A CHANCE to discover hidden cultural gems from the Nordic countries begins this week.
NICE 09 – which stands for Nordic Intercultural Creative Events – starts tomorrow, launching three weeks of Scandinavian arts and culture at venues throughout the city.
It’s the third festival, since its beginnings in 2007 as a purely Icelandic themed event.
Since then, it has expanded to include a taste of work from Scandinavia and the Faroe Islands as well.
The programme includes film, music, arts and crafts and dance.
NICE launches with a showing of Helsinki Forever at FACT – a Finnish film that can be compared to Terrance Davis’s Of Time and the City.
Among other films being shown over the course of the festival are Moomins and the Midsummer Madness (November 28), and the UK premiere of experimental art film Chronotopes (November 29).
Directors Marianna Mørkøre and Rannva Karadottir will introduce their Faroese film Memotech with a Q&A to follow on November 30.
The poetry of Norwegian Nordahl Grieg will be read at the Bluecoat between November 20 - 22 and the Maritime Museum will be hosting free, family-friendly Viking events on the Saturdays of the festival.
The Danish creator of “giant knitting”, Karl-Cristian Geleff, returns to NICE for a live installation at the Bluecoat, where one of the hottest names in knitting design, Faroese Jóhanna av Steinum, will join him.
Musically, there will be concerts from Iceland’s Thin Jim and the Castaways and Faroese Budam, Liverpool-based musicians Picturebook, Ragz and Kaya. And Sweden’s H2 Dance come to the Novas centre with its latest work To Die For on November 28.
The ceramics of Danish artists Ninna Gotzsche and Merete Rasmussen and Swedish designer Karin Eriksson can be seen at the Bluecoat Display Centre for the duration of the festival.
From humble beginnings, NICE now has the support of the embassies of all the Nordic countries involved, as well as the variety of city venues who are hosting its events.
