Festivals as Flings (Approx 70 minutes to read)

 Brogan Davison, co-artist Pétur Ármannsson

An intimate text about relationships. 

This text is proposed as a flirtatious reflection on the state of festivals as cultural institutions in Iceland. 

Soft guidelines: 

To be read or listened to alone or with others.

This text takes about 70 minutes to read or listen to.

Feel free to get comfortable while engaging with this text, read it on a sofa, later on at home, on a walk or in the bath with headphones. 

This text is a work-in-progress. I am very open to any feedback, suggestions or thoughts. 

Feel free to chat with me at the Arctic Arts Summit, leave me a note on a First Date post-it note, or by sending me a line at brogan@lhi.is. 

Chapters

1.  Festivals as Flings - Page 4

2.  Introduction - Page 5

3.  Long-term relationships (LTR) - Page 10

4.  Women’s Strike 2025 - Page 16

5.  Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) - Page 20

6.  Public statement from 2023 - Page 28

7.  A Fling - Page 30

8.  Labour of Love - Page 34

1. Festivals and Flings

If state- and city-run theatres can be understood as long-term relationships, this text asks whether dance festivals might be likened to short but intense affairs.

The text examines the relationship between long-term institutional commitments and short-term artistic intensity through the metaphor of enduring relationships and fleeting encounters. It positions state- and city-run theatres as stable structures grounded in continuity, responsibility, and cultural permanence, while framing dance festivals as ephemeral, flexible, and responsive formations. 

The project explores how these differing temporalities shape artistic production, audience engagement, and perceptions of institutional value. Like a “fling”, the festival format privileges immediacy, affect, and embodied experience, often embracing risk, novelty, and informality. At the same time, as in any ethical relationship, even fleeting encounters require intentionality, clear communication, responsibility, and an awareness of power dynamics.

Engaging queer relational frameworks and alternative modes of commitment, the research interrogates how power, status, and cultural legitimacy are unevenly distributed between permanent and temporary forms. In doing so, it proposes a rethinking of artistic infrastructures beyond binary oppositions of stability and transience, highlighting the productive potential of both enduring and fleeting cultural encounters. 

2. Introduction

Born in South England in the late eighties, I was the first child of aspirational working-class parents under late Thatcherism. By the time I was born, the Thatcher administration had spent much of the previous decade reshaping Britain's cultural landscape, increasingly encouraging cultural institutions to prioritise commercial viability over artistic experimentation through initiatives such as tying public grants to audience popularity.

As was common at the time, both my parents left education at the age of sixteen to join the workforce. My mother worked in a travel agency and my father worked as a car valet in a modest garage, which he owns today. I suspect my father had interests, or even unfulfilled dreams, of working in the performing arts, as my parents signed me, my brother and sister up to acting, dancing and singing classes from an early age.

Growing up, like many working-class families of the time, most of the access I had to theatre or dance was commercial. We would see yearly musicals in the West End, watch Cats on VHS and follow reality television shows such as Popstars and Pop Idol. My dad's philosophy about working in the performing arts industry was that you “had to be out there”, and he would often tell my brother to go busking with his guitar in case a talent agent like Simon Cowell happened to walk past and give him his big break.

At the age of eighteen, I received a full scholarship to study Musical Theatre in London. Looking back, there seemed to be a culture in that school that almost fetishised competition. Teachers would casually share stories of being tripped over by their best friend in an audition, hoping to improve their own chances. We were repeatedly told that our chances of making it were slim, that we would more likely end up stacking shelves in Tesco than performing onstage. Yet, with a Thatcher-like rhetoric, hard work was presented as the only way we even stood a chance.

I focused on dance during my musical theatre training and thought that, if I did not secure a leading role, I could always become a backing dancer. Many of the narratives in the shows we staged centred on women dreaming of a better life. These characters were often not taken seriously, struggled financially and lacked agency. Whilst I loved—and still love—many of the stories and songs from the genre, the representational world felt limited to me. Dancing with the intention of being angry and sexy at the same time became a claustrophobic performative space to move within. What other dimensions were there for a dancer? I wondered whether three-dimensionality could be more than ass, tits with a sprinkle of je ne sais quoi.

After being told that my height would be an issue and that the chorus line would not even be an option for me, I quit. I tried to find myself in Thailand with my ex-boyfriend Dave, but failed. Without really knowing what it would lead to, I enrolled in a full-time contemporary dance programme at a school called Laban, knowing that if it all went wrong, I could always teach as a back-up. It was during my university years that I started to encounter the weirder, more experimental work. I was conservatively sceptical at first, like a teenager who does not yet sit comfortably within themselves and dismisses anything unfamiliar as lame, strange or—as was commonly said in the noughties—a bit gay.

When I graduated, I visited my Icelandic classmate and, by chance, met Pétur Ármannsson, with whom I have now worked for over fifteen years. Pétur is my artistic partner, romantic partner and co-parent of two girls, a dog, a cat and a dance festival. Our first work for the stage was a dance duet between me and his father, Ármann, who had nurtured a fifteen-year dream of dancing contemporary dance onstage. The work launched us into the international festival circuit and, by living rent-free on the outskirts of Reykjavík in Pétur's grandparents' house, we were able to sustain ourselves as independent performance makers for over a decade, creating and touring work.

