NICE09 Icelandic festival launches this week

Nov 19 2009 by Laura Davis, Maghull and Aintree Star

THERE’S a chance to discover hidden cultural gems from the Nordic countries this week.

NICE 09 – which stands for Nordic Intercultural Creative Events – has launched three weeks of Scandinavian arts and culture at venues throughout the city.

It’s the third annual festival, includes film, music, arts and crafts and dance.

Films being shown over the course of the festival include Moomins and the Midsummer Madness (November 28), and the UK premiere of experimental art film Chronotopes (Nov 29).

The poetry of Norwegian Nordahl Grieg will be read at the Bluecoat between November 20 and 22 and the Maritime Museum will be hosting free, family-friendly Viking events on the Saturdays of the festival.

The Danish creator of “giant knitting”, Karl-Cristian Geleff, returns to NICE for a live installation at the Bluecoat, where one of the hottest names in knitting design, Faroese Jóhanna av Steinum, will join him.

Musically, there will be concerts from Iceland’s Thin Jim and the Castaways and Faroese Budam, Liverpool-based musicians Picturebook, Ragz and Kaya.

The ceramics of Danish artists Ninna Gotzsche and Merete Rasmussen and Swedish designer Karin Eriksson can be seen at the Bluecoat Display Centre for the duration of the festival.