The organizing committee for Iceland’s 100th anniversary of sovereignty announced funding yesterday for over 100 projects to mark the centennial next year, RÚV reports. The projects will take place throughout 2018 all around the country.
The projects which have received funding are varied, ranging from organized sovereignty debates held in hot tubs to a new Icelandic opera by Daníel Bjarnason.
“These projects are very diverse. There are many new ones that contain determined innovation and they have very good geographic distribution. We have diverse projects around the whole country. We expect them to begin in January and last throughout December and it is still possible to add more projects to the agenda,” stated Ragnheiður Jóna Ingimarsdóttir, director of the funding committee for the anniversary celebrations.
The Icelandic Opera received an ISK 3 million grant (USD 28,000/EUR 24,000) to produce the new Icelandic opera “Brothers” as part of the celebrations. The opera, by Daníel Bjarnason, will be performed mostly by Icelandic artists, although three solo roles will be sung by guest artists.
Another grant recipient is production company Sagafilm, which has received funding to produce a 10-episode TV series. Each episode will be 10 minutes long and will focus on significant events occurring around 1918, when Iceland declared its sovereignty from Denmark.
The aforementioned hot tub debates will be held at the public pool in Akureyri, North Iceland. Almar Alfreðsson, the town’s Project Manager for Cultural Affairs, says “it will be a sort of forum in the swimming pool. There could be for example hot debates in the hot tub and from there people will get sent to the cold tub if the discussion gets too heated.”