It was almost always within festivals—or venues where curators were able to take artistic risks on works that might not otherwise be profitable—that we encountered something else, something alternative or, if we were lucky, something existentially remarkable. Looking back, many of the artistic encounters that transformed my understanding of performance occurred not in commercial contexts but within festivals and other spaces protected from immediate market demands. It was through festivals, both in Iceland and abroad, that I first experienced forms of theatre and dance beyond the classical and commercial canon and where I underwent much of my artistic—and therefore personal—growth.

It was also within festival contexts that I encountered new modalities, ways of being and ways of relating: expanded choreography, conceptual choreography, social choreography, participatory theatre, devised theatre, disabled theatre, performance art, body art, documentary theatre, durational theatre, one-to-one theatre, non-human theatre, activist theatre, applied theatre, lecture performance, amateur theatre, interdisciplinary arts and works that sought to inhabit spaces for which we are yet to find a name.

A month after the Covid-19 pandemic reached Iceland, we had our first child. When she was six months old, we decided—or perhaps it was decided for us—that we needed to stay put and become less nomadic. We left behind life as independent artists and redirected our artistic practice by becoming joint Artistic Directors of Reykjavík Dance Festival in 2021. That same year, I began working at the Iceland University of the Arts, where I received a professorship in 2026.

Over the past twenty-three years, the festival has established itself as a leading platform within both the Icelandic and international dance and performance landscape. Yet it continues to operate on year-to-year funding from the Icelandic government, creating precarious working conditions. Funding from the city is more stable, based on three-year agreements, but was unfortunately reduced last year, placing further pressure on operations alongside soaring inflation in Iceland. Counter to Thatcher's vision, a festival that wishes to remain artistically progressive cannot be assessed solely through the commercial metrics of her era, nor can it depend entirely on ticket sales or private funding.

The sister festival of RDF, Lókal, ceased operations as an international performing arts festival in 2024 after years of public funding neglect. The loss was felt across the field by artists, audiences and cultural workers alike—artistically, socially, professionally and existentially. While the full impact of such a loss cannot be measured, it directly affects the diversity and quality of the performing arts ecosystem by reducing both the range of work available to audiences and the opportunities available to artists and cultural workers. Today, Lókal operates as a residency space on the periphery of Iceland, producing, mentoring and supporting artists.

This November, we will present the sixth edition of Reykjavík Dance Festival. These experiences—as an artist, curator, educator and festival director—have shaped my understanding of what festivals do and why they matter.

This paper examines the state of festivals as cultural institutions in Iceland and how their cultural value is often misunderstood, underappreciated or even ignored by those on which they depend. Using queer relational frameworks and alternative modes of commitment, the paper examines what makes festivals important, unique and essential to diverse cultural landscapes. 

Interrogating the relationship between cultural organisations and the funding bodies they rely on, the paper draws on queer relationship configurations, including consensual non-monogamy, to explore whether festivals might be understood not as lesser versions of permanent institutions, but as different forms of cultural commitment altogether. It asks whether alternative models of institutional relationship-building can be developed that are grounded in transparency, respect, and even love.

3. Long-term relationships (LTR)

“The moment two people become a couple, they begin to deal with boundaries: what is in and what is out.” — Esther Perel in her book Mating in Captivity. 

Within Western ideals of romantic relationships, we choose who we want to commit to, who we do not, and to what extent. Displays of commitment can be ceremonial, financial or legal. Commitment can be shown in ways ranging from gifts to the sharing of responsibilities of children or pets. Support can also be shown emotionally, spiritually, as well as practically or in ways that are personal between people, based on certain needs being met. 

As a married woman of over ten years in a heterosexual relationship, I have experienced the many aspects of security and privilege that an LTR, or a legal binding marriage, can provide. As a non-native of Iceland, my marriage has allowed me access to student loans, which in turn meant I was able to take my master degree which ultimately led to me getting my ten year contract in a University. My marriage has allowed me to become a joint home owner, something I would unlikely achieve alone, benefit from joint tax reductions and speed up the process of applying for citizenship. 

Aside from the practical or legal benefits, I am ashamed to admit I have often felt a sense of legitimacy as an immigrant, being married to a native. It is also through my LTR, and especially marriage, I have experienced an increased sense of access to emotional and even financial support from my in-laws, in a way I have at times felt like a lucky adopted child. I have never had to explain my choices to others, experience judgment, or be the subject of gossip about my relationship in the way that can accompany non-normative relationship structures.

I am lucky to say that my marriage has been based on one of love, respect, mutual growth and support and, at least for the most part, healthy communication, to the best of our abilities at least in each given moment, however the pressure of meeting each other's needs has got increasingly challenging over the years with the increasing demands of life. 

As parents of two young girls, a cat, a dog and a dance festival, - marriage has often felt like running a small business. The goal of the operations is to simultaneously work full time, or more, while growing, birthing and raising the future workforce, for many decades. Unlike previous generations, our children must not only survive but also thrive in an increasingly hostile environment based on neo-liberal values and individualism with a healthy sense of self worth. Performing these diverse tasks without grandparents within the radius of 400 km has made me understand the phrase “it takes a village” in a way I did not understand before. 

Esther Perel critiques that modern romantic partners are often expected to fulfil an extraordinary, or perhaps unrealistic, number of needs—far more than partners were historically expected to provide. They are expected to be a lover, a best friend, an emotional confidant, a co-parent, a financial partner, a source of comfort and security, a source of excitement, novelty, and adventure, and a supporter of personal growth and self-discovery. Can one person really meet all of another person’s diverse needs, desires and preferences? Extending this framework to institutions, can a national theatre meet the needs of an entire nation, or a city theatre those of an entire city?

