A Prologue

Posted on by Ina

Choreography, performance – Jenni-Elina von Bagh
Scenography – Ingvill Fossheim
Lighting design – Ina Niemelä
Sound design and composition – Tom Lönnqvist
Realization of the sound in collaboration with Johannes Vartola 
Dramaturge – Otto Sandqvist
Corporeal assistant – Virpi Nieminen
Residencies – Kutomo, Ehkä-tuotanto, Teisko-radicalisation 
Production – Zodiak, Jenni-Elina von Bagh

Premiere at the Zodiak Stage 25.2.2020

Duration 50min

Performance language English

Jenni-Elina von Bagh’s solo performance A Prologue explores the relationship of the multi-layered body and the about-to-happen, the unknown. It probes what it feels like to live in this time, how the present confusion and the state of the world are connected to art, dance, our bodies and our senses. What is the moment right before the moment?

A Prologue is a site of dynamic flows that seek release from the habitual patterns of the mind and from reactive behaviours. It surrenders to expressive dimensions, where also laughter is an attractive possibility. In its wider frame of reference it is inspired by philosophical thinking that argues that the power of life permeates life, death, human and non-human.

The performance explores borderlines and gaps, regarding the subject as something constantly changing and transforming, connected to both the present and the past. A Prologue is also a dialogue between two professional identities: that of the performer and that of the choreographer. (www.zodiak.fi)

Photos Katri Naukkarinen

Melting Lines, Ina Niemelä (2020)
Turned pine tree and silicone coated LED lights

Teos tunnustelee sitä miltä tuntuu elää tässä ajassa ja samalla antautua elämänvoiman kysymykselle. Mitä elämän voima on? Miten sen lävistää ihmisen ulottuen tulemisen tapahtumalle, joka myös ylittää ihmisen.

Olemme työryhmänä käsitelleet erityisesti Henri Bergsonin filosofista käsitettä elan vital. Käsitteen uudellen käännös voisi olla meidän ajassamme näyttämöllisten komponenttien törmäys ja taitos kohti laajempaa posthumanistista maisemaa ja mahdollisuutta uusien reittien luomiselle.

Soolona teos tunnustelee yhden esiintyjän ruumiin, tietyn historian ja kokemusavaruuden omaavaa komponenttia. Se leikittelee eri tendensseillä ja rooleilla, jotka puristuvat ja avautuvat tästä ulottuvuudesta kohti näyttämötapahtumaa. – Jenni-Elina von Bagh

Borderlines and gaps. Life, death, human, non-human. Material explored stenographically include fossilized traces of ancient worms, repurposed human hair and medical implants, plastics and rubber, glass and sand and soil, salvaged wood and metal. The colored textiles, hair, string and wood are dyed with bio based colourants, involving processes of fermentation and microbial interference. –Ingvill Fossheim

“Kun yhteiskunta ajautuu kriisivaiheeseen tai lähestyy romahdusta, mahdollisuuksien horisontti avautuu. Sitä on kuitenkin vaikea erottaa, ja siihen rajautuvaa maastoa on vaikea kuvailla ja kartoittaa. Mahdollisuuksien horisonttia voidaan luonnehtia parhaiten lainaamalla Ignacio Blancon määritelmää tiedostamattomasta: “Tiedostamaton on tekemisissä rajattomien tapahtumasarjojen kanssa, joiden voima ei kumpua vain laskelmoitavuudesta vaan myös jatkumoista.” 11 Semiootisen sfäärin räjähdys ja semiootisen simulaation läpikotainen voimistuminen ovat yhtäältä laajentaneet mahdollisuuksien horisonttia ja toisaalta ajaneet yhteiskunnallisen hermojärjestelmän paniikkiin. Järki ei kykene paniikin vallitessa hallitsemaan tapahtumien virtauksia ja käsittelemään infosfääriin leviävää semiostimulaatiota. Skitsofrenia on läpäissyt yhteiskunnallisen mielen. Sen aiheuttama ahdinko on kuitenkin kaksiteräistä: se on kivuliaalla tavalla kaoottista, mutta samalla se on mahdollista ymmärtää myös värähtelyksi, joka ennakoi uuden älyllisen  rytmin löytymistä.”
Mahdollinen tulevaisuus ja voimattomuuden aika, Franco “Bifo” Berardi (Tutkijaliitto 2019), s. 31

11 Ignacio Matte Blanco, The Unconscious as Infite Sets: An Essay in Bi-logic (1975), s. 17
A Prologuen  valo saa rytminsä mm. tästä Franco “Bifo” Berardin lainauksesta. Valosuunnittelu koostuu pääosin transrationaalisista käännöksistä: tekstistä, äänistä ja nauhoituksista valoksi. Käännökset on toteutettu yksinkertaisella dataprosessoinnilla ja signaalinmuunnoksilla hyödyntäen “graafisen” valosuunnittelun mahdollisuuksia. – Ina Niemelä

“What is the atonal composition of time wa can’t see? Does electricity respond to it? ” – Tom Lönnqvist

critiques in finnish and swedish

Posthuman days

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https://posthumandays.info

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

Link to full-length video here. Pw: post2018human

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?

Posthuman days 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.

Posthuman days 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.

Posthuman days 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, Posthuman days 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)

critiques in finnish and swedish

Satubaletti

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Choreography & Direction – Tomi Paasonen
Dance – Satu Rekola
Costumes and set design – Gabriel Walsh
Sound design – Tuuli Kyttälä
Lighting design – Ina Niemelä
Production – Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Tomi Paasonen & Satu Rekola
Residencies: ITAK (Kuopio); Dock 11 (Berlin)

Duration 70–75 min
Performance language Finnish

Once upon a time there was a fairy tale… which was partly true.

This Fairy Tale Ballet is a danced monologue, shaped through dialogue, personal chemistry and the creative back-and-forth between choreographer Tomi Paasonen and dancer Satu Rekola.

The performance jumbles together the performer’s identities, autobiographical narration and the choreographer’s fictive imagination, resulting in a playful, light-hearted and at times daft performance.

Satu Rekola plays a hostess who guides the audience through the themes and the structures of the piece.

What kinds of issues, relating to intellectual property arise, when Rekola dances through her curriculum vitae? Can movement be owned?  The choreographies imprinted in her muscle memory bring out key stages of contemporary dance in Finland from the last 20 years. What kind of somatic or art-political themes do these references evoke in the mind and body of the dancer?

Between the lines of the dance historical discourses, she gets carried away by her alter egos and plunges into various characters of her fairy tale. The only rules that are relevant in art at any given moment are the ones that the artists themselves find interesting. Is it possible to create art without any invented rules? And what do those rules tell us about our values? How does creativity turn into conventions, habits and legends? (www.zodiak.fi)

critiques in finnish

Aidatut unelmat

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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)