Is He On The Line…?
By Jez Dolan & Ingibjörg Yr Skarphéthinsdóttir
Where: Kardomah 94, Hull, HU1 2AN
When: Thursday 28th March, 8pm.
Tickets: Free (booking required)
“What struck me the most about the landscape is the time periods which you see everywhere. From the shortest, most minuscule time to the vast ages which are impossible to sense in any other way than from eternity to eternity.”
Is He On The Line…? is a new music theatre piece created by British visual artist Jez Dolan and Icelandic composer Ingibjörg Yr Skarphéthinsdóttir, commissioned in Iceland by Einkofi and premiered here in Hull.
Is He On The Line…? takes us on a journey that explores the suppression of sexuality, concealment, hidden secrets, the avoidance of language, and the importance of ‘what we don’t say’. Is He On The Line…? asks what it means to be a people without a history.
Four male voice singers work with original and verbatim English and Icelandic texts set against a projected environment created live using four overhead projectors, using low-tech equipment combining drawing and light, playing with colour and form and generating theatrical images in direct response to the live music.
About Jez Dolan
Jez Dolan’s practice explores queerness and identity through the codification of language with a specific focus on: the things we don’t say / things that remain unsaid / secrecy and hiddenness, whilst utilising text and language as both form and content, visual presence and mode of communication.
Jez Dolan’s practice is interdisciplinary, project-based and research-driven. He employs a range of media according to the specific needs, demands and context of each project. Working with printmaking, drawing, performance, installation and curating, often creating new works from an exploration of archival materials and sources, through which we recall and revisit individual and shared memories and histories.
He is interested in researching queer identity; histories, heritage and personal archives, and how we place these, and ourselves in the wider world. Events and experiences always leave behind them a trace, or residual mark of their occurrence, and it is these traces, marks and events which Jez is interested in exploring, expressing these ideas through a process which is performative, collaborative, and celebrates the physical act of making.
About Ingibjörg Yr Skarphéthinsdóttir
Ingibjörg Yr Skarphéthinsdóttir studied composition at the Iceland Academy of the Arts with Hróðmar I. Sigurbjörnsson. She graduated in 2016 and did an internship with Anna Porvaldsdóttir in the UK the following winter.
Ingibjörg has worked with various theatre groups, dancers, chamber ensembles and filmmakers. She has received support from the Rúv composers fund and the Icelandic Centre for Research’s music recording fund.
Currently she is taking part in the Yrkja project with Iceland’s Symphony Orchestra, the Iceland Music Information Centre and Anna Porvaldsdóttir.
Supported at Heads Up Festival by the University of Hull and Curated Place.