NÚSTALGIA
A theatre concert by RIVA and AGGRASOPPAR
RIVA
RIVA is the first and only contemporary dance company in the Faroe Islands, run by company members Rannvá G. Niclasen, Vár B. Árting and Búi Rouch. Our aim is to create work opportunities for dance artists in and from the Faroes, to innovate and develop the professional dance environment and create high quality dance performances and represent a Faroese point of view both locally and globally.
AGGRASOPPAR
AGGRASOPPAR is an internationally acclaimed experimental musical outfit from the Faroe Islands. The band has released two full length albums and played on all the big showcase festivals across Europe, even winning the prestigious Steven Strange Award at The Great Escape. They are signed by French booking agency Voulez-Vous Danser and have featured on huge festivals like Fusion Festival in Germany.
TEAM
Intertwining chaos, rawness, absurdity, tenderness, and the deeply human
The collaboration between RIVA and AGGRASOPPAR began in 2023 and has evolved through several live performances, including appearances at G! Festival and the release concert of AGGRASOPPAR’s full-length album døgurðaslang/MIDNÁTTARSANG in 2024. From the beginning, there was a shared desire to dive deeper into one another’s artistic practices. Both groups work through collective creation processes and are drawn to the poetic dimensions of human existence, yet they approach these questions from different angles - RIVA through contemporary dance and embodied composition, AGGRASOPPAR through experimental sound, text, and avant-garde pop/punk expression.
NÚSTALGIA
PROJECT
DESCRIPTION
NÚSTALGIA (eng. NOWSTALGIA) is a new interdisciplinary theatre concert in development by RIVA created in close collaboration with the Faroese experimental music group AGGRASOPPAR. The theatre concert is based on AGGRASOPPAR’s upcoming album release with the same title.
The work unfolds in the space between utopia and dystopia, in a speculative realm we call Nústalgia - a protopian world governed not by the past or the future, but by the insistence of the present moment.
In contemporary life, we are constantly pulled forward toward what comes next or backward toward what has already passed. We plan further ahead than ever before, while simultaneously scrolling through digital archives of memories in an attempt to preserve what is gone. Time accelerates, and our ability to remain fully present seems to weaken. In contrast, insects and small creatures have no choice but to exist entirely within the now. They are not nostalgic. They do not anticipate. They respond. From this tension emerged the word Nústalgi - the longing to inhabit the present - and with it, the conceptual foundation for the theatre concert NÚSTALGIA.
The work explores this longing of the now through choreography, sound, staging, and collective performance practice. It draws inspiration from insect life and its intimate symbiosis with plant ecosystems, particularly flowers. This ecological framework becomes both metaphor and method. The insect world is fragile yet relentless, chaotic yet deeply organized. It is grotesque and beautiful at the same time. In NÚSTALGIA, these qualities are translated into a physical and theatrical language that oscillates between vulnerability and wildness, structure and collapse.
In NÚSTALGIA, this shared language takes the form of a theatre concert that deliberately challenges formal expectations associated with both dance performances and live music concerts. The dancers do not accompany the music; nor does the music merely support choreography. Instead, the two forms inhabit and destabilize one another. The work seeks to dismantle rigid genre boundaries and create an immersive experience in which choreography, composition, scenography, costumes, and performative presence are inseparable.
NÚSTALGIA
CONCEPT
NÚSTALGIA
CREATIVE PROCESS AND PERFORMANCES
Nústalgia is scheduled to premiere at Norðurlandahúsið on November 26th 2026, where the staging will transform multiple spaces within the building and guide audiences from room to room, dissolving their sense of linear time and fixed perspective. Prior to the premiere, we will do a residency and a work-in-progress showing as part of Gothenburg Fringe through the EFFEA program from August 30th through September 6th, where we will try out ideas and test formats and elements of spatial strategy in dialogue with the architecture, resources, and atmosphere of the performance site. The intention is to investigate how the piece can exist in technically simpler or alternative conditions without losing its artistic core - where the connection between artists as well as the audience is at the forefront. After the premiere we will do a site-adjusted version of Nústalgia for Bydans festival, which will take place at Jillat - Sámi Dance Center from December 6th-14th 2026.
Central to RIVA’s contribution is the development of choreographic material and physical dramaturgy rooted in collective responsiveness. Inspired by swarm intelligence and instinct-driven behavior, the dancers work with shifting formations, micro-attentions, and sudden ruptures. Movement material emerges from research into insect behavior - repetition, vibration, clustering, dispersal - and is translated into a human scale that retains both alienation and recognition. The performers navigate between individual agency and collective organism, constantly negotiating presence and disappearance. This dynamic reflects the core tension of the work: the desire to surrender to the immediacy of experience while being shaped by external forces.
The theatre concert is designed to allow the present moment to assert itself and to remain open to the unpredictable. We are interested in what happens when structure meets interruption, when carefully composed sequences are exposed to unexpected shifts in energy, sound, or spatial relation. The work invites the audience into the world of Nústalgia not as passive observers but as participants within a living ecosystem. Their proximity, movement, and attention influence the atmosphere of the performance. We aim to create an experience that is playful, unsettling, tender, absurd, and emotionally immediate - one that dares to move boundaries between performer and spectator, control and chaos.
For RIVA, NÚSTALGIA represents an important step in the ongoing development of contemporary dance in the Faroe Islands. As the first and only contemporary dance company in the country, RIVA operates within a small and geographically isolated cultural context. The Faroese performing arts field is still in a formative phase, and interdisciplinary experimentation is essential for its growth. By merging choreography with experimental music and theatrical composition, the project contributes to expanding the language and possibilities of Faroese stage art. It challenges conservative or nostalgic perceptions often attached to Faroese culture by presenting progressive and self-reflective artistic voices and bodies that engage with questions of identity, autonomy, and change.
The collaboration also responds to a broader artistic necessity. Working within a peripheral context requires constant negotiation between local specificity and global dialogue. Through NÚSTALGIA, RIVA and AGGRASOPPAR position their work within an international conversation about innovation, diversity, and cultural exchange. Both groups have established growing Nordic and international networks, and there has already been expressed interest in presenting the work in international festival contexts. Developing a format that is flexible and tourable is therefore central to the process. The piece is conceived with adaptability in mind, allowing it to scale and transform according to different venues and technical conditions while maintaining its core conceptual strength.
Gothenburg Fringe and Bydans festival are two confirmed Nordic partners that will be presenting site-adjusted versions of Nústalgia during 2026 (note that these performances are financially independent and not part of the applied project). Both collaborations' focus on exchange and process aligns closely with our methodology. The residency format of the work-in-progress showing at Gothenburg Fringe provides space for reflection, dialogue, and feedback from Nordic colleagues, which is crucial in refining the piece before its premiere. Through Gothenburg Fringe we are able to place the work in a more global context. And through Bydans, it situates Faroese contemporary performance within a broader Sámi and Nordic context, opening a dialogue between different peripheral cultural landscapes. These encounters enrich the artistic process and reinforce the importance of sustaining vibrant contemporary art practices in regions often defined from the outside by tradition alone.
NÚSTALGIA
CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION
PREVIOUS PROJECTS
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