The Main Character

Photo: Tordis Vang Guttesen

The Main Character (Høvuðspersónurin) is a contemporary dance performance by RIVA the Faroese Dance Company in collaboration with international dancers. The project received funding from the Culture and art programme in 2024, and explores questions of identity, individuality, and the social and cultural factors that shape how we view ourselves and others.

The idea behind the project originated with Rannvá Guðrunadóttir Niclasen (RIVA) and Elias Bäckebjörk (NO). The work is centred around the three major characters: The Main Character, The Hive Mind, and The Lightbulb (a protagonist, an antagonist, and the unknown higher power).

The Main Character starts as a fictional vessel inhabited, shaped, and brought to life by different performers, each contributing their own interpretation and personality to it. This initial state reflects the idea that human identity is multifaceted and influenced by external factors, as each performer brings their unique perspective and experiences to the character. With exploration The Main Character becomes a composite of different performers, portraying a vast range of perspectives to the story and situation.

The Hive Mind is a collective consciousness that goes both as a narrator of the story and an antagonist to the main character. Symbolising the surrounding factors that affect or are affected by The Main Character. The Hive Mind can represent an opposing force and also portray the stories/situations that The Main Character describes. Can be portrayed by the performers on stage, be influenced by the audience and even become the audience, whose decisions have direct consequences for The Main Character.

The Lightbulb (unknown higher power and The Main Character’s Universe) is depicted as being one of the few constant and largely unchanging factors in The Main Character universe. Represented as a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Always present, although not always visible, an unavoidable part of The Main Characters universe. As a light that catches all the questions but leaves the answers in the dark, the Lightbulb symbolises humans’ eternal strive for questioning the unknown and looking for answers from ungraspable and undefinable entities.

The creative process included collaboration with 7 professional dancers in the Faroe Islands during the spring of 2025. In the first period, the focus was on finding a shared direction for the group, exploring ideas, and beginning to experiment with choreographic material. In the second period, the work was centred on staging the material so it would be ready for presentation. In May 2025, the project was presented as a school performance and two public evening performances at the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands.

Find out more about the Culture and art programme as well as our other grant programmes and application deadlines here!

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses cookies from Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Meta, and TikTok. Google Analytics is one of the most common and reliable solutions available and it helps us improve the website to enhance your user experience. It helps us understand for how long you visit the site, and which pages your visit. We do this to be able to offer you engaging content. The Meta pixel and TikTok pixel helps us target ads on Meta and TikTok according to which pages you have visited. Microsoft Clarity helps us understand how you navigate on individual pages.