With so many months of darkness and bleak weather to fill, far from being limited or monotonous, the city's cultural life surprises many visitors with its sheer diversity and vibrancy. Icelanders particularly love their music (be it classical or modern) and the singer Björk, who broke onto the international music scene with the group
The Sugarcubes in 1986, is one of Reykjavik's most famous daughters. The Airwaves Festival in October (see
Special Events) is one of the main events in the social calendar, but there are other gigs and concerts (some featuring local talents, others
attracting international acts) well worth checking out throughout the year.
Tickets to some cultural events, such as the Arts Festival or the Viking Festival, can be purchased from the Tourist Information Center, Adalstraeti 2 (tel: 590 1550; website:
www.visitreykjavik.is). All other tickets are available from the venue box offices.
Two excellent free guides to what's going on in the city are
Reykjavik This Month and
What's On In Reykjavik, both available at the tourist office and leading hotels. Online listings are available at
www.reykjavik.com. For more information on life in Reykjavik, check out the excellent (and free)
Grapevine paper (website:
www.grapevine.is).
The new Icelandic National Concert and Conference Center, currently under construction, is scheduled for opening in autumn 2009. It is one of the city's most ambitious projects to date and will be an exciting addition to its cultural landscape. The iconic building, whose unique design is inspired by the country's landscape (it was designed by pre-eminent Scandinavian architects and the internationally acclaimed artist Ólafur Elíasson) will be located by the harbor and offer incredible opportunities for concerts.
Music: In winter, the
Iceland Symphony Orchestra (tel: 545 2500; website:
www.sinfonia.is) usually performs every Thursday (sometimes on Fridays and Saturdays too) at 1930, in
Háskólabió, Hagatorg, on the university campus. The
Salurinn (tel: 570 0400; website:
www.salurinn.is) concert hall in Kópavogur, Hamraborg 6, the first specially designed concert hall in Iceland, hosts regular recitals and concerts. The
Icelandic Opera, Ingólfsstraeti, in Garmia Bió (tel: 511 4200; website:
www.opera.is), puts on lunch operas on Tuesdays at 1215, as well as staging regular performances in the evening. One of the best sopranos in the country, Signy Saemundsdottir, often sings at these events. Jazz lovers should aim to visit Reykjavik in late August-early September, when the annual Reykjavik Jazz Festival (website:
www.jazz.is), an increasingly prestigious event on the international jazz scene, takes place, with concerts held all over the city.
Theater: Serious theatergoers wanting to check out Icelandic drama should head for the
National Theater, Hverfisgata 19 (tel: 585 1200
or 551 1200 for tickets; website:
www.leikhusid.is), or the
Reykjavik City Theater, at Listabraut 3, near the Kringlan shopping center (tel: 568 8000; website:
www.borgarleikhus.is). During the tourist season there is also an attractive light entertainment show in English called
Light Nights (website:
www.lightnights.com) with
traditional Icelandic stories and folk songs.
Dance: The Iceland Dance Company (tel: 588 0900
or 568 8000 for tickets; website:
www.id.is), based at the
Reykjavik City Theater (see
Theater bove), focuses on contemporary work and has a regular program of modern dance pieces by Icelandic and foreign choreographers.
Film: Reykjavik has six cinemas:
Háskólabió, Hagatorg (tel: 525 5400; website:
www.haskolabio.is),
Kringlubio, Kringlan 4-12 (tel: 588 0800),
Laugarasbio, Laugaras (tel: 553 2075; website:
http://laugarasbio.is),
Sambio, Alfabakki 8 (tel: 587 8900),
Smarabio, Smaralind Shopping Center (tel: 564 000), the largest cinema complex in the country, a short drive from the city center, and
Regnboginn, Hverfisgata 54 (tel: 551 9000; website:
www.regnboginn.is).
Most of the new films shown are from America, although there are also a limited number of European films. Films are usually shown with the original soundtrack and subtitled in Icelandic. The daily papers can provide further details.
The tiny
Red Rock Cinema, Hellusund 6A (tel: 845 9548) is a bit of an oddity that attracts geologists and curious tourists alike with its
Volcano Show, a film explaining what impact volcanoes have had on Iceland's landscape. There are three showing in English daily, and the director is often on hand for a chat.
The most famous film set in Reykjavik is
101 Reykjavik, starring Victoria Abril (2000). More recently,
Mýrin (Jar City) (2006), based on the novel by Arnaldur Indriðason, was shot in the capital with an all Icelandic cast (see
Literary Notes below for both). So was
Börn (Children), the story of Karitas, a single mother of four who desperately tries to make ends meet, and her 12-year-old son Gudmund, whose life is on the fast track to destruction. This film was Iceland's official submission to the 2007 Academy Awards, in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Literary Notes: According to many experts, the foundations of Icelandic literature were laid during the 12th century, when scribes wrote down the sagas and epic tales of the early Icelandic settlers and villagers gathered in farmhouses on winter nights to hear them. One of the best known,
Egil's Saga, is a biography of the Viking hero Egil Skallagrimsson.
Iceland's most famous modern writer is Halldor Laxness, who was born in Reykjavik and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955, for works documenting life in Iceland - such as
Independent People (1935) and
The Atom Station (1948).
Among the most successful of Iceland's contemporary writers is Hallgrimur Helgason, whose novel
101 Reykjavik (1996) was made into a film of the same name and released internationally in 2000, starring Victoria Abril. A dark comic tale of life in the city, the novel tells of an aimless young man who begins to find maturity through an affair with his mother's Spanish lesbian lover.
Evelyn McDonnell tackles the enigmatic Bjork in
Army of She (2001), in an irreverent and warm book that ends up with the author truly enamoured with Iceland's pop queen. More recently, Arnaldur Indriðason has made a name for himself with thrillers such as
Tainted Blood (2004),
Silence of the Grave (2005) and
Voices (2006).
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The Columbus World Travel Guide has been published for 26 years and is sold in over 90 countries worldwide.
Word Travels is a comprehensive travel guide covering hundreds of cities and holiday resorts in more than 125 countries.
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