FINNISH DANCE IN FOCUS 2016–2017
What is the mould that we’re raised to conform to? Instead of acquiescing, should we question everything?
TIED TO ITS TIME The opening night of SEE | OBEY in the fall of 2015 happened to be at a moment that shocked the world. The day before the premiere there was a massive suicide attack in Paris in which a great number of innocent people died. A section of the text
for the piece begins with an actor describing a patient of Jung’s who was afraid to go to Paris, and died as soon as he arrived there. The work also spoke of bombs, fear of flying, and death. That same fall, floods of refugees were growing uncontrollably and masses of people were packed into refugee centers around Europe, in an atmosphere strained by a fear of terrorism. The performance began with a film by Jouka Valkama that ended with the texts: Do you hear the bomb’s explosion and Death will come before the credits. “During the creation stage, we couldn’t have imagined how closely our material would track with reality, because we worked on it slowly, in collaboration with composer Kasperi Laine. I’ve learned that it takes time for the right decisions to come to fruition.” MORE KINDNESS Lightness, a gentler take on the movement material, and even humor are new flavors in Leinonen’s signature choreographic style. “I’m trying to be less my own worst enemy. I used to reject ideas immediately, in the rehearsal phase, even when they might have grown into something with patience. Now I don’t want to be in such safe waters, I want to let ideas bloom. I haven’t lost my ambition, but my compulsiveness has eased up.”