Anna E. Karvonen – research, singing, violin, production Milla Viljamaa – composing, piano, harmonium, singing, coding Elsa Saisio – dramaturge, directing, singing, monologues Ina Niemelä – space, lighting and projection design Satu Riikonen – costume design Ville Liukkonen – studio recoding and live sound
Song texts – Marja-Leena Mikkola, Pirkko Saisio, Kanerva Pasanen, Inka Nousiainen, Mercedes Bentso and Trad.
Supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation, Yhteishyvä, Music Theatre Kapsäkki
Premiere 8.2.2019 at Music Theatre Kapsäkki Duration 2 hours with intermission Performance language Finnish
The theatrical concert is a time travel in 101 years into the lives of women in Helsinki. Monologues, pictures from photo archives: Helsinki City Museum andFinnish Wartime Photograph Archive, new and old folk songs form an emotional and rich documental journey where stories of different generations connect. Today’s artists bring the voices of women to be heard and remembered.
The performance combines music, dance and physical theatre in the form of traditional, composed and improvised sound and movement. The base for the performance is the tradition of lamentation in Karelia and Middle East.
Emmi Kuittinen – vocals, stories, accordion Marouf Majidi – vocals, stories, tanbour, tar Amanda Kauranne – vocals, percussion Esko Grundström – double bass, fiddle, kantele, sound design Suvi Tuominen – dance, choreography Johannes Purovaara – dance, choreography Ina Niemelä – lighting design
Space: Hanna Ryti – convener, director and writer Ina Niemelä – lighting and video design, animations Anne Karttunen – set and space design, building Heini Maaranen – set and space design, building Julia Lappalainen – writer and actor Kimmo Siren – building Petra Hakkarainen – set design intern Marja Uusitalo – knitting Oona Niemelä – sewing and light help Veera Vienola – production intern
Revolution! is a theatrical installation with very few rules (please take off your shoes and take care of your friend!) One is free to touch, experience and play with the signs of power and empowerment. Take your space between a giant and soft wobbly bits or sit on a tongue in front of words.
The working group interviewed 12 six-year-olds to ask how do they understand power, and if they had it what would they do with it. The answers were concrete and we took that seriously. Hands – represent the power of muscles and violence, closeness and greatness. Eyes – the power of overlooking, seeing and judging. Also the magnificent power of an approving gaze was in our minds. Ears – listening or shutting out, trust and secrets. One enters to the space through a giant mouth – that is the gate for words. But the entrance goes inside a person, where the words are secondary.
If the first room is the room of body parts, the second room is the children playground in the world of wealth and power, where one can swim in a pool of candy wrappers, build a castle of soft golden coins and diamonds, draw the walls and make a mark. However all this is overlooked by fearful looking clay faces.
Power, responsibility and caring has been re-evaluated among the working group as we contemplated our own attitudes towards children, and how our own childhood experiences have shaped and are shaping our perspectives. In the world of children the line between arbitrary adult rules and structured life that creates the feeling of security is thin and fluid.
Choreography – Jenni-Elina von Bagh & performers Performers – Jenna Broas, Karoliina Kauhanen, Anni Koskinen, Outi Markkula, Pinja Poropudas Costume design and bacterial cellulose – Ingvill Fossheim Lighting design – Ina Niemelä Stage design and videos – Fabian Nyberg Sound design – Tom Lönnqvist Dramaturge – Otto Sandqvist Photos – Katri Naukkarinen Video documentation – Teemu Kyytinen Production – Zodiak – Centre for New Dance, Jenni-Elina von Bagh
Supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundatin, Norsk- Finsk Kulturfond, RadArt Marked, CHEMARTS, Aalto studios
With thanks to Gary Numan for the use of Tubeway Army´s ”I nearly married a human”
Premiere 18.10.2018 at Zodiak Stage Duration 60 min Performance language English
What is a post-human human being? What does it mean to let go of anthropocentrism? The world is breaking before our very eyes, but what is this inevitable state of change?
Posthumandays by choreographer Jenni-Elina von Bagh
and her workgroup is an ambitious and impossible attempt to bring a
topical philosophical notion of ‘post-human’ into the stage context.
Posthumandays explores questions
relating to a breaking of categories such as subject/object,
nature/culture, human/non-human and life/death. It assumes a form of
embodied, choreographed question articulated by five young female
dancers.
Posthumandays does not want to
convey or represent anything. It wants to open an artistic platform for
dissident thought. It admits to being awkward, emotional and melancholy
while remaining superficial.
Photos – Katri Naukkarinen
The performance is based on a topical philosophic writing; it is the moment of translation between philosophical discourse and stage action. It plays side by side with works such as Rosi Braidotti‘s Posthuman (2013)and Donna Haraway‘s Cyborg Manifesto (1984). As a performance, Posthumandays is a network-based hybrid. It proves that the notion of post-human is already here.
In her recent works, von Bagh has explored questions
of a state of dislocation on the stage and the performance as an event
that does not fit neatly into any known category.
Von Bagh combines the body, the language and the action on stage into compositional textures where no element assumes a superior position in relation to the others. Simultaneously with this, she operates in the dynamic flow between different expressive registers, allowing the comic and the tragic to intertwine in radical, sometimes bewildering ways. (www.zodiak.fi)
