"Did you know that silence is an genetically inheritable trait? It's just like looking down the garden-hose and see the spiral... and then everything becomes so...one simply becomes a...it's just like climbing a mountain. You see the low shrubs and the moss and the rocks, and the rock always outlives the man..."
In "Thousand Years of Silence" the artists Hilmir Jensson, Karl Ágúst Þorbergsson, Kolbeinn
Arnbjörnsson and Tryggvi Gunnarsson examine both the various forms of the Icelandic silence, as well as the impact it has on the personal and national identity.
Why do we we flee into the embrace of silence instead of dealing with hard emotions and difficult issues? Why is it that we seem to think we can simply go through a whole lifetime of silence? Is it possible we simply inherent this silence and suppressed frustrations of our ancestors, without having a say on it?
In today's society where personal confessions and bare emotions flood the social media we ask if we have found the solution to our social-mental issues or if it's perhaps better just to keep it to oneself.
Can silence be good? Do we perhaps have to plow through it, through the inner highland snowstorm to reach our true self? Or is that just nonsense?
Thousand Years of Silence was nominated for the Icelandic theatre awards in 2016-17.
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Please note that there are no vikings or puffins in this show. Only real Icelandic people doing real Icelandic art. You will not learn how to become an Icelander or learn about the Sagas, but you will see true local art about true local issues, both critically acclaimed as well as publicly.
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"The artists open up a space for interpretation, making the piece do much denser so it leaves something very deep behind."
The piece is both sensitive and beautiful, and Honorary Nation has yet again shown us how fare they dare to go mixing experimental theatre and clear content without the result being encrypted in any way."
-Guðrún Baldursdóttir - Vísjá/National Radio
"The simple conclusion is that by making Thousand Years of Silence the theatre group Honorary Nation has thoroughly established itself as the leading force in Icelandic contemporary theatre."
-Sigríður Jónsdóttir - Fréttablaðið