Alexander Graham Roberts

Upcoming / current activity

Projects

  1. 20092027. A brass band of 18-year-olds exploring what is and is not worth fighting for.
  2. Album2027. A choir of listeners re-performing entire albums as emotional landscapes and platforms for memory, politics and community.
  3. EUphoric Youth2026 ongoing. A four-year European project giving teenagers real power in cultural institutions through open-source curating.
  4. School of Emotions2026. International performance and live radio project with young people from Norway, Iceland and Italy exploring alternative ways to exist and resist.
  5. Nothing Special2025. An exhibition about the everyday, unfolding across galleries and unexpected places throughout Trondheim.
  6. Fæst for byen2022. A 15-hour rave hosted by the neighbours.
  7. BALL2022. Dance enthusiasts from across Iceland, aged 9 to 80, imagine a national dance company through a performance they make together.
  8. Teenage Songbook of Love and Sex2019. A growing repertoire of songs performed by a choir narrating the vast romantic and sexual experiences of young people.
  9. Asparfell2018. A block party made with residents of Asparfell 2–12 in Reykjavík.
  10. The Great Gathering2017. An intergenerational mass gathering.
  11. Listening Party2017. Teenagers take over a stage to share music, thoughts, worries and dreams.
  12. Made in Children2016. A performance made with children about the future they will inherit.
  13. GRRRRLS2015. Teenage girls turn vulnerability, attitude and solidarity into a collective stage presence.
  14. FRONTING2014. A triple bill paying tribute to the movements of frontmen and frontwomen.
  15. Church of Dancy2014. A block party curated by the neighbours.
  16. Reykjavík Folk Dance Festival2013. New folk dances made with cities and communities.

Curation

  1. Rosendal Teater2021–present. Artistic and institutional direction of an international theatre in Trondheim.
  2. Reykjavík Dance Festival2013–2020. Co-direction with Ásgerður G. Gunnarsdóttir. Annual international festival and year-round curatorial platform for dance and choreography.
  3. Independent curatorial work2009–2020. Festivals, laboratories, commissions and public-space experiments.

Discourse

Talks, publications, workshops, panels, radio and writing from 2009 onward.

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CV

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About

I am a curator, artist and researcher working across dance, theatre and performance.

Since 2021 I have been Artistic and Managing Director of Rosendal Teater in Trondheim, where I have led a period of major artistic and institutional change around ambitious international programming, local artistic development, access, participation and new relationships with audiences. From 2013 to 2020 I co-directed Reykjavík Dance Festival, developing it into an internationally connected platform that nurtured the national field while connecting dance and choreography to diverse local communities through open-source curating strategies. I was also a co-founder of the Master in Performing Arts at Iceland University of the Arts, where I held the position of Associate Professor with an emphasis on artistic research. Since 2012 I have worked as part of an artist duo with Ásrún Magnúsdóttir, developing performances and long-term artistic projects together.

My artistic and curatorial work has been presented across Europe at venues and platforms including Southbank Centre, Black Box teater, Reykjavík City Theatre, the National Theatre of Iceland, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Kampnagel, NEXT Festival, BIT Teatergarasjen, Homo Novus, Onassis and Centrale Fies.

My writing and research have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and publications including Performance Research, Into the City, Onto the Stage, Re-imagining Access within the Performing Arts and Creative Climate Justice in Norway.

Across my work, I am interested in stretching what dance, theatre, choreography and live performance can be, and in changing who gets to shape them.

I am led by questions that I look to explore with others: teenagers programme festivals, neighbours host raves, listeners perform albums, and institutions are allowed to be changed by the people around them. Sometimes the result is a performance. Sometimes it is a party, a publication, a school or a theatre.

I look to make the structures around this work fairer, less exhausting and less extractive.

alexander@rosendalteater.no