No shoes & lots of music

POSTCARDS FROM REYKJAVÍK

Article published in the UNA Magazine - World Wide Friends (http://wf.is/news/)

Jennifer Bennett - Fotografia: Eugènia Güell Barnils

When we ask her if she remembers any great moment while busking in the street, she says: “When I met you, guys!” We saw Jennifer Bennett for the first time in a corner of Reykjavík’s downtown, playing the flute and accompanying a guitarist. “I’ve come to Iceland to meet people and play music with them”, she told us. Today she hasn’t come with a flute, but with a violin…. and no shoes. “I don’t wear shoes because I like the freedom in my body. Is it okay for you if we sit on the grass? I love nature.” We go to the grass, and she walks calmly, as if she was really feeling the wind -and obviously, feeling the floor. Actually, she really feels everything: “I heard a cello for the first time when I was a child, and it was so moving. I cried a lot. It was really intense for me.” And after that, when she was 8 years old, she learnt playing the cello…and the violin, and the double bass, and the flute. And she keeps pensive because she plays so many instruments that she can’t even remember. But what is even more impressive is that she taught herself. How is that possible being only eight years old? “I watched videos and I used my own imagination” she says smiling. “I made my own way of writing music.” So she just got swept up in passion: she felt like playing, so she learnt for herself how to play. “I like to play what I feel like playing, to be free to express what I feel and excites me in the moment. I just improvise. I’d like to create from the inside and just to dream and do what’s necessary. Sometimes I just like to do nothing. This is my favourite thing” she says laughing. But actually, she has done so many things: she’s not only a busker (she only busks when she feels like doing it), but she also plays in concerts – she has just played in Iceland with the people of Sigur Rós-, and she is recording a CD. “I’m a bit tired, it’s been happening so much!” she says. And she still has so much to do. She is a daydreamer: “I dream when I’m awake”. And what are the dreams like? “Well… fantasy, and colours… then I paint what I dream. I had a dream of a mountain, waking up with music, and there was bubbling water…” and she says this as seeing that happening in her head. Actually, this is how music comes up to her mind. “I’ve always loved butterflies, so when I was a child I composed songs about them.” She also loves the space and the sound of nature… so Iceland is the perfect place, though she is from England. Feeling homesick? “Actually, no. I feel like belonging here, in my heart, like I connect to here.” She has been in Venezuela, Tel Aviv and Italy, and she is going back to England soon. “But I’m planning to come back to Iceland, it’s my favourite.” It will be winter, then. And the floor will be so much colder. How many pairs of shoes do you have? “Just one. They are boots, just in case I’m walking on the snow, or on the hot water…”