NÚSTALGIA (eng. NOWSTALGIA) is a new interdisciplinary theatre concert in development by RIVA created in close collaboration with the Faroese experimental music group AGGRASOPPAR. The theatre concert is based on AGGRASOPPAR’s upcoming album release with the same title.

The work unfolds in the space between utopia and dystopia, in a speculative realm we call Nústalgia - a protopian world governed not by the past or the future, but by the insistence of the present moment.

In contemporary life, we are constantly pulled forward toward what comes next or backward toward what has already passed. We plan further ahead than ever before, while simultaneously scrolling through digital archives of memories in an attempt to preserve what is gone. Time accelerates, and our ability to remain fully present seems to weaken. In contrast, insects and small creatures have no choice but to exist entirely within the now. They are not nostalgic. They do not anticipate. They respond. From this tension emerged the word Nústalgi - the longing to inhabit the present - and with it, the conceptual foundation for the theatre concert NÚSTALGIA.

In NÚSTALGIA, this shared language takes the form of a theatre concert that deliberately challenges formal expectations associated with both dance performances and live music concerts. The dancers do not accompany the music; nor does the music merely support choreography. Instead, the two forms inhabit and destabilize one another. The work seeks to dismantle rigid genre boundaries and create an immersive experience in which choreography, composition, scenography, costumes, and performative presence are inseparable.