Updates...

After long recess, I have finally managed to update my website. There you'll find some new photos of the recent productions and also some funny video-stuff in the miscellaneous section.

Future looks interesting at the moment.

I'm working currently with a group called bigNOTWENDIKEIT on a project called "Kill your Darlings" which is going to open in the beginning of December in Fabrik Theater, Rote Fabrik, Zürich. Shortly, it's a performance for two actresses on the theme of all kinds of beloved ideas, that never fit anywhere before, wasting things and necessities, etc. I'm very curious how it'll turn out to be and how my darlings will fit in, if at all.

Another cool thing that awaits in the future is "Past is Simulation"-gig for the norwegian HerStay-company in Hong Kong. I should go there in less than three weeks. I'm excited, since I've never been in HK before.

Just before Christmas I will also make a short trip to Finland. I'm going to check out the rehearsals for the new Raatikko-production (and also tend to my dental appointment aughh =# ...)

So, I'll write more about how the things evolve and turn out to be when the time is right. Stay tuned, my friends =)

Elli-velli Karamelli

In September I worked for a new project in Espoo, Finland.

I had been invited by the director Anne Rautiainen, to participate in the production of a puppet theater play in Nukketeatteri Hevosenkenkä. The play is called "Elli-velli Karamelli" and it's based on a story by Kaarina Helakisa, one of the most beloved Finnish childrenbook authors.

In the play we meet little girl called Elli whose best friend is her dog called Heppu. Elli and Heppu live in a big city and have their own special climbing-tree.




Everyday live gets disturbed when factory-owner Herra Hattu, "Mr. Hat", wants to enlarge his factory and therefore climbing-tree would need to be cut down.



But the resourceful little girl wont just take it, but they decide to protest Mr. Hat's undertakings. M'r Hat calls for the fight and engages his factories to produce so much stuff that the children woulnd't even remember trees anymore. But the factories go haywire and out of control and everything gets so polluted that even Mr' Hat don't want it anymore.



Elli and Heppu call out for help and eventually birds from the forest bring them flowers and seeds which help to clean out the city of all the Mr. Hat's pollution and technology. Defeated Mr. Hat flees to faraway lands forgetting to chop down the tree and the citizens of Elli's hometown promise to take better care of the city from now on.



This production was very nice to work with and I was also happy about the new people I got to know through it. The structures and surfaces of Sattva-Hanna Toiviainen's set-design were very organic and inspiring and the puppets by Laura Poranen so natural and expressionful that the whole story just came alive in front of one's very eyes. The actors also sort of blended together with their characters, so the end-product was quite entertaining to even the youngest of the audience, 3-year-olds.

I owe a huge thanks for collaboration also to the technical staff of Hevosenkenkä theater, Anna, Dan and Fanni, who are amazing personalities and resourceful beond your wildest dreams. i sincerely hope I get the chance to work with these guys again in the future!

Sommerferie in Finnland

In the beginning of July I had two-week holiday in Finland with my boyfriend Mitch and Numa, his 15-year-old son. This was the first real freetime in Finland for both of them, so I wanted to show something characteristically Finnish to the boys.

After couple of days in Helsinki we headed to Eastern Finland, to