECTACULAR November 14-18 here
2016 edition is programmed and organized in partnership with Reykjavík Dance Festival under the heading EVERYBODY´S SPECTACULAR. See the programme here.
2015 edition was programmed and organized in partnership with Reykjavík Dance Festival
A! Performance Festival in Akureyri is an annual performance festival organised by Akureyri Art Museum, LÓKAL, Reykjavík Dance Festival and Menningarfélag Akureyrar. The festival aims at bringing together visual- and performing arts during a vibrant week-end at the beginning of September each year.
LÓKAL is a proud member of the following European networks and projects:
N.O.W. (New Open Working process for the performing arts):
Extrapole (Paris)
Fabbricca Europa (Firenze)
Indisciplinarte (Terni)
Latitudes Contemporaines (Lille)
Lókal (Reykjavík)
MOM/El Vivero (Barcelona)
Trafo (Budapest)
WP Zimmer (Antwerp)
These eight organisations, spanning an east-west and north south axis, and a mix of independent agencies, festivals, residency and performance spaces, have come together for this project, linking to researchers from interdisciplinary scientific communities and complementary fields of action. We are all professionals in our fields, working in very different but equally complex European geopolitical contexts. We all support and accompany artists along their journeys, the development of their work and its presentation. We work in and from Europe and on the international stage. We are all involved, directly or indirectly, in the definition, development and presentation of work.
What are the conditions needed for European artistic life in a global framework? What might an artist’s journey look like in a larger, globalised, endlessly changing Europe? What does it mean, now and in the future, to “accompany” an artist and their work and support its communication to the widest possible audience?
This project has been funded with support of the European Commission:
URBAN HEAT (2016-19) is a project developed by the Festivals in Transition (FIT) network of 13 international festival partners, supported by Creative Europe, which enables artists to engage with the invisible communities within cities. The four year project supports artists to reconnect with the world outside the arts by addressing urgent political and social issues, and by working with audiences and communities affected by those issues.
The canvas for Urban Heat is cities…they are the physical framework of our society, the generator of civil values, the engine of our economy and the heart of much of our culture; and 50% of their population are people aged under 30. But in the era of late capitalism they also feel increasingly unsustainable: economic migration has created an almost invisible underclass; poverty is pushing people to the edges; and issues ranging from mobility to the rise of faith-based communities are seeing cultures and communities becoming more segregated and less permeable.
Through a series of academies and Urban Labs, which bring together selected artists, academics, faith leaders, political scientists and technologists, Urban Heat enables artists to develop their understanding of issues facing cities and to develop new forms of participatory arts practice and projects in response. The project will explore the following questions:
· How can artists learn from activism?
· How can artists effectively utilise technology and social media to reach and build communities?
· What are the new and developing forms of participatory theatre and community art?
Urban Heat supports 22 emerging and mid-career artists who attend the initial and closing academies, participate in minimum of three Urban Labs scheduled throughout 2016 and develop project ideas and proposals that will be commissioned by the international festival partners.
URBAN HEAT is a network collaboration of SPIELART Festival (Munich), Krakowskie Reminiscencje Teatralne (Krakow), lnternational Festival of Contemporary Theatre Homo Novus (Riga), LIFT (London), Baltic Circle lnternational Theatre Festival (Helsinki), SAAL Biennaal (Tallinn), Bunker - Festival Drugajanje (Maribor), Spring Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht), LÓKAL – lnternational Theatre Festival (Reykjavík), Centrale Fies - Drodesera (Dro)
Associated partners: Alkantara Festival (Lisbon), Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (Cairo), Reykjavík Dance Festival (Reykjavík)
URBAN HEAT is an initiative of the network Theate/Festivals in Transition (FIT) - www.theatrefit.org
This project has been funded with support of the European Commission
APAP - advancing performing arts project
apap – advancing performing arts project is an international network of 11 cultural organisations from all over Europe. The project, apap-performing Europe 2020, is supported by the “Creative Europe Programme of the EU, it is implemented throughout a four-years period (1st of June 2016 – 30th of May 2020).
apap – performing Europe 2020 is dedicated to the sustainable support of contemporary dance and performance in Europe and abroad, including a special cooperation with “Maqamat/Beit El Raqs” in Lebanon “, as well as a strong focus on enlarging audiences and a knowledge-transfer between cultural organizations.
Partners: szene salzburg (Salzburg), Arts Centre BUDA (Kortrijk), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Centrale Fies (Dro), Fundacja Cialo/Umysl (Warsaw), Maison de la Culture dʼAmiens (Amiens), Student Centre - Culture of Change (Zagreb), Tanzfabrik (Berlin), Reykjavík Dance Festival (Reykjavík)
Associated partner: Lókal – International Theatre Festival (Reykjavík)
