The Garden Blooms In Reykjavík

Italian choreographers Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo reimagine their bold work together with the Iceland Dance Company

Antonio de Rosa and Mattia Russo — choreographers and directors of the Madrid-based arts collective Kor’sia — have been making waves in the European dance scene and far beyond. Originally from Naples, Italy, they each built separate careers before reconnecting in the Spanish capital and founding Kor’sia in 2015. Guided by the belief that nothing can convey the human experience better than the art of movement, they now have a string of successful productions, awards, and collaborations with other companies, theatres, and opera houses around the world behind them. On February 7, their emotionally moving and rigorously physical dance show The Garden premieres on the main stage of Borgarleikhúsið (Reykjavík City Theatre), marking their first collaboration with the Iceland Dance Company.

New bodies, new garden

The Garden began as an original production for VERVE, a young dance collective from Leeds, UK in 2023.

“The stage will be completely covered in grass, but it is the only scenographic element. The rest is just the bodies of the dancers.”

“We were quite busy in the period that Lovísa, the director [Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir, Artistic Director of the Iceland Dance Company], told us that she wanted to start some sort of collaboration,” says Antonio, sitting next to Mattia, as we talk through a blurry video call. Busy indeed — I catch a few minutes with the choreographers between rehearsals somewhere in France. “So we decided to take a piece already made but to remake it in a way.”

“We give it another life with different dancers,” Mattia chimes in. “It’s also about finding a way to take something that already exists but bring a new life into it.”

In the project, Antonio and Mattia serve as choreographers, while the show comes to life through 12 dancers from the Iceland Dance Company, including Andrean Sigurgeirsson, Elín Signý W. Ragnarsdóttir and Shota Inoue among others.

“It’s a completely new version, with more people,” Antonio explains. “When you start to retake an old piece and put it on stage, you have completely different bodies, different personalities. This is not a restage, we really renew the piece completely. We can say that it’s a new piece from the Iceland Dance Company. We really work with them.”

The stage grows green

Working from the same starting point — the garden as a symbol, “a place of perception, where you can mix sensation, emotion, and dialogue,” the choreographers created a new immersive 40-minute work.

“In this case, all the dance material, the movement, are completely new, because we really create on their body, their personalities,” Antonio explains. “It was a sort of collaboration with dancers.”

The garden will emerge on the Reykjavík City Theatre’s stage not just as an abstract symbol, but as a tangible element of the stage design — the stage will be covered in grass, which the choreographers say is meant “to give a sensation of infinity garden.”

“We really take care of every detail of the choreography. It’s a sort of plastic and visual — visual poetry, in a way.”

“The stage will be completely covered in grass, but it is the only scenographic element,” says Mattia. “The rest is just the bodies of the dancers.” Antonio adds that the lighting will also help to create an atmosphere, but otherwise, the scenography is limited to that.

The minimalist approach extends to what the dancers wear — sleeveless maroon jerseys with numbers on the back and retro-style track shorts, similar to any sports uniform. Antonio nods, “It’s a sort of team. That’s also a part of the concept of the piece — as a community, as a team, we work together, we’re going in one direction together.” He adds, “I love this piece because it’s a group piece with 12 people, but we have time to see all of them because we construct the piece in a form that you can really see…”

Mattia jumps in to finish the sentence, “Individuality of them.”

Antonio agrees, “Individuality of the people in this community, in this group. This is the interesting thing about this choreography.”

While dance is the show’s only medium, individual stories blur together into something collective. Pondering themes of connection, closenesses, and vulnerability, love and memory, The Garden becomes “a landscape of perception.”

“It’s not just a dance,” says Antonio. “It’s a balance of more things. We really take care of every detail of the choreography. It’s a sort of plastic and visual — visual poetry, in a way.”

A collage of influences

Symbolically, gardens are often used in popular culture and literature to represent abundance and growth. Speaking about the inspiration for this particular “garden,” the choreographers agree it was a combination of things.

“We travel a lot and when we started to think about this garden, this idea of a garden, we thought about all the art and gardens that we usually see in different parts of the world,” Antonio says. “It was a sort of collage, in a way, to put this together. We are also [often] in Asia, we travel a lot in China, Japan with tours, so there are many, many different kinds of gardens. Every part of this show, every scene, is something that came from things that we saw, or we just lived.”

“Informally, we get inspired a lot by the society we are in, by the art, the photography. We pay a lot of attention to what we have around political things,” concurs Mattia. “When we are in a creative process — for example, now we’re starting another creative process — we are really aware of all the information that can be an inspiration for the work.”

Choreographers Mattia Russo and Antonio de Rosa

The Garden was developed in stages, with the last one taking place during the week leading up to the premiere. First, assistant choreographer Matteo Marfoglia came for two weeks to work with the dancers on the sections they wanted to keep. Later, Antonio and Mattia visited to finesse the structure and “stretch the piece a bit” which resulted in its complete reimagining.

Despite the cultural and geographical distance between Spain and Iceland, Antonio and Mattia found the people in Iceland “warm and welcoming.”

“We enjoyed it a lot,” Mattia says. “It’s so different — everything: the landscape, the temperature, and, of course, the light. But it was really, really nice, and, of course, we also have a really nice friend in the company Emilía [​​Benedikta Gísladóttir], who worked with us in the National Dance Company of Spain. So, for us to come there and have Emilía in the company, it was like having a person that you already know.”

“It was really, really special,” adds Antonio.

As the choreographers are getting ready to return to Reykjavík for final preparations before the premiere, the Iceland Dance Company is already looking beyond the opening night — with plans to take The Garden on an international tour.

The Garden premieres on the main stage of the Reykjavík City Theatre on February 7, as a double bill with a dance film Birds of Paradise by Reykjavík-based photographer, visual artist, and speculative designer Vikram Pradhan. Additional shows are scheduled on February 15 & 20. Ticket information is available here.