Sólbjört’s research project for her degree from the Academy of the Arts is a 21-page essay (plus sources) on the role of the female dancers in Hatari, containing reflections on the band, feminism, the concept of the backup dancer, and a very interesting description of the process of planning and staging the May 23rd Gamla bíó concert that I attended! Below, I’ve translated and/or summarized the entire essay. It’s a really cool look into her mind and the thought behind the choreography.

I ended up quoting and translating probably the majority of the essay, but I did summarize some parts that were repeating points already made elsewhere or less interesting or relevant to fans of Hatari specifically. To avoid any confusion, I’ve presented the actual quotes in Tumblr’s quote format:

Quote

Anything not in an indented quote is my summary of the bits that I’m not quoting directly, with possible added commentary, etc.



Female dancers in Hatari and their role

The feminine and empowering woman

Introduction

Sólbjört begins by talking about the role of movements accompanying music - how it’s commonly seen to be merely a decoration or a cherry on top, but she believes it often serves a much more important role.

There’s nothing more satisfying to me than to experience movement controlled by music, or where the movement is slave to the music and follows it, beat for beat. Therefore, I find it extremely appropriate to use dance and movement on the concert stage, where the music is emphasized. The dance and movement becomes a visual medium that both enhances the experience and elevates the music and lyrics. I have used my interest in the relationship between music and movement to create choreography for Hatari’s songs and stage it on the concert stage. This is a study of the role of the female dancers in Hatari, and how lipstick feminism, a subcategory of the third wave of feminism, is used to support underlining the importance of the strong, feminine woman who moves on the concert stage. The primary emphasis is on showing the audience this strong woman who is both empowering and full of feminine qualities, without being accused of being submissive.

Hatari

Sólbjört talks about Hatari, “an anticapitalistic performance art band that nonetheless defines itself as a multimedia project”. She explains the band as consisting of Matthías, Klemens and Einar but that this core of people works with many others who serve many different roles in creating the project. She explicitly delineates Klemens as the composer, Matthías as the lyricist and Einar as mixing and arranging the music as well as playing the drums.

Hatari decided to make a change in 2017, when they got the idea of adding dancers to their live shows. They offered me the role before their gig at [music festival] Sónar at the beginning of 2017. Erna Gunnarsdóttir and I got together and started to consider the choreographic possibilities for the music. Some of the possibilities that we saw at the beginning of this process were obvious. Hatari’s music belongs to the industrial electronic music (IEM) genre. IEM developed from a mixture of electronic body music (EBM) and industrial music around 1985. EBM has a simplistic structure and production but IEM is more complex and layered. Hatari’s music is rhythmic and asks the listener to dance on the very first listen. […] Now, in 2019, there are three dancers, two female dancers and one male dancer. The band has had two female dancers ever since adding dancers in early 2017, but the male dancer was added for Söngvakeppnin in 2019. At first, the band wore considerably different costumes from what they do today. The dancers were clad in black overalls or worksuits decorated with reflective tape. The boys were dressed in jackets and accessories, in many ways evoking fascistic World War II military outfits. Now, as is well known, Hatari’s costumes in some ways resemble costumes used by the BDSM subculture: leather/vinyl/spandex suits, leather straps, spikes, chokers, etc. Hatari’s lyrics are in Icelandic. The lyrics are characterized by blunt, sharp social satire, anticapitalistic messaging and elucidation of the scam that is everyday life. The Hatari boys’ subject matter is less than lighthearted and includes death, the overthrow of human capitalist society, cosumerism and the pretentiousness of existence, doomsday, fake news reports, political undertones, statements that contradict each other and more along those lines. These subjects have followed the band from the start. Everyday life is a relentless scam, say the boys, and they seek to unravel it in their work.



She quotes the first two verses of Spillingardans as an example.

These lyrics are highly relevant to the spirit of the times. Western life has turned into a dance of corruption that everyone takes part in, consciously or not. Corruption is visible everywhere we go, and wherever we look, people take part in overconsumption and in that way feed into capitalism and keep it aloft. People are possessed by avarice and hedonism, which drives modern society. Hatari is a performance art band known for satire and societal criticism of all kinds. Much of what Hatari does is either performance art, lies, satire, an unconventional presentation of a message, or an aesthetic toeing the line between appealing and unsettling. The band critiques everyday life for what it is, a relentless scam, where image is bought and sold, and the boys create a deluge of news media, misinformation and forgeries.

