MADONNA

On stage – Kaisa Leppänen, Jarkko Niemi, Annika Poijärvi, Tatu Mönttinen, Sara Melleri ja Saara Kotkaniemi.
Director – Sini Pesonen
Writer – Jussi Moila
Music and sound design – Pauli Riikonen and Juho Alajuuma
Choreography – Sonya Lindfors
Lighting and video design – Ina Niemelä
Costume design – Henna-Riikka Taskinen
Set design – Salli Kari and artist Jani Leinonen.

Madonna is a carnivalesque performance about feminism, femininity, motherhood and roles in a nuclear family and in a society.

Premiere 28.10.2015
Lasipalatsi POP-UP –THEATRE Helsinki, Mannerheimintie 22-24
Performance language Finnish

Captures from the Mummonainen projections:

critiques in finnish

Kaikki hyvin kasvimaalla

Performers – Marjo Selin, Sanna Kaisa Sundström and Ina Niemelä Dramatisation – Outi-Maria Takkinen
Director – Sami Nieminen
Choreographer – Marjo Selin
Composer and sound designer – Sanna-Kaisa Sundström
Set designers – Ina Niemelä and Camilla Pentti
Sewing and building – Oona Niemelä
Audience work – Kiti Hakkola and Outi-Maria Takkinen
Production –Vattumadon talo ry/ Outi-Maria Takkinen and Ina Niemelä, Rasa Collective/ Marjo Selin

The production has been supported by the City of Helsinki Cultural Office, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Central Arts Council of Finland and the Wihuri Foundation.

Premiere in STOA 7.9.2016.

www.facebook.com/kasvimaalla

The frog, the dragonfly and the caterpillar live in the vegetable garden. There is light, there are clouds, there is water – and then there’s winter. This production invites children and adults into the vegetable garden as well, so they can play and make music.

The inspiration for this performance is the poetry book All is well in the garden, written by Jukka Itkonen and illustrated by Camilla Pentti (publisher Lasten Keskus, 2014). The play is aimed at preschool-aged children. Join us and celebrate speed and commotion, the power of being little and the miracle of growing!

Lobby Garden in STOA culture centre in Itäkeskus. Grown and built together with Lasten ja nuorten puutarhayhdistys .

Photos – Matti Kurkela, Illustrations – Camilla Pentti

All Is Well In The Garden, Small size days in Annantalo 2017

KIKKA FAN CLUB

On Stage – Pia Andersson
Writing – Laura Gustafsson
Music and sounds – Tuomas Hautala
Directing – Sini Pesonen
Lighting and video desing – Ina Niemelä
Costume design – Tellervo Syrjäkari
Scenography – Tellervo Syrjäkari and Ina Niemelä

Premiere 9.9.2017 at Teatteri Jurkka
Performance language Finnish
#kikkafanclub

Photos – Marko Mäkinen

Kikka Fan Club is a tribute to a childhood’s idol who taught us, the working group, then, and even more so now, about play, joy, and fun. 

Kikka (1964–2005) is a Finnish singer who was at the height of her fame in the early 90’s. Even though her popularity she was also much belittled in media. What we today may interpret more as a joyful performance of female gender, was at her time noted as something obscene and cheap, and she was often reduced as a woman who uses her sexuality in order to attain publicity.

Kikka Fan Club is not a biography. Through Kikka’s character the monologue studies mechanisms of play (in every sense of the word), the inevitability of decay, and person’s freedom to be a multitude of things.

Soundscape composed by Tuomas Hautala is influenced by Kikka’s original songs but also by classical music. Sparkling, anti­ – Aristotelian structure of the performance is inspired by the structure of a symphony – and perhaps a bit by female orgasm.

Kikka Fan Club, Marko Mäkinen (2017)

Synopsis by L. Gustafsson

1. Act

The actress pays homage to Kikka. She talks about playing. We hear a monologue of author Pekka Hiltunen on how he and his boyfriend went to an extra modest Kikka Fan Club meeting in the early 90’s, them and Kikka being the only grown­ups in the place. Kikka dreams of success. At the peak of her success she also has to face contempt, depreciation, and misogyny. On a video the director talks about body image issues and how she idolized Kikka as a child.

A reconstruction of a TV show Kikka attended the time everyone in Finland knew her. The interviewer talks about Kikka’s male fans, who masturbate in her concerts, and finally calls her a slut (although he explains that it’s not him who feels that way, but other people). Kikka defends herself: why couldn’t a woman be both beautiful and talented – why can’t one’s identity be seen in all of its diversity.

In a video the working group perform Kikka inspired dance. Kikka performs her most famous song, then she analyzes the lyrics: not only can they be interpreted as concerning sex, a whole different levels of aging, being a woman, and making a career as a female artist, can be read into the text.

2. Act

On a video the playwright talks about her inability to resist the prevailing beauty standards, and how she wishes, that someone would have told Kikka that it’s OK to be many things at the same time.

An announcement that Kikka has died. Kikka comes to stage older than in the first act. She talks with drag artist Pola Ivanka about the occasion Pola met her the last time. A monologue in which she both excuses and defends her artist persona. She tells that she’s more than the media has claimed her to be. She’s grateful to her fans. A Kikka inspired song that the working group wishes Kikka accepted, maybe would’ve even performed.

Kikka Fan Club, Marko Mäkinen (2017)
critiques in finnish

Aidatut unelmat

Choreography – Sari Palmgren
Sound design – Tuomas Norvio & Esa Mattila
Music – Mikko Perkola, Tuomas Norvio & Esa Mattila
Costume design – Riitta Röpelinen
Lighting design – Ina Niemelä
Performers – Pekka Louhio, Mikko Perkola, Marjukka Savolainen, Pauliina Kyttä & almost 80 volunteers
Production – Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Kanneltalo,
Sari Palmgren

Premiere: 24.8.2017, as a part of the Helsinki Festival.
Back by popular demand with 6 additional performances in August 2018

#aidatutunelmat, #fenceddreams

Aidatut Unelmat trailer, Sari Palmgren (2017)

Photos – Matti Kilponen and Jouni Ihalainen

Aidatut unelmat – making of, Sari Palmgren (2017)