Glíma è lo stile tradizionale nazionale di lotta in Islanda. La più antica competizione islandese di glima è la Skjaldarglíma Ármann che si tenne nel 1888 e che fu disputata quasi ogni anno da lì in poi.^[1] Nel 1905 venne introdotto l’uso della cintura di modo che i lottatori possano avere una maggior presa sull’avversario. Nel 1906 avvenne la prima competizione di Íslandsglíman (Grettisbeltið) i cui vincitori sono chiamati Glímukóngur

“Glima – an at least 1100 years old martial art – became the most popular sport during the Viking Age in every social class, also by women. Thor himself was the god of battle and this fight became so important to have a written legal system all by itself. Today Glima is a national sport not for the strongest, but who is faster, acute and strategically ready.

We wanted to use this metaphor to describe the theme of desire, physical and psychological manipulation in human relationships. ”

In the center of the stage are the two actors Erna Omarsdottir and Damir Todorovic. A male and his female opponent face each other in a grueling fight without winners or losers. The male face is entirely hidden by an ominous headgear with long filamentous protrusions which are connected to the women’s blacks gloves: the two are inextricably linked by a swarm of black rope that prevents escape – like a deathtrap. The bodies of the actors, their faces, every movement is captured by a small camera placed on a mechanical object shaped like a spider. Those images are projected on two screens placed at the end of the stage. The stage is organized as follows: at two of the four sides of the square of the performance are the two video artists MASBEDO managing the images on the screens with a video mixer and a joystick that will control the movement of the object “spider” on which the camera is positioned, and on the other sides are the musicians.

The viewer is faced with two dimensions, a more natural and dramatic one as a witness of the primitive and obsessive fight of the two actors and a more “visual” or more related to fiction, through the pictures and details projected on the two screens in the back. The audio is captured in a very neat way to give the viewer the feeling of  every vibration, noise, pull of the skin and each breath of the two actors. The show is about 50 minutes. The music produced live will alternate with moments of more experimental electronic nature, the video will alternate between live shoots of the performing artists, and other pictures following a precise script.