A YEAR WITHOUT SUMMER
PREMIERE
JANUARY 31st 2025
A gang of bohemic poets kill time by Lake Geneva as they wait for an unusual summer storm to pass. Entertaining each other with horror games and tales, the five friends find themselves haunted by something other than mere fiction.
A Year Without a Summer is a devised work of visual choreography for the big stage, a haunting performance about the summer of 1816 and the Gothic fiction of Frankenstein and The Vampire, authored that season. Through this lens, we look at how we are haunted by our past, especially now in the form of climate change. Disrupted weather is never made in the present but a result of actions in the past. These things are connected by a Mount Tambora erupting in Southeast Asia in 1815 that indirectly motivated the creation of the novels because of the climate crisis it created in Europe the following year
The Icelandic based Marble Crowd collective is back with a contemporary gothic spectacle. In this ultimate performance of the collective´s landscape trilogy, the weather and the supernatural are both material and method.
The work premiered at Reykjavík City Theatre, January 31st 2025.
CREDITS
Concept | Creation | Performance: Marble Crowd (Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, Kristinn Guðmundsson, Sigurður Arent Jónsson, Saga Kjerulf S.dóttir, Védís Kjartansdóttir)
Scenography & Costumes: Guðný Hrund Sigurðardóttir
Music: Gunnar Karel Másson
Dramaturgy: Igor Dobričić
Assistant Director: Birnir Jón Sigurðsson
Light Designer: Ólafur Ágúst Stefánsson
Production Manager: Kara Hergils (MurMur Productions)
Theater prosthetics: Tinna Ingimarsdóttir og Cathrine Cóté
Scenography assistance: Sean Patrick O’Brien
Costume assistance: Elma Guðmundsdóttir, Hulda Kristín Hauksdóttir og Kristrún Rut Antonsdóttir
Hair and Make up: Sara Friðgeirsdóttir
Poster Photography: Sunna Ben
Graphic Design: Rakel Tómasdóttir
Stage Photography: Owen Fiene
Video: Björgvin Sigurðsson
The text in the work is by Marble Crowd aside from the poem, Darkness, by Lord Byron.
Supported by: Reykjavík City Theater, Rosendal Teater, Reykjavík Dance Festival, MASQ and Iceland University of the Arts.
Funded by: Iceland Performing Arts Fund, Iceland Artist's Salary Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Nordisk Kulturfond and Reykjavik Municipality.