Backup dancers

Sólbjört draws up an image of how backup dancers are everywhere, performing in sold-out musicals, on the biggest TV shows and on tour with the most popular musicians in the world, but go largely unnoticed and are paid pennies.

But there is nuance to the term ‘backup dancer’. Backup dancers come in all shapes and sizes: male, female, nonbinary; short, tall; and so on. There are backup dancers whose sole role is to dance and are 'just’ dancers, dancers who only follow the instructions of the choreographer or artist. Other backup dancers serve other roles, such as the role of choreographer. There are backup dancers who are so-called dance captains and have the role of maintaining the coherence of the choreography, which was originally the role of the choreographer, both creating and practicing it.

She points out the role of Beyoncé’s dance captain and co-dance captain, Ashley Everett and Kimmie Gee, who have to perfect the choreography for every show and dance and sing and rapidly change costumes throughout the show just like Beyoncé herself.

To be a backup dancer is to be a dancer, actor, singer, model, athlete and more. It takes incredible tenacity to stay in this business and perform your role as well as possible. You have to know everything, and know it well. These dancers are usually subordinate to some other person, and are often not named at all, as with Beyoncé’s dancers who are on contract during tours but have to find work elsewhere when the tour is over. These dancers are artists, even though their name isn’t at the top of the poster in the biggest font.

She argues that the term backup dancer is dismissive and prefers the term supporting dancer, because their role isn’t just to be a backup but to provide vital support for the performance as a whole, and finally posits that supporting dancers play a huge role in the art world, and dance is increasingly used as a visual artistic medium, with Hatari being no exception.

Lipstick feminism and the third wave of feminism

She begins this section by talking about feminism’s long history and how it means different things to different people, but most women experience discrimination based on their gender and being criticized for the way they dress, for being too attractive, for not being attractive enough, etc.

The third wave of feminism began in 1990 and is still underway. Lipstick feminism seeks to celebrate the traditional concepts and qualities of femininity, including the sexual empowerment of women, alongside feminist ideas. Unlike previous campaigns and movements within feminism aimed at fighting for the fundamental rights of women, lipstick feminism aims to affirm that women can be feminists without denying or rejecting femininity, that women can for example speak openly about sexuality and sex without being called sluts. This particular feminist believes, very literally, that one can wear lipstick and still call oneself a feminist, because feminism is about so much more than what individual people look like and whether they wear makeup or not. Some feminists have criticized this brand of feminism as they believe that it’s contradictory to talk openly about woman as a sexual being while advocating for women’s equality. These people sometimes even seek to make women like men and eschew everything feminine, believing that it’s impossible to be feminine and have power at the same time. Some women (hopefully most) find it empowering to to celebrate their existence as sexual beings and want to retain their femininity. They believe that honest discussion about these issues is very important, and that the cause is necessary to all kinds of feminism. It’s not enough to free a woman from the oppression of the patriarchy; she also has to be able to be proud of being a woman, with her feminine qualities. One of the primary goals of this type of feminism, I feel, is to reclaim words that have been used to denigrate women, such as 'slut’. Some believe that these feminists are simply reenacting old-fashioned ideas about women and their sexuality, and that by talking bluntly about women as sexual beings, they are objectifying the female body in a negative way. Other women believe that by owning their own sexuality and celebrating femininity, whether it’s wearing makeup or pole-dancing, women become stronger and more powerful. The biggest criticism of this type of feminism is that it’s difficult to criticize the objectification of the female body, such as advertisements obviously selling sex in the form of women’s bodies in print, while some women sexualize their own bodies.



