Bjork

When Joel Grey flew to Sweden last year to prerecord his musical number for Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark," the actor expected to report to a high-tech studio in Stockholm. Instead, he found himself in a small hotel room in a remote part of the country where the film was shooting, sharing a microphone with the film's elfin star and composer, Icelandic pop singer Bjork. "My foot was in the shower," Grey recalls, laughing. "Lars put some earphones on me. Do you hear me?

You wouldn't expect Iceland's eccentric diva to star in and write the score for any old movie, and Lars von Trier's bizarre musical "Dancer in the Dark" is definitely unconventional. Emotionally, it is a classic tale of overcoming the odds, but parts can be excruciating to watch. Happily, the six Bjork songs that combine with the orchestral overture to form this soundtrack album (due in stores Sept. 19) represent the movie's most uplifting parts, for both her character and the audience.

It's been a miserable summer in the city--cold, rainy--but for techno-pop chanteuse Bjork, who has spent most of it in the city, it's been delightful. After all, she is from chilly Iceland, which to most Americans might as well be the moon. Even far-flung places have their exports, however.

"Dancer in the Dark," a film whose back story was at least as interesting as what appeared on screen, was the predictable winner of the Palme d'Or at the 53rd Festival International du Film awards program Sunday night. As Danish director Lars von Trier, who won the Grand Jury Prize here for "Breaking the Waves" in 1997, noted in his thank-you speech, this festival has always been good to him, inviting six of his films to participate.

After an opening week that inspired indifference more than passion, the Festival International du Film has finally gotten people talking. Creating excitement are a director reinvestigating his past, an actor disappearing inside a part and, as always, Lars von Trier. Driving from Denmark in his vintage motor home, which he parks behind the Palais and in the lot of the luxurious Hotel du Cap, the flying-phobic Von Trier is the festival's designated enfant terrible.

Billie Holiday and George Michael are not exactly names that resonate with eachother. But there is a surprisingly strong link between the two, and her name is Corky Hale. In 1957, Hale was Holiday's piano accompanist. Last year, she performed "I Remember You" as a duo on Michael's "Songs of the Last Century" album and accompanied him on an Albert Hall concert that also included Boy George and Elton John.

Eccentric alternative-pop singer Bjork rose from Iceland's untrammeled musical ground to become a genre unto herself--a star of her own passionate, provocative, seductive one-woman show. At the sold-out Hollywood Palladium on Saturday, the singer swirled club-kid culture, experimental jazz, anarchic punk, diva-centric dance and howling blues into one intoxicating and sophisticated cocoon.

Are we done with the Spice Girls? Get ready for the Ice Girl. As in Bjork, the Icelandic singer who has scaled the slopes of credibility at a remarkable rate, going from an endearing but inessential oddball to perhaps the dominant diva in the modern-rock field over the course of three solo albums. It seems hard lately to find a published interview with any artist of note who doesn't mention Bjork as an object of admiration.

Bjork recorded her third solo album in Spain, but the Icelander didn't let anything Mediterranean leak in. "Homogenic" is a pure issue of Nordic nature--an imperative she acknowledges in the opening "Hunter," singing, "I thought I could organize freedom/How Scandinavian of me." The way she shapes that couplet, extending the syllables of the second line without losing momentum or power, demonstrates Bjork's ability to hit emotional targets with eccentric instinctiveness.

Bjork has been tagged as an offbeat diva-from-another-planet, a dubious distinction that trivializes the seriousness of her innovations. The Icelander has managed to meld the dual universes of alternative pop and dance with aplomb, recognizing early on that the airwaves might someday tick with the moody trip-hop machinations of artists such as Tricky.