The National Theatre of Iceland opened its doors in 1950. It is an ensemble theatre with around 25 actors employed on a permanent basis. The theatre runs its own production departments that manufacture sets, costumes, and wigs, as well as sound and lighting departments. The state typically funds around 65% of its total operational expenses and is legally obliged to support the institution as one of its agencies. 

If the National Theatre of Iceland and the state were two people in a relationship, it could be said that they are in a long-term relationship, perhaps even a marriage. In this context, institutional naming practices become significant: while it is not a tradition in Iceland, the practice of a woman taking her husband’s surname in marriage remains common in the UK. Similarly, cultural institutions often carry the name of the state or city to which they belong, signalling status, authority, and cultural legitimacy. To be the national theatre is therefore also to embody a claim about national identity itself. 

Perhaps the claim to be “the one and only” is already implied in the title itself. While the NTI strives to serve diverse audiences, can we realistically expect a single institution to meet the needs, desires and tastes of an entire nation, with its many subcultures, communities, age groups, classes and geographies? Can one theatre be classical yet also contemporary, traditional yet also avant-garde, locally focused but also internationally connected? Can a theatre be commercial and punk, conservative and progressive, formal and informal? And would we ever expect a single restaurant, led by a single head chef, to satisfy the culinary needs of an entire nation? And what happens when funding systems are designed as though a single institution can?

In romantic relationships, Perel describes how we expect unconditional love from our primary partners, regardless of actions. “This primary tendency. I shall be loved always, everywhere, in every way, my whole body, my whole being, without any criticism, without the slightest effort on my part. Is the final aim of all erotic striving”. National theatres are often criticised when they fail to represent the diverse communities or needs that exist within a nation. Yet in a small cultural sector such as Iceland's, critiquing state- or city-run theatres—or the funding bodies on which they depend—can carry the risk of professional or social ostracisation. When cultural relationships are structured hierarchically and dependency is built into the system, they can encourage co-dependency, complacency, and a fear of speaking out against those in positions of power.

Being in a cultural organisation in a long-term relationship—or “marriage”—with the state or city, whether through long-term funding structures, institutional partnerships, or sustained commitments, can provide a level of security that smaller or independent cultural organisations often do not have access to. This security may take the form of a permanent home, a degree of institutional continuity, or a shared sense of purpose and future orientation.

While some long-term relationships are a choice, others are not. Our relationships with our parents also fall into the category of LTRs. The parent–child relationship is fundamentally a lifelong bond, yet the infant does not have a choice over who their caregiver is. The bond formed early in life between infant and caregiver can act as a blueprint for later relationships. In order to survive, we must bond with our caretakers, and this bond can shape the way we think, feel and experience the world. Unlike other connections that may begin and end, this relationship spans an entire lifetime.

Attachment theory is a psychological framework that is often used in discussions around relational patterns and, in some contexts, non-monogamous relationships. In her book Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy, Jessica Fern describes how caregivers play a fundamental role in shaping attachment styles, and how early relational responses form patterns from which individuals then explore the world. In this model, attachment styles are often described as secure, anxious, avoidant or disorganised.

Rather than seeing attachment theory as a direct model for institutions, I find myself wondering whether it might function as a metaphorical lens through which to think about relationships of dependency. Due to the fact that art festivals are unable to survive without public funding, I question whether they truly have agency in choosing their “caregivers,” or whether leaving such relationships would result in their own dissolution. In this dynamic, the relationship between a festival and the state or city might be understood as asymmetrical, and at times even paternal. 

Whilst it is not seen as suitable for a parent to have primary and secondary children, to show more love to one child than another, is common Polyamorous relationship structures there are many hierarchical and non- hierarchical configurations that people can exist within. You can have a primary and secondary partner, be in a vee or triad, or practice Polyfidelity, as part of a closed polyamorous group where all members are considered equal partners. 

In practises of consensual non-monogamy, vulnerability is almost inevitable for most people, at some point. If your primary partner is, for example, going on a date with another person, it can evoke a range of emotional responses. If those emotions are not overwhelming, they can also be treated as sources of information rather than something to suppress or resolve. In this context, emotions such as jealousy, fear or anger are not necessarily seen as shameful or pathological, but as responses that can be worked with if all involved consider them meaningful.

Rather than dismissing jealousy or discomfort as irrational, consensual non-monogamy practices can suggest approaching such emotions as sites for investigation. In my own experience of opening up my own marriage, I noticed that feelings of threat became particularly acute when my husband went on a date with a woman of Icelandic descent — something I can never offer him. Does he prefer speaking his mother tongue? Does linguistic intimacy shape desire?

When I enter the National Theatre of Iceland, I am ashamed to admit that I often experience a similar sense of jealousy. Why do they have so many more resources? Do they realise how privileged their position is? Do they realise we exist, even as a festival whose work circulates internationally? Rather than dismissing these feelings, I have begun to sit with them, in much the same way I might try to work with emotional responses within consensual non-monogamy.

Applying attachment theory as a metaphorical framework, I wonder whether parts of the Icelandic dance community may have developed relational patterns that resemble insecure attachment in relation to state and city institutions, as well as the bodies that fund them. While we cannot identify a single traumatic event, the field may carry the accumulated effects of repeated experiences of precarity, neglect, or marginalisation. These conditions can manifest as low self-worth (even in the presence of international recognition), distrust toward institutions, co-dependency within small communities, or conversely, forms of over-independence.

