Digging in the sand with only one hand

Digging in the sand with only one hand is a piece where dance, music and
storytelling come together as one whole. The sand and the sea are an inspiration.
The dance is an inspiration for a story and vice versa. The sand made us think of the
gold-rush in the wild wild west.
Cowboy-films and old spaghetti westerns brought us to Skagaströnd, the hometown of
Hallbjörn Hjartarson, the one, the only, and ever existing icelandic cowboy. He lives in his
bar/restaurant called Kantribær which is his Country-haven next to the sea, at the roots of
a mountain north of Iceland. The memory of Hallbjörn became the motive for the story. He
made his crazy dream come true even though the whole town of Skagaströnd didn´t want
him or his country-business cause they were afraid that he was making them all look like
fools. It is a fantasy about the moment when men can´t stop materializing their dream. In
the end they wake up from a nightmare and realize that their dream is in fact reality, which
they don´t want be a part of.
They are stuck in a dream with no visible way out.

Premiered July 2008 in Dansand festival, Oostende, Belgium

Performance,dance and text: Erna Ómarsdóttir
Music: Valdimar jóhannsson

Production/distribution - Esther Welger-Barboza