
CURRENT AND UPCOMING PROJECTS:
SOFT SHELL
Soft Shell is an ongoing research project that investigates how various audio and visual stimuli can trigger a meditative state and tingling sensation. Drawing from the aesthetics and content of ASMR videos, Soft Shell explores how and if these sensations can be evoked as bodies interact with installations and costumes that play with various textures, shapes, colors and different levels of transparency.
Open studio and work in progress performance in Ásmundarsalur í Reyjavík February 27th-March 2nd
CHICAGO
Stage design for Chicago by Kander and Ebb
Costume design by Björg Marta Gunnarsdóttir
Director: Marta Nordal
Choreographer: Lee Proud
Music direction: Þorvaldur Bjarni Þorvaldsson
Now showing in Akureyri.
ALDA
Installation and dance performance, created in collaborationn with choreographer Katrín Gunnarsdóttir.
Premiered as part of Reykjavík Arts Festival
in Gerðarsafn in June 2022.
Will show in BABEL art space as part of Multiplié dance festival in Trondheim in March 2023.
EMIL Í KATTHOLTI
Stage design for childrens play based on the classic stories by Astrid Lindgren.
Director: Þórunn Arna Kristjánsdóttir.
Now showing at Reykjavik City Theatre.
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Eva Signý Berger (b.1981) is a freelance stage and costume designer based in Reykjavík, Iceland. She has designed over 40 productions and has received multiple nominations for The Icelandic Theatre awards for her work in both stage and costume design. She works in theatre, dance, puppetry and opera and has designed for short films and fine art projects. In 2019 she represented Iceland at PQ - The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design.
In 2007 Eva completed her BA degree in Design for Performance at Central Saint Martins in London, where she discovered and developed an interest in devised and site specific performance, physical theatre and puppetry. The experimental and innovative nature of these genres influenced the way she thinks about design and approaches her practice, while working over a broad scale of genres and differrent styles of perormance. She equally finds pleasure in the challenge and endless possibilities of designing for large scale theatre productions and working on a smaller and more intimate scale, finding a differrent kind of fulfillment in each project.
The diversity of the work and its collaborative nature is what drives Eva as an artist. She has a deep pashion for the performing arts, their fleeting quality and the intuitive yet structured nature of the creative process. She is interested in communication and how one can speak to the subconscious of an audience through the visual.
In her ongoing collaboration with choreographer Katrín Gunnarsdóttir Eva explores the development of ideas from one performance to another. Together they have created a body of work that explores softness, sensitivity, ever-changing movement and the integration of bodies with their environment. In their creative process the visual and the choreographical influence each other and are allowed to develop simultaneously to the point where one would not exist without the other. In their most recent performance they experiment with shedding the time constraint and strructure of the theatre environment, creating a durational dance performance in the context of fine art and the gallery.
"I grew up in the north of Iceland and spent my summer holidays in London with my grandparents, who took me to the theatre, museums, art galleries and concerts from an early age.
At 13 I joined a drama group for teenagers, and discovered my passion for theatre. Throughout my adolescence I performed in and produced numerous shows with my company, as well as acting with the local professional theatre and other groups. I also loved drawing, sewing and other crafts and often made costumes for the performances I took part in. Designing for performance has allowed me to combine my love of theatre and visual art and continues to fulfil my desire to collaborate with other artists to create something magical while learning something new every time."
After graduating she worked on various productions and projects in Iceland, Minneapolis, Berlin, London and Sweden before moving back to Iceland in 2008. She continued to