Owning your own sexuality



Sexy isn’t the same thing as sexy. What I think the word sexy conveys is to be comfortable with oneself in one’s own skin. For many it’s about something sexual, but it depends heavily on how the person thinks, their experiences, religion, and other factors. I believe the word sexy means very different things in different cultures and religions. The choreography of the female dancers in Hatari is not written to serve sexual ends. We are not trying to be as sexy as possible by performing our choreography. Different viewers have to make up their own minds on whether or not they consider us sexy. There is a lot to read into in the choreography: we are women, white and blonde, of child-rearing age, in tight vinyl suits, on heels, in straps, with contacts that cover our eyes completely. For some people women are automatically sexy, and some have particular opinions on the woman and what is and isn’t sexy. For still more people, all of these elements make the woman on stage even sexier. The woman checks boxes and is marked with a certain stamp based on people’s societally influenced opinions. But this is simply the opinion of individual people, and not a fact about the choreography or about us as the dancers. Why is it so sensitive, taboo and sometimes negative to be sexy? Why is it sometimes forbidden? Are we offending people by by being the way we are? Can’t we be sexy when we dance because we’re women? Does that automatically make us sluts? Can’t we just do it, because women have fought for the general rights of women, including the right to own themselves? Don’t we own our own sexuality? Can’t we be sexy because we could provoke sexual longings and thoughts in the more privileged sex, men? Are we automatically selling ourselves and opening our bodies up to scrutiny simply by being feminine? Simply by being women?

She quotes the Urban Dictionary definition of sexy, which focuses on the effect sexiness has on others, to drive the point home: someone or something which is sexually attractive, causes a stirring of sexual feelings and/or thoughts in others, is arousing. people can be described as sexy due to their physical appearance, behaviour, personality and other stuff.

The role of female dancers in Hatari

Sólbjört talks about how the rhythmic music of Hatari makes it appropriate to employ dance and movement in its live shows. She notes that the female dancers have been referred to as backup dancers in the foreign media, which, again, she feels is a negative portrayal. She quotes another Urban Dictionary definition: Backup Dancer: A person who isn’t important. A person who hides in the shadow of someone else. A copycat.

I would not call the female dancers of Hatari backup dancers, even though they do usually dance behind (but also in front of) the main members of the band. That opinion comes from myself, one of the female dancers, and reflects how I feel when I stand on stage with Hatari, and my experience and self-image both as a dancer and as a Hatari dancer. In the development of the female dancers of Hatari, it was important to us that the woman on stage was strong and empowering, secure in herself, her sexuality and her femininity. The female dancer on the stage is not there simply for decoration.

Sólbjört goes on to quote a widely-shared newspaper article from Stundin from February 23rd 2019, shortly before Hatari’s victory in the Söngvakeppnin final. This article, by dance critic and playwright Nína Hjálmarsdóttir, accused Hatari of being problematic in various ways: that their intention to protest the treatment of Palestine in Eurovision was a kind of white saviour complex, that the costumes evoked fascism and white supremacy, that they’re appropriating BDSM culture (a prominent figure in the Icelandic BDSM society responded to this article pointing out that for the record the entire BDSM society adored Hatari and that they use their symbols respectfully and beautifully), and positing that “I had a hard time ignoring when they later added two female dancers to the stage, whose only role was as decoration to intensify the experience. The boys had taken on the appearance of power, while the women were shown as submissive, robotic and voiceless.” It’s clear that this last contention especially raised Sólbjört’s hackles. She quotes an interview from news site Vísir where she responded to this accusation:

On the other hand, Sólbjört strongly disagrees that she is submissive, voiceless or decorative in her art. The presence of the female dancers in the act is strong and blunt, as it always has been in the staging of Hatari’s concerts. She says that there is a great contrast between the costumes that makes the combination of music and visuals an interesting experience for the audience. The staging raises questions and can mean a lot of different things.

She then adds:



[…] I am of the opinion that the female dancers are not submissive or voiceless, though sometimes we are robotic, as seen by our movements. Nína calls us submissive in a negative sense in her article, and to publicly call a woman submissive and voiceless is in my opinion always an insult towards her. I am clearly biased, being one of the female dancers and a choreographer for the band, but the intention of the choreography and staging is not and never has been either submissive or voiceless. […]



She talks about how movements can say a lot more than can ever be put into words, how Hatari places a rich emphasis on the visuals and uses the dance as part of the narrative, and how movements can either be in harmony with the music or clashing with it. She is fascinated by the relationship between music and movement. She’s very conscious of her role as a female dancer and choreographer, but she is neither submissive nor voiceless and she is not decoration, and this is reflected in the choreography that she has created with other dancers. Although the dancers are playing characters or alter egos, those alter egos do reflect their real selves, and she feels that the characters as staged “radiate an incredibly strong yet feminine energy” that’s empowering.