At their most extreme, these patterns may contribute to bitterness, competitive dynamics over limited resources, cycles of burnout, or a sense of disillusionment that becomes self-reinforcing. This is further complicated by the fact that uneven resource distribution within the arts is also shaped by broader structural conditions, including the continued privileging of certain voices, under historical and present day patriarchy, over others within cultural policy and funding systems. 

For decades the festival has been recognised by the state and city for the work it does and praised in the form of words and short term project based funding. If someone you rely on keeps telling you they love you, but struggles what appears to relational commitment issues, what dynamics does that create? 

4. Women’s Strike 2025

Brogan Davison, Artistic Director, and Pétur Ármannsson, Executive and Artistic Director of Reykjavík Dance Festival, write about the state of dance in Iceland on the occasion of Women’s Strike Day.

It is a fact that both in and from Iceland there are dance artists recognised among the best in the world. This is evident in the fact that Icelanders serve as artistic directors of some of the world’s leading dance companies, in the number of international tours undertaken by Icelandic dance artists, and in the awards and recognition they receive both at home and abroad.

It is also a fact that Icelandic authorities, both national and municipal, have failed to ensure a level of investment and infrastructural development comparable to other art forms. This neglect has pushed dance to the margins, diminishing its visibility, competitiveness, and public recognition.

To illustrate the vast inequality that exists between artistic disciplines in Iceland: according to the national budget and Reykjavík City’s 2025 financial plan, dance receives a combined total of 337.7 million ISK in public funding - the lowest of all art forms supported by the state and city. The next lowest is visual art, with 1.8 billion, followed by theatre with 3.4 billion, while music is at the top of the list with 7.9 billion ISK.

Looking more closely, Reykjavík City’s total expenditure on dance amounts to 28.5 million. 28.5 million. Theatre, on the other hand, receives 1.6 billion, and music 3.5 billion.

What does this underfunding mean for professional dance artists? It means, for example, that within the state institution Iceland Dance Company there are only nine full-time dancers, whereas around 70 actors are employed at the National Theatre and Reykjavík City Theatre, and 88 full-time musicians at the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Likewise, only one of the three directors of Iceland’s key dance institutions works full-time — the Artistic Director of IDC — while the directors of Dansverkstæðið and Reykjavík Dance Festival are employed at approximately 67% and 40% capacity. This is the working environment produced by the current cultural policies of the state and city, despite the fact that Iceland offers university-level education in dance, equal to that in theatre and music.

It also means that there is no dedicated performance venue for dance in Iceland - no home for the art form where artists and the public can work, experience, and develop dance together, increasing its visibility and public understanding. Current cultural policy dictates that the Iceland Dance Company, a state institution, must pay rent to its competitor, the Reykjavík City Theatre, for use of its facilities, and must operate according to that theatre’s scheduling and organisational constraints. It should be noted that nearly every other publicly supported art form in Iceland has its own dedicated space and infrastructure where the public can engage with it, with the possible exceptions of opera and circus arts. 

But isn’t this simply because dance in Iceland lags behind other art forms? No, not if we look at its national and international success. Consider, for example, the dance piece The Rings of Orpheus and Other Gossip, which won the 2025 Gríman Award for Performance of the Year. And isn’t dance a young art form in Iceland? Again, no, dance developed alongside theatre at Iðnó in the early 19th century, and dance works were performed on stage when the National Theatre first opened.

So what, then, explains the cultural policies of the state and city? What defines dance and sets it apart from other art forms in Iceland? The truth is that the history of dance in Iceland is, above all, a story of women, and later, of queer people. In her book Listdans á Íslandi (2024), Ingibjörg Björnsdóttir chronicles the stories of pioneering women who came to Iceland and cultivated an entire art form and the culture that grew around it - an art once banned by the church, which nearly erased Iceland’s folk dance tradition. These women studied abroad, returned home, established schools, toured the country performing, and founded a professional association to resist state taxation on dance events, a tax from which theatre and music were exempt. They fought against being forced to work unpaid or under poorer conditions than, for instance, actors at the National Theatre. They demanded the creation of a national dance company composed of the country’s leading dancers, to be valued on par with other state institutions such as the National Theatre and the Symphony Orchestra.

Independent dance artists later founded their own dance festival when they realised there was no platform in Iceland to present their work, and from that they created shared workspaces to train, create new works, and develop the field further - coming together under one roof to exchange ideas, methods, and time.

Ingibjörg’s book reveals, time and time again, gender-based discrimination in cultural policy and gendered attitudes toward dance - biases that policymakers and perhaps the public, seem not to have shed. Considering that Iceland is governed by equality laws, and that Reykjavík City has committed to applying gender-based analysis in decision-making, funding through its equality policy and signing of the UN Women and UN Global Compact gender equality accords, it is difficult to understand why investment and infrastructure for dance have not developed on par with other art forms.

The reasons are complex, but perhaps the notion of Nordic exceptionalism (as discussed by Kristín Loftsdóttir and more) plays a part with the idea that Iceland, as a self-proclaimed “equality nation,” cannot possibly harbor gender-based inequality, leading us to ignore it even when it stares us in the face.

