Nína Hjálmarsdóttir is an Icelandic performance artist, writer & producer based in New York. She is one of the founding members of the performance art collective Sálufélagar, who has produced four performances for the stage. She holds a B.A. in Performing Arts from Iceland University of the Arts and an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, as well as having studied one year of M.A. in Creative Writing. She has lived and worked in South-America, Denmark, and Germany.

In her art she uses devised methods, as well as the staging of the self, working with humor on the boundaries of reality and fiction, driving the audience to take a stance and dream of new possibilities. She writes and creates spaces about performances of image and identity, often focusing on the Nordic image and Nordic whiteness. Recently she has been occupied with the notion of empathy in art, and the ethical dilemma of the privileged empathizing with ‘the other’. She is inspired by authors that work autotheoretically, mixing theory with the personal. Sálufélagar‘s most recent performance, Independent Party People, staged the Icelandic image and how one is excluded from that image. Nína has produced for different festivals and groups, produced workshops on national identity, created a personal podcast for the National Radio on love and relationships and worked as a performance art critic for a major newspaper.

Why PS @ NYU? 

 After having dedicated myself to performance art, performance writing, and production for five years I was eager to obtain the perspectives that come with distance and a critical environment, to re-evaluate my past research and light new ones - new foundations. I was hungry for an artistic interdisciplinary environment while still gaining a stronger theoretical background to my research. In addition I wanted
to create distance from the bubble of my home and be in the center of social change and performance art.

MA Final Project:

      Can we be them? A research on the identification of white audience members with refugees in performance art

Internship Sites:

Director's assistant, "Hamlet" production by Thorleifur Orn Arnarsson at Schauspiel Hanover, Germany
Dramaturgy & production, "Phoenix" production by Wunderland, Copenhagen, Denmark
Dramaturgy & production, various productions by Hotel Pro Forma, Copenhagen, Denmark

Grants & Awards:

May 2020: Performance Studies Internationalisms Award

March 2020: Selected for EMERGENYC program of Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, New York.

January 2019: Sálufélagar collective: Production grant and 5-month artistic salary from Icelandic Performing Arts Fund for creation of full scale production of INDEPENDENT PARTY PEOPLE

January 2018: Production grant from the City of Reykjavík

May 2017: Nordic Culture Point Art and Culture Programme Grant for workshop WE AND US, Cycle Music and Art Festival 2017

May 2016: Selection of production SUITABLE, Neu/Now festival September 2016

Media:

Radio: RÚV National Radio & Television Station - "Ástin" two series production

Selected Publications:
Stundin Newspaper - "Að eigna sér baráttu annarra - Hatari í Eurovision"
SEEN Zine Journal – "Um væntingar og hugaróra"
Sirkustjaldið - "Warehouse9 kynulsi og list í Kaupmannahöfn"
Reykvélin - "Hlustunarparty á Everybody  ́s spectacular"

Morgunblaðið newspaper contemporary performance art critic:
"Halló við erum hér" 3.13.18
"Öldur eilífðarinnar" 3.28.18
"Poppópera í tómarúmi" 4.17.18
"Óljós heimur valda og karla" 5.2.18
"Að elska jörðina og eyðileggja hana" 06.12.18
"Mannakindur, mollið og blokkarpartí" 06.13.18
"Ímyndunaraflinu boðið í dans" 09.20.18
"Um tilgangi, kraft og ofbeldi" 11.22.18
"Danssýningar árssins" 12.28.18
"Konur sem taka pláss" 29.01.19
"Að syngja um ekki neitt" 13.02.19
"Hátíð ólíkra örverka" 01.03.19
"Blótað með listum" 12.04.19