The word ['submissive’] in no way describes what the female dancers of Hatari do on stage. The dancer is not submissive to either Matthías or Klemens, even if the dancer doesn’t play the primary role on the stage. And yet - each person should judge for themselves. The female dancers are incredibly empowering in their choreography and have a high status on the stage.

She points to the bit of the choreography for “Hatrið mun sigra” where Ástrós and Sólbjört hold Klemens’ arms as he bows his head forward and raise him up.

The movements and the stage presence

Along with Erna Gunnarsdóttir, I began to develop the movement vocabulary for Hatari in early 2017. We worked with robotic and sharp movements, inspired by Beyoncé’s choreography as well as the typical hand movements that backup dancers and singers have employed in Eurovision and at concerts in general. The choreography is in constant development, and over time we’ve included more and more feminine and empowering movements. It has always been clear to me what fits into the choreography and what doesn’t, but the greatest inspiration for movements is the music itself and the feelings that it evokes in me. The movements were and are usually on beat with the music and have the ability to spice up and enhance the experience of the music. It’s a kind of cycle; I don’t think that it needs to be clear whether the music or the dance has the upper hand. After all, it’s up to the audience to resolve the ambiguity and judge which is dominant. The movement vocabulary includes a lot of standstill moves, as there is often limited room for large movements on the stages of many concert venues. The dance numbers are characterized by static, blunt, sharp movements, choreographed steps around the available space and large, prominent but minimalistic hand movements. We frequently work with poses, which we like to repeat and juxtapose with choreographed steps on the stage. The presence on stage and intent of the dancer influences how the movement affects the audience. The presence and intent have to change in order for the movement to look different. If the dancer’s character and intent on the stage for example go for submissiveness, that’s what the movement will look like. The intent of the female dancers cooperating with Hatari has never been to paint the woman as submissive or voiceless, but to grant her the freedom to retain her feminine qualities and her sexiness while being empowering.

Contradictions in staging

There are contradictions underlying many aspects of the staging of Hatari’s concerts. For one thing, there is a certain disparity between the costumes and movements. As one example, the costumes to some extent reference BDSM attire, as previously stated. The movements don’t have a literal sexual motivation, but some of them are feminine, likely because they’re performed by female bodies. The costumes are feminine and sexy, while some of the movements are simple steps, backwards or forwards, which are not exactly feminine or sexy movements. On the stage, therefore, there is a confluence of many factors, music, costumes, movements and so on, which evokes an emotional reaction in the audience that might be (for example) feminine, sexy, empowering, submissive, etc.

She points out that in the “Hatrið mun sigra” staging at Söngvakeppnin, the movements are not very sexy but are juxtaposed with costumes that she and many others would consider feminine and sexy.

The staging should provoke a lot of questions, and can mean a lot of different things. Hatari’s staging contains nuances and opposites, and it in itself can always have infinite different meanings to the audience, whether we consider the lyrics or not. Klemens sings in a beautiful, high voice and is submissive to Matthías, who screams his lyrics. Einar is a drum gimp who never gets to speak, as he’s dressed in a spiky mask. The female dancers are empowered women. The third dancer, Andrean, who is male, is the submissive one, which was a conscious decision for everyone in Hatari. If we consider the opposites and nuances of the staging of Hatrið mun sigra, there are several. Andrean represents the repressed soul of Matthías, and is like his dog on a leash. The drum gimp is stuck up on a platform, drumming to the rhythm of the song. Klemens is submissive to Matthías, but the female dancers are there to support him, singing and dancing with him, simultaneously empowering and feminine.