Yet despite all this, dance in Iceland is arguably the art form with the most diverse group of practitioners and audiences - women and men, locals and immigrants, disabled and non-disabled, Black and white, heterosexual, queer, and everyone in between. The art form is not bound by language or by other exclusionary cultural markers that have historically pushed many groups to the margins. Dance artists have also been pioneers in creating accessible and inclusive environments, making dance one of the most diverse and socially conscious art forms, one that actively seeks not to reproduce the patriarchal power structures that have marginalized both the art form and its artists within Icelandic cultural policy.

If dance is to continue to flourish in Iceland, the state and city must recognise its true value, and the artistic labor of women, not merely through fine words, but through investment, infrastructure, and respect.

5. Consensual Nonmonogamy (CNM)

“Traditional marriage is, collapsing from within and unaware of the many other forms of being” - Sex at Dawn, Cacilda Jethá and Christopher Ryan

Art festivals like RDF are often underestimated by cities and states in terms of the workload they require, the scope of their operations, and the value they hold as cultural institutions operating at both national and international levels. A city or country may adorn itself with a festival that appears expensive, shiny and, in our case, cool, but like cheap jewellery, it is often produced through exploitative conditions and constructed from materials that are not sustainable in the long term.

I would argue that truly innovative art festivals exist because they fulfil needs within a community that lie beyond profit-driven interests. These needs may be artistic, social, professional, political or existential. They can range from supporting artistic development and professional networks to addressing questions of identity, belonging and the rights of citizens. Festivals emerge because something is missing. Their value lies not only in what they produce, but in the needs they meet and the relationships they sustain.

Local artists have helped keep the festival alive by forgoing their professional rates and instead receiving a share of ticket sales. Likewise, workers across every level of the organisation—from technical directors, technicians and producers to runners, audience engagement teams, youth participation coordinators and fundraising staff—have contributed countless unpaid hours to the festival and its year-round activities. Much of this labour has taken place under conditions that would never meet union standards. 

As tired, overworked parents of two daughters, a cat, a dog and a dance festival, my husband and I occasionally watch reality television—usually during the twenty-minute window between finishing household chores and going to bed. In programmes such as Married at First Sight, Love Is Blind and The Bachelor, a "yes" at the altar or proposal ceremony typically represents one of only two possible outcomes: commitment or separation. While these narratives are highly simplified and carefully structured for entertainment, they nonetheless reflect dominant cultural assumptions about romantic relationships in Western society.

As Jessica Fern argues in Polysecure, "mononormativity" refers to the assumption that monogamy is natural, normal and morally superior, shaping the ways we understand intimacy at political, cultural and psychological levels. Yet the realities of contemporary relationships are often far more varied. As Esther Perel observes in Mating in Captivity, recent decades have seen a significant expansion in the forms that relationships and families can take. We can enter straight, gay or transgender marriages, form domestic partnerships, become single, step or adoptive parents, choose to remain child-free, cohabit without marrying, or maintain long-term relationships while living separately. Blended families and successive marriages have become commonplace. Despite this growing diversity, cultural narratives continue to privilege the monogamous couple as the default model against which all other relational structures are measured.

Within consensual non-monogamy (CNM), one of its central ideas is that it is not unusual to discover that one person cannot meet all of another person’s needs. Even within a loving relationship, needs may shift over time, requiring ongoing negotiation rather than fixed expectations. 

Whilst there has never been anything romantic between the organisation of RDF and the government, the relationship between them has existed for many years. It carries needs, dependencies and expectations, yet it lacks a clear label or consistent understanding of commitment. At times, communication has not been transparent. At others, it has felt absent altogether—resembling, in relational terms, a form of ghosting.

Other values that sit at the heart of the practice of CNM are: communication, transparency, negotiated boundaries, and the consent of everyone involved. Within this framework, a wide spectrum of relational configurations becomes possible, each shaped by the needs, capacities and agreements of the people involved. CNM may include, but is not limited to, polyamory, swinging, open marriage, open relationships, solo polyamory and relationship anarchy.

One might ask whether the Ministry of Culture has been “polysaturated”—a term used in consensual non-monogamy to describe being at capacity with the number of relationships one can sustain—or whether it has simply never been invested in the relationship at all. Have we misread the situation? Were we ever more than a one-night stand or a fleeting encounter?

And yet, if a “fling” repeats itself over more than two decades, across time and institutional cycles, does it remain a fling? Each year there are gestures of recognition, statements of support, moments that suggest care and commitment. And still, no clear definition holds.

Perhaps what we are left with is a kind of institutional “situationship”: a relationship that persists over time but resists stable definition, clarity of commitment, or mutual understanding of its terms.

I wonder whether a festival that is not formally bound to the state or municipality as one of its agencies might take another relational form while still embracing the value of long-term commitment. Must the relationship between a cultural organisation and its funders resemble a traditional marriage, or are there other models through which commitment, care and mutual responsibility can be sustained?

Within practices such as consensual non-monogamy (CNM) and ethical non-monogamy (ENM), a wide range of relational configurations exist outside the framework of exclusive monogamous partnership. These relationships are not necessarily defined by a lack of commitment, but rather by different ways of organising commitment. They challenge the assumption that there is only one legitimate structure through which long-term relationships can be formed and maintained.

While we can assume that reality television is just that—reality television—it would certainly be an anti-climax if the Bachelor invited his chosen Bachelorette to join a non-hierarchical polycule with three previously eliminated contestants. Yet this raises an interesting question: can we imagine less traditional relational structures between cultural organisations and funding bodies?

