By Rebecca Brando
The iconic 56-year-old Icelandic artist and performer known as Björk performed to a sold-out crowd at the the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium on January 29th. The "Cornucopia" concert marked her first US performance in three years.
Her elaborate two-hour show, first began in 2019 and was molded around her 2017 record Utopia. The tour ended up going on hiatus during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we took our seats, projections resembling the work of Georgia O’Keeffe were cast onto the stage projections alternated between sea coral forms and root systems.
Cornucopia opened with a stirring 10-minute invocation by the 18-piece Los Angeles choir Tonality; which drew from Greta Thunberg’s speech at the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth / How dare you!”
The songs featured electronics, percussion, harp, the Icelandic flute septet Viibra, and the occasional water bowl. On a two-stair stage behind her stood a harpist, and a group of flutists playing a large four-way flute ring, which was lowered around Björk from the ceiling during “Body Memory.” The show also carried out indigenous vibes with the percussionist using falling water while striking floating bowls with a mallet known as the cataquí or “water drum.”
