Erna Ómarsdóttir, artistic director of the Iceland Dance Company, graduated from PARTS (performing arts research and training studios) in 1998. Following her graduation she worked with Jan Fabre, Ballet C De la B, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and became a founding member of the collectives Ekki (Reykjavík) and Poni (Brüssel). She has created and directed a number of works for the Iceland Dance Company. In 2009 Erna created and directed Black Marrow for the Australian company Chunky Moves, in collaboration with Damien Jalet. The work was presented at the Melbourne International Arts Festival and re-staged in 2015, under Erna’s direction, by the Iceland Dance Company (IDC). For her choreography in Njála, a collaboration between IDC and the Reykjavík City Theatre (2015) Erna received the Icelandic Theatre Award 2016 in the category Dance- and stage movement. In 2017 Erna Ómarsdóttir was co-artistic director of Sacrifice – A Festival Of Common Things Made Holy. In 2008 Erna founded the performance group, Shalala, together with Valdimar Jóhannsson. Shalala has produced numerous dance- and performative pieces that have been presented. Valdimar and Erna also form a theatrical band called LAZYBLOOD.Erna Ómarsdóttir has worked closely with visual artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir and musicians Björk, SigurRós, Ólöf Arnalds Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ben Frost. She was the associate director of Les Grandes Traversees in Bordeaux France in 2007 and co-artistic director of the Reykjavík Dance Festival 2014. Erna has been nominated a number of times for her work in the Ballet Tanz annual reviews, she is a recipient of the Iceland Theatre Awards and a resident artist of APAP - advancing performing arts project, a European network connecting international and local aspects of contemporary arts.

Valdimar Jóhannsson, composer and musician, graduated from the SAE Institute in Brussels with a diploma in sound engineering. From 1994 to present Valdimar has written music and played with the bands Mamma Hestur, Nine Elevens, Reykjavík!, Rodeo Machine and Lazyblood. He is the co-founder of Shalala, along with Erna Ómarsdóttir, and has since 2006 written music and participated in most of their projects. These include Teach us how to outgrow our madness (Scene Nationale des Quartz, Brest 2009), We saw monster (National Theater of Iceland/Reykjavík Arts Festival 2011), The Tickling Death Machine (Kunstenfestival Brussels, 2011), To the bone and A lecture on borderline musicals (Reykjavík Dance Festival 2014). Valdimar has also done lighting design for numerous dance- and theatre pieces, including Hystory (Reykjavík City Theatre 2015) and Da da dans (Iceland Dance Company 2016). He composed music for Njála (Iceland Dance Company and Reykjavík City Theatre 2015) and received in 2016, along with Árni Heiðar Karlsson, the Icelandic Theatre Award in the category Best composition. In 2017 Valdimar Jóhannsson was co-artistic director of Sacrifice – A Festival Of Common Things Made Holy. Staged by the Iceland Dance Company, the festival consists of four new works, three of them featuring choreography by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannsson: Shrine, Dies Irae (short film by Gabríela Friðriksdóttir) and Union Of the North (feature film, manuscript by Matthew Barney). 2017 also saw the premiere of At Dusk, a piece by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannson, produced by the IDC and with new music by SigurRós.