Festivals often occupy an ambiguous position between project and institution. They are nomadic yet repetitive. Fixed in time, but not in place. Independent yet dependent. Formal yet informal. In RDF's case, grassroots yet also institutionalised. They perform many of the functions associated with cultural institutions while often lacking the recognition, stability or structural support afforded to them.

Occupying this in-between space can be both a strength and a vulnerability. It allows festivals to remain flexible, responsive and capable of adapting to the changing needs of artists, audiences and society. Yet it can also mean falling between established categories and systems of support. Festivals may not always be taken as seriously as more conventional institutions, but they are no less real. Their ambiguous status does not diminish their value; if anything, it reveals the limitations of the categories used to define cultural life.

Being “in between” within identity politics is often understood as part of the queer experience. As a bisexual woman who did not fully come out until the age of thirty-eight, I found myself having to grapple with my bisexual identity within the context of a heteronormative marriage. Reflecting on my own internalised biphobia, I began to revisit assumptions I had long held about bisexuality. Was it really a distinct identity? Didn’t everyone experience attraction to more than one gender? Looking back, I realised these questions revealed less about bisexuality itself than about the cultural narratives I had absorbed.

Biphobia exists in both heterosexual and LGBTQ+ communities, and the term “bi-erasure” describes the tendency to ignore, invalidate, or simplify bisexual identities. For much of my life, heterosexuality appeared to be the only viable option. Believing that everyone experienced attraction to more than one gender, I assumed my own feelings were universal rather than evidence of a bisexual identity. Later, upon entering a committed long-term relationship, I came to accept monogamy as a second silent absolute. Like heterosexuality before it, monogamy appeared less as a choice than as the natural order of things. 

To explore my hidden desires, my husband and I decided to open our relationship after fifteen years of monogamy. What had felt like a safe and stable structure quickly revealed its fragilities. It raised questions I had not previously encountered—or perhaps had not known how to ask. My road map that I had once used for navigation was changing and instead of seeing myself as broken in some way, it revealed the wider social systems that do not support certain ways of existing. 

Unpacking all this was a lot of work and proposed questions such as, 

What were the risks of dating again: emotional, physical, social? Could it affect my professional standing? Might I lose respect, be seen as irresponsible, or as someone simply following a trend? Would I be judged as a bad mother, or as a pervert? What if “forever” was not in fact forever?

And if the relationship ended in divorce, what would the emotional, practical, and financial consequences be? Would I need to leave the country I now call home? And if everything I have understood as stable begins to shift, what ground do I stand on?

What if my partner falls in love with someone else? Can we love more than one person romantically at the same time, in the way we do with our children? What forms of intimacy are possible, and how do we know how much is too much?

Where do my boundaries end and yours begin? Why are we doing this? How transparent do we need to be? What happens if someone gets hurt? Can I tolerate jealousy, or is that simply part of the process?

Does my willingness to open mean that you must also open? Should we limit ourselves to dating within Iceland, or outside of it? Can I pause at any moment, even mid-date? What is the difference between consent and boundary—between honesty, self-protection, and control?

And finally: if something happens, do I want to know about it—and if so, how?

Then entering the world of dating apps as a millennial was a learning curve. There was an initial choice between platforms such as Feeld, Tinder, eHarmony, HER, and Hiki, each with its own culture, vocabulary and set of expectations and implicit rules. If this was so much work, was marriage just a way to keep things simple? Or efficient? And have we based our entire romantic relational model on keeping things easy?

Mononormativity assumes that one relationship should be sufficient to meet all needs. Institutional frameworks often assume that one category—project or institution, dependent or independent, funded or unfunded—should be sufficient to define how cultural organisations exist. Identity categories, too, often rely on similar simplifications: straight or queer, fixed or legible, inside or outside.

Yet lived experience repeatedly exceeds these binaries.

Consensual non-monogamy does not reject commitment; it reorganises it through negotiation, transparency, and ongoing consent. Likewise, festivals do not lack institutional value because they fall between categories; rather, their work is often precisely what emerges in the space between categories. And in both cases, what appears as instability is often a different form of relational structure that dominant systems are not designed to recognise.

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A festival, in a different register, often operates with a similar kind of flexibility that a polyamorous person might where different needs lie at the centre of the practice. It can respond to the evolving needs of a cultural field, whether artistic, social or professional, sometimes addressing gaps as they emerge. Unlike more rigid institutional structures, it may be able to shift focus more rapidly, without the requirement of publishing fixed long-term programmes far in advance. At the same time, it should be noted that many of the works presented within festivals are developed over several years; flexibility does not mean immediacy or lack of planning.

This adaptability can be a strength, allowing festivals to explore alternative modes of engagement and respond to artistic, social or financial risk in real time. However, fewer bureaucratic constraints can also produce increased precarity, as flexibility is often coupled with instability.

While this kind of flexibility can be a value, the absence of stable ground over many years can also create conditions of exhaustion. Borrowing from attachment theory, the relationship between cultural organisations and state funding bodies might be understood as a form of structural dependency. Much like a child is dependent on a parent, cultural organisations dependent on government support can be seen as operating within a fundamentally asymmetrical relationship.

Across intimacy, identity, and cultural infrastructure, a pattern begins to emerge: systems built around singular, stable models struggle to account for lived realities that are plural, shifting, and relationally complex.

If attachment requires a secure base, then the question is not whether cultural organisations should be dependent or independent, monogamous or non-monogamous, project or institution. The question is what kinds of relational frameworks are capable of sustaining care, continuity, and responsibility without requiring singularity as a condition of legitimacy.