Hatrið mun sigra - Hatari’s homecoming concert, May 23rd 2019

I, along with Ástrós and Andrean, continued to develop a choreography for Hatari’s songs for the Gamla bíó concert. Some of the songs’ choreography remained intact, other songs were altered completely, and new songs and thus new choreography were added. The first half of the rehearsal process went into teaching Ástrós the choreography and getting her into the movement vocabulary that I have used. The choreography is very sharp and rhythmic and the two female dancers should be completely in sync. We practiced old choreography, altered and improved and created new choreography. In April, we showed our instructor a near-complete choreography for the homecoming concert. It was interesting to receive critiques and comments on what I’d been doing from professional dancers, rather than devoted fans of Hatari. For example, we discussed whether it would be interesting to try to make the two female dancers’ movements subtly different, even if it’s only the position of one hip that’s not quite the same. We also discussed the possibility of spicing up the choreography and adding in small details, such as changes to the rhythm and deviation from movements that follow the music beat for beat. In this process, I was firm in my opinion that in this context, it looks best if the female dancers are completely in sync and completely identical, that the choreography is either the same or mirrored down the middle of the stage. My dream would be to work on a performance art piece in collaboration with Hatari, where I would be willing to consider the discussed changes and spicing up, as there the audience is better able to focus on the visuals. The concert began with an intro where the dancers and the drum gimp were in the foreground. I think it’s an appropriate opener for a concert like this to not start with a traditional song, as it straddles the line between concert and performance art. After that came a few songs without the female dancers, until the start of the song Spillingardans, around the middle of the concert, at which point the female dancers came back in and remained on stage until the end of the concert. I think it’s important to have a buildup over the course of the concert, so that you don’t have dancers for every single song. I believe this because I feel this way the movements carry more weight and get more attention when they are present. The choreography for the song Klefi/Samed (Hatari x Bashar Murad) was created a few hours before the concert, as the song came out just after the concert. That was a real challenge, and we did not manage to be totally in sync on stage and had to improvise a bit. It’s always a challenge to get on the concert stage only a few days before the concert, more often than not on the day of, and place the movements in that space. In this case, we came in the day before the concert to check out the stage. Once we were up on the stage, we had a certain choreography ready and it was time to plan out exactly where on stage it would be best to place the dancers, for each song. For us, the female dancers, our positioning was at the edge of the stage on the left and right. Ástrós and I were on either side of center stage, which was where Andrean was when all of us were on stage. When Andrean was the only dancer on stage, he could use the entire stage. He used both planned improvisation and scripted movements. His character on the stage was developed and discussed by every member of the band, but his choreography is mostly carved out by himself very late in the rehearsal process, so I will not discuss it further. Andrean is the total opposite of the female dancers. He has created a character on the stage that is the most submissive of everyone there, while the female dancers have a very high status. The audience experiences Andrean’s soft and submissive movements as a contrast to the blunt and often robotic movements of the female dancers. We managed to do pretty much one quick rehearsal/sound check for the concert. In my work with Hatari, we’ve never managed to do more than that before a concert. It has been extremely educational to develop choreography for concerts, but I’ve also found that music people are a lot less organized than dancers and have different priorities, which is to some extent understandable since their expertise is in music. To me it’s very important to be able to at least step onto the stage before the concert and feel the size and volume of the stage, but sometimes all we get is a half-hour sound check that’s only good for going over a maximum of two or three songs. This summer, we’ll go on stage for a few music festivals and will probably not even get a sound check. This time we had more time than we’ve had before on the stage, but that was because this was a concert dedicated to Hatari, rather than Hatari playing at a music festival where many bands need to do a sound check on the same day. This Hatari concert was the most complex one yet; for example we had a 20-person choir, a solo singer and a pianist, where choreographed stage entrances and exits are necessary. On the stage, which is not big, there was an extensive set, with a great effort put into setting up the lighting and screens for the visuals, and there wasn’t a lot of room for the movements of three dancers. Personally, I would have liked to have one more rehearsal to perfect the staging, but I think it went very well, considering. As for the technical aspects, we decided that we the dancers would not be wearing earpieces, but rather would use the onstage speakers to hear the music. In retrospect, earpieces would have worked better, as the cheering of the audience sometimes drowned out the music to the point it was hard to hear the rhythm in a few spots during the concert. There was a lot of cheering, and it’s always incredibly rewarding to dance at a concert where the audience really gives the energy back.

Conclusion