Kvísl

Straumur brings together four emerging choreographers whose works invite audiences into different worlds of contemporary dance. Selected from 120 applications received through an open call, these artists represent four distinctive choreographic voices.

Though diverse in form and approach, the works share a curiosity about the human condition, each exploring it from a different angle and through its own unique artistic lens.

Together, they create a rich and varied evening of contemporary dance: four worlds, four movement languages, four perspectives. Straumur is an invitation to experience the diversity of contemporary dance and to encounter the unexpected along the way.

Us Moving On

Us Moving On by Hiroki Ichinose

Throughout his life, Hiroki Ichinose has moved repeatedly between cities, countries, and continents. With each move comes more than the practical act of packing belongings; memories, relationships, and an ever-evolving sense of self travel along as well.  

Us Moving On grows out of this personal experience, reflecting on what we choose to carry with us, what remains behind, and what we struggle to release. The work explores transition not as a passage between places, but as an enduring human condition, where endings make way for new beginnings, grief reveals the depth of our connections, and former versions of ourselves continue to guide the paths we take.

Hiroki Ichinose is a Japanese-American choreographer and dancer from Hawai‘i. His work has been presented internationally, including in Sweden, Italy, and Japan, spanning stage productions, film, and collaborations with musicians. Recent projects include the dance works RED and Lay Him Quietly, as well as the music video Hold Me, which he created in collaboration with Ane Brun.

Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2016, Ichinose has worked throughout his career with numerous acclaimed international choreographers and dance companies. He spent several years performing with Göteborgs Operans Danskompani and danced with Iceland Dance Company in The Garden last season. He received the Icelandic Performing Arts Award (Gríman) for Dancer of the Year for his performance in The Garden.

Blue Wall by Leevi Mettinen is a dance work that explores fear and the many forms it can take.

Rejecting linear narrative and conventional logic, the work draws inspiration from paintings that explore the boundary between pain and pleasure. It also draws attention to individualistic perceptions of the human body and the complex relationship between welfare and warfare. Within this landscape, two dancers attempt to give fear a physical form and communicate how it can appear and be experienced.

The work and its internal logic also seek to illuminate and question the rationality of fear and its objects. Both concrete and abstract fears are real phenomena, and Blue Wall is an ode to them.

Leevi Mettinen is a Finnish choreographer and dance artist based in Reykjavík. He graduated with a BA in Contemporary Dance from the Iceland University of the Arts in 2025 and was selected to participate in the prestigious danceWEB programme at ImPulsTanz under the mentorship of Isabel Lewis.

In his artistic practice, Leevi often works at the intersection of movement, visual art, and social ideas. Alongside his own creative work, he co-runs the grassroots performance and live art festival Komum út í mínus together with his collaborators Bertine and Marta.

[Titill Söruh]

Sarah Aviaja Hammeken  

Drawing inspiration from Greenlandic Inuit myths, the work explores the fragile relationship between humanity, compassion, and our connection to the world around us.

In Inuit culture, myths are more than simple stories; they are guides for living. Passed down through generations, they carry teachings about respect for nature, responsibility towards others, and an awareness of the consequences of our actions. The work draws inspiration from these myths, which are often strange, unsettling, and uncompromising in their imagery, revealing the darker sides of human behaviour.

Through movement, these ancient narratives are transformed into a contemporary reflection on the world we live in today. In a time that can feel increasingly divided and unforgiving, the work asks what happens when we lose our capacity for empathy and care. What becomes of us when we forget the values that once connected us to one another, to nature, and to ourselves?

Sarah Aviaja Hammeken is a Greenlandic-Danish choreographer and the founder of AVIAJA Dance. Her work often emerges from an ongoing dialogue between the body, society, and her Inuit cultural heritage.

In recent years, she has gained international recognition for works such as SILA, SOIL, Speech/less, and WHITEOUT. Her work has been presented across the Nordic region, including at ICEHOT in Oslo, and in 2024 she was selected for the Danish Arts Foundation’s Young Artistic Elite programme. Her latest work, WHITEOUT, premiered at Dansehallerne in Copenhagen in February 2025 before touring to Nuuk, Tórshavn, and Tromsø.

The Tremor Watch by Sóley Ólafsdóttir

Mutation is unavoidable, the buzz is endless.

Is transforming into the buzz of one’s own mind an act of destruction, or a natural adaptation in a world on the brink? The skull hardens into rock-solid steel in an attempt at self-preservation. Humanity lives upon shifting tectonic plates. Movements oscillate between hyper-control and loss of control; the body trembles and becomes the parasite in the mind that cannot be stopped or controlled.

Thoughts collide within the overstimulated mind, building pressure until something must finally be released.  

At The Tremor Watch, the buzzing is permanent. My head melts into yours in a silence that ends far too soon.

The Tremor Watch explores the buzz of the mind, overstimulation, and the nervous system as a choreographic landscape. The work moves between control and surrender, as body and thought search for ways to release tension and find connection.

Sóley Ólafsdóttir is a dance artist and choreographer with a BA in Contemporary Dance from the Iceland University of the Arts. Since graduating, she has created her own works, choreographed for groups, and collaborated with a diverse range of artists across the performing arts. In her work, she explores themes such as patterns of thought, the nervous system, and the relationship between the body and its environment.

She has performed in works by Noora Hannula, Felix Urbina Alejandre, María Ellingsen, and Rósa Ómarsdóttir, among others. Alongside her own artistic practice, she collaborates with Leevi Mettinen under the name BunnyVerse Company, creating dance performances for children.

In 2025, she was awarded the prestigious danceWEB Scholarship at ImPulsTanz, where she worked under the mentorship of Raja Feather Kelly.