What becomes visible, then, is not a failure of these systems, but a limitation in the languages used to describe them.

Margaret Thatcher famously critiqued paternal relationships between cultural institutions and the state, arguing that institutions should be more independent. Yet, much like the parent–child dynamic described in attachment theory, such a relationship cannot simply be wished away: hierarchy persists. For any system to function sustainably, a secure base is required.

Within attachment theory, insecure attachment can emerge when care and attention are inconsistently distributed—for example, when a parent appears to favour one child over another, allocating more time, resources, or emotional support. In such conditions, forms of neglect can develop. To extend the analogy: would it be just for a parent to tell one child that their needs have been met for the day simply because another child has already been fed?

While I do not propose that all cultural institutions should receive equal funding regardless of scale, mandate, or national status, I do suggest that some cultural organisations experience levels of structural neglect that produce chronic precarity, placing their very survival in question.

6. A public statement from 2023

The future of Reykjavík Dance Festival at risk

There is uncertainty surrounding the continued support of the Ministry of Culture and Business Affairs for Reykjavík Dance Festival. The festival's collaboration agreement with the ministry is set to expire at the end of the year, placing its future in jeopardy. Celebrating its twentieth anniversary just last year, Reykjavík Dance Festival has become deeply entrenched in Icelandic cultural life. It serves as the epicenter of dance in the country, fosters innovation in the performing arts, and bridges the gap to international markets. Approximately 60% of all university-educated dancers in the nation have participated in the festival, making it an indisputably vital platform for professional dancers in Iceland.

What started as an initiative by independent dance artists to showcase their work in their homeland has now evolved into an international stage, creating employment opportunities for approximately 200 artists annually. This year, over 30 foreign festival organizers and theater directors will attend the festival to witness the best of Icelandic dance. Such visits create job prospects for Icelandic dancers abroad and facilitate the export of Icelandic art. Since dance is a universal art form, the visibility of Icelandic performing arts abroad owes much to dance. Credit is due to the success of choreographers like Erna Ómarsdóttir, Ásrún Magnúsdóttir, and Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir, whose recent work "When the Bleeding Stop," was showcased at Aerowaves, the world's largest dance festival. These choreographers' works have, among others, been produced by and featured at the Reykjavík Dance Festival, which has acted as a launching pad for Icelandic dance onto the international stage.

International connections are crucial for the thriving of professional dance in a sparsely populated country like Iceland. Therefore, securing the operation of Reykjavík Dance Festival is essential for the future of dance in Iceland. Participation in international collaborative projects is contingent upon the festival receiving reliable support from its home country. Failing to secure local funding would mean missing out on tens of millions of Icelandic Krona in foreign grants, putting the entire art form at risk.

The government's annual contribution to RDF is 3.5 million Icelandic Krona and has remained unchanged since 2018. Conversely, the City of Reykjavík contributes 7.5 million annually through a partnership agreement that extends until 2025, designating the festival as a City Festival. Reykjavík Dance Festival has consistently multiplied this investment by securing funds from abroad. The festival's foreign income flows directly into the nation's cultural economy and contributes to the development of dance in the country.

It is important to emphasize that the situation of the festival reflects a larger issue: dance has received relatively meager support in Iceland when compared to other art forms. For instance, unlike theater and music, dance does not have its own dedicated house, and dance schools in the country are not recognised equally as music schools and sports. It's worth noting that the majority of practitioners and professionals in dance are women, underscoring the importance, from an equality perspective, of providing equal support to their field of work.

The directors of the festival want to highlight that government backing has played a significant role in the festival's growth and the international success of Icelandic dance. However, as the festival has flourished and expanded rapidly, it is crucial that the government's investment reflects its influence and importance within the realms of Icelandic dance and cultural life. Despite repeated attempts, the festival has not been successful in obtaining responses from the ministry. Reykjavik Dance Festival reiterates its wish for a conversation with the Ministry of Culture and Business Affairs about the future vision for the festival and Icelandic professional dance.

7. A Fling

As Esther Perel argues, the qualities that foster attachment—security, predictability, and closeness—can, if left unexamined, also diminish the sense of novelty and separateness from which lust often draws its energy.

A LTR privileges stability, a sense of permanence and routine. A long term relationship offers so much that a short intense love affair cannot even attempt to do, but an LTR can also become monotonous, lose its spark or become a dead in the bed marriage. In a relationship we can take our partner for granted, become bogged down in the day-to-day practical, financial or production tasks and lose a sense of what our purpose was in the first place. The process of institutionalisation or a cultural organisation can add bureaucratic steps that result in an organisation becoming less responsive, less innovative or even less effective at achieving its core mission.

A romantic fling can awaken desire that has ceased to exist or reveal a set of needs that are otherwise not being met. Such needs are specific to a time and place and can bring something nourishing to a community that is lacking in some way. These needs could vary from something spiritual, to the artistic, existential or professional. My most intense experiences seeing myself as part of a bigger community, being reminded of my humanity or being awe inspired have been in festival contexts. Can a good festival be like a good sexual experience?

A sexual encounter, romantic fling or intense affair, if practiced in a consensual and ethical way, can be a form of play, care or pleasure that exists outside of everyday responsibilities, work or some kind of productivity. This space can feel like a radical one for an adult that no longer has playtime as part of their daily schedule, as a child does in school. If we view the body as a site for pleasure, desire and sensory experience, it is the intimate and artistic spaces that feel ever more sacred in a life saturated with media, productivity, and institutions. And if schools, workplaces, religions, or governments influence acceptable expressions of pleasure, sexuality, appearance, and bodily conduct, I propose a Fling or a Festival that can offer a counter space for alternative ways of being to exist.

