Reporting from the villages of East Iceland and on everything that concerns the region. Updated daily.
The Days of Darkness festival began in Fjarðabyggð over the weekend and runs until Halloween next Saturday. During this time the dark season is met with lights, art and live stories, with fifteen events on the programme in all.
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Menningarstofa Fjarðabyggðar (the Fjarðabyggð Cultural Centre) and the newly founded National Opera have signed a three-year declaration of intent on continued cooperation on opera performances, education and the development of musical activity in East Iceland. This, they say, would increase residents’ access to opera and create more opportunities for musicians in the region.
It is a busy time today, tomorrow and on Sunday at the Music Centre in Eskifjörður, where the staff of Iceland’s new National Opera are preparing their opening event, the work Undir sömu stjörnu, which is to be performed at 3 pm next Sunday. Well over a hundred people are involved in the large-scale production in one way or another.
There has been a lot going on at Norðfjarðarkirkja in recent days and weeks, and that continues tonight with a new event that the parish priest calls God on the Big Screen – the Bible’s stories of influence. The very first film to be watched and discussed is the popular but controversial Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
The band Nýdönsk had the unfortunate experience of taking a car by mistake at Egilsstaðir Airport earlier this month. The band had come east to play a concert in Breiðdalsvík and record songs.
A Polish film festival will be held in Fjarðabyggð this weekend for the sixth time. Rapid change in Polish society is the common thread in the festival’s programme. The festival’s director says the theme is highly relevant to both Icelanders and Poles living in Iceland.
The design and appearance of the Baugur Bjólfs viewing platform above Seyðisfjörður continues to attract great attention far beyond Iceland’s borders. The design has now, for the second time in a short while, made a list of outstanding architecture in a prestigious competition.
Urgent temporary repairs to Safnahúsið in Neskaupstaður, recommended by a building specialist after an inspection some time ago, have already been carried out by Fjarðabyggð. The specialist’s concerns were that the building’s roof has sagged considerably, the exterior walls have been pushed outward and columns had broken down through the floor covering in several places.
In October it is two years since a group of remote workers in Egilsstaðir opened the Setrið workspace. Both bookings and working hours there have risen markedly from year to year, and the past September was the biggest month in Setrið’s history.
It is not every day that we in Borgarfjörður (or the residents of East Iceland generally) get the chance to go to the theatre, let alone in our home area, but last night Leikfélag Fljótsdalshéraðs premiered the farce Blakkát by Björk Jakobsdóttir to a good reception from the audience at Fjarðarborg. Hrafndís Bára Einarsdóttir directs.
One of the most popular and longest-lived bands in Icelandic history, Nýdönsk, is in the Eastfjords these days recording at Stúdíó Síló in Stöðvarfjörður and to play a concert in Breiðdalsvík. The trip east began, however, with a careless breach of the law.
Ásgrímur Ingi Arngrímsson is not only the principal of Brúarásskóli but also a restaurateur and event organiser at the community hall Fjarðarborg in Borgarfjörður eystri. He also has a background in both seafaring and journalism during one of East Iceland’s biggest periods of change. On top of all this, he is the author of popular pop song lyrics.
Four days remain of the so-called BRAS, the cultural festival for children and young people in East Iceland, with all the festival’s organisation this time, unlike before, in the hands of professionals at Múlaþing and Fjarðabyggð. Everything has gone as well as could be wished, according to one of the organisers.
Leikfélag Fljótsdalshéraðs premieres the comedy Blakkát on Friday evening. The play, staged partly to mark the society’s 60th anniversary, will be shown at six places in East Iceland.
Campfire storytimes are a series of events that the Múlaþing library, in cooperation with the Nature School, will hold at all its locations this winter. Two such sessions have already been held and gave great pleasure.
The organisations Barnaheill and Geðhjálp began their joint campaign in East Iceland earlier today, when a team from both organisations, along with the musician Unnsteinn Manúel, spent most of the day with young people in Vopnafjörður. The idea is to sit down with young people there and elsewhere and listen.
To mark Bubbi Morthens’s 70th birthday last summer, the members of the East Iceland band SúEllen have put out a well-known Bubbi song in their own style. The reception has been very good indeed.
The band Shape released its first song in nearly a quarter of a century this week. The band, which was formed at the Eiðar folk school in 1994, reunites at Eyrarrokk in Akureyri tonight for its first concert in seven years.
The 9th-grade students at Reyðarfjörður primary school set off on a rather adventurous walk early tomorrow morning, walking all the way from Karlsskáli in the north to Vattarnes in the south, that is, the whole of Reyðarfjörður. The route is 67 kilometres in total, and the students are doing this to raise money for a good school trip next spring.
Art lovers should certainly enjoy themselves in Seyðisfjörður in the near future, as no fewer than two new art exhibitions will be on offer for those interested over the coming weeks. One is in a brand-new gallery and the other at the cultural centre Skaftfell.