Exploring the Potential of Cross Arts Collaboration
Location: Nordic House, Sæmundargata 11

More and more artists work across the arts and interdisciplinary emphases in arts education are becoming increasingly important. Artists call for collaboration as sticking to the excellence of their own discipline does not always answer the artist's need for innovation.

Cross-arts happens in an unpredictable way, from the need for collaboration and curiosity about what others do. Shifting our focus away from our skills, to our capacity to be creative within a new territory, can challenge our experience of making art. But what kind of skills are relevant for facilitating student work within a cross-art setting? How can we implement cross arts in the curriculum? How do we teach if we are not teaching field-specific skills? What kind of experience in our own art making is valuable to students who are crossing artistic borders in art and don't wish to be guided in their own discipline?

PROGRAMME

09.00 - 09.30 Registration and coffee

09.30 - 12.30 SEMINAR I

9.30 - 9.45 Music: Songs from Dyndilyndi by Megas (Magnús Þór Jónsson)María Sól Ingólfsdóttir, voice, Sólrún Ylfa Ingmarsdóttir, violin, Agnes Eyja Gunnarsdóttir, violin, Steina Kristín Ingólfsdóttir, viola, Soffía Jónsdóttir, cello. 

9.45 - 10.00 Welcome by Tryggvi M. Baldvinsson, Dean of Department of Music and Fríða Björk Ingvarsdóttir, Rector of IUA.

10.00 - 10.45 Keynote I: Wilhelm Carlsson, Professor, UniArts Operahögskolan Stockholm / Q&A

Wilhelm Carlsson's key note speech will dig into the phenomena of "cross-arts", a word that doesn't describe any genre and that even barely can be understood through examples. Carlsson will be elaborating on how disciplinary skills can isolate us and narrow our creative minds; what efforts have been done among artists to meet and create new together and what possibly could drive them to do so. Further his speech will move into the challenges that higher education will have to meet when embracing the possibility of gathering students together in a context beyond art disciplines.

10.45 - 11.00 Coffee

11.00 - 11.30 Students' voices

11.30 - 12.30 Breakout groups discussion and sharing from groups

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

13.30 - 14.45 SEMINAR II

13.30 - 14.15 Keynote II: Saga Sigurðardóttir, dancer and performing artist

When it comes to crossing into foreign territories, I like to speak about adventure and the deliberate fool. I would like to offer a sceneario: A group of specialists/authors/fools have an encounter with the unknown.

This draws forth a set of questions: How do we cope with not knowing? Are we prepared for not foreseeing a result, while being willing to act in order to approach it? How do we approach a shared ambition without giving in to a single compromise? Is there space for individuality on a common journey?

I will speak from my experiences of collective and cross-disciplinary work, touching on a few themes and thoughts including the practical and political means of playfulness, friction, fiction, the amateur´s bliss, double dutch, and Japanese gardens.
Saga Sigurðardóttir

14.15 - 14.45 Students Experience: Sharing from Open express courses at IUA and NAIP cross arts intensive course

14.45 - 15.00 Coffee break

15.00 - 16.30 Breakout groups discussions. Sharing from groups and thematic day closing

20.00 Dinner at Aalto Bistro @Nordic House Location: Sæmundargata 11, 101 Reykjavík