Often located on the fringe or periphery, much like non-monogamous practicing communities, I propose that we can find communities that are by nature more inclusive, due to their positioning that is at the margin, or at least not at the centre. I suspect a level of awareness of societal hierarchies is present in these communities that exist on the peripheries, along with values of openness to everyone, inclusivity. My short experience of the queer dating community is a community that values safe spaces, strives to be non-judgemental and to communicate with respect and care. A dance festival by nature is about the body, which deals with the politics of it. It privileges the body, pleasure, desire and passion. Dance in Iceland has been at the forefront of critical discourse around topics such as representation, inclusion and diversity and the festival celebrates bodies in ways that in other contexts they might be shamed or made invisible.

To fling something across the room would be to throw something with force. A good festival hits in that way. It sweeps audiences off their feet in the heat of the moment. It makes time move differently. In a relationship a fling could be something casual, short yet likely intense. It can be wild and fun, new and exciting, different and above all sexy. Its ephemeral nature, that it will not last forever, is precisely its characteristic of it being so special. Its temporality is precisely the thing that can make audiences feel lucky that for whatever reason they are here, in this moment, with these people, at this time and might never forget this moment.

Previous Artistic Director Alexander Roberts described festivals as “vehicles of change” and I understood him to mean that in festival contexts we can make one-off experiments that can then seep out into wider society. I believe that festivals carry this potential more than ever, as they have the potential to stand in stark contrast to more conservative or commercial institutions with pressures that require filling out thousands of full priced seats in one fiscal year.

A festival can be ideological, even if only for five days. One year we practiced paying the entire team the same salary, removing hierarchies of salaries or status within the production team. Whilst the experiment wasn't perfect and the workload and responsibilities as well as credit were not evenly distributed, it did in turn lead to a more egalitarian internalised working environment and practice, dividing of tasks, inclusive working environment and increased levels of transparency which we still practice today.

However, the term Fling can also be used in a derogatory way or in the framework of patriarchy, she was just his Fling. His bit on the side. His mistress. His mistake. Flings can be seen as unserious, or someone one might not commit to in real life or public life. The duration of the activity is seen as a way to make it of less value, demanding less respect or time of day. The Fling can be disregarded, set aside or completely ignored, due to its lower status in the hierarchy of permanence. Such rhetoric can be misunderstood about the operations of an international arts festival, as its visibility is often only during the lead up and duration of the festival itself.

A festival however can take on many more activities than its seasonal artistic output. In the case of the RDF, the festival itself is just the tip of the iceberg and much of the invisible labour exists all year round for its workers. If festivals are then mountains, funding bodies need to recognise that their shape is more than just the peak. Also, much like in the ethics of non-monogamy, the dance community sees itself as part of something bigger where values of love trump petty politics. The dance scene is an eco-system, where different organisations take on different needs. These organisations do not work in competition, but support each other to thrive in harsh conditions.

In her book All About Love, bell hooks describes love as something that is done. She argues that to love, as a verb, there are values that must be adhered to and if the values cease to be present in relationships, then the relationship is not built on love. We can say one thing, but what we do is the thing that counts. She famously breaks love down into a set of actions: care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and respect.

Taking this line of thought, I propose that it isn't enough for funding bodies to declare their love for a cultural institution without fundamental actions. And as a parent is inherently responsible to practice love, so should governmental institutions to the smaller organisations that serve their policies and much like the caregivers of our society, do the real work, or as we would say in the context of dance, work with the body.

8. Labour of Love

This was a text written as a curational proposition for Reykjavík Dance Festival in 2025. 

“The labour of love is not soft or fleeting. Much like the work of the dancer, it demands rigour, resistance, and care. It insists on passion over power, tolerance over divisiveness, and peace over war. It is a practice, a commitment, a daily act of persistence.

The history of dance in Iceland shows us how fragile joy can be under patriarchal and puritanical powers. In 1745, the Skemmtibann — the festivities ban — sought to silence public dancing and erase it from daily life. And yet dance survived. It lived in domestic spaces, in whispered rhythms and shared steps, and in the folklore of elves and hidden people who danced long into the night. When dancing was forbidden for humans, it continued in imagination, refusing disappearance.

From these margins, dance was rebuilt. In the 19th and 20th centuries, pioneering women worked with nothing but vision, resilience, and determination to create the foundations of dance as an art form in Iceland. Their labour — often invisible, often undervalued — built the ground on which we stand today.

This is the lineage we celebrate. Reykjavík Dance Festival 2025 is dedicated to our dancing ancestors: those who resisted erasure, who worked with passion and rigour to make space for joy and togetherness, and who transformed dance into a practice of survival as much as art.

For five days we gather to insist on being visible. Where dance was once banned, neglected, or dismissed, we now claim space. We dance to preserve joy, communality, and cultural memory. And we extend our solidarity to dancers and communities across the world whose traditions are threatened by erasure — from Ukraine and Palestine to every place where joy, cultural history and life itself is under attack.

Reykjavík Dance Festival 2025 is not just a programme of performances. It is a gathering. A celebration of joy. A refusal to disappear. A collective insistence that dance matters, and that the labour of love is what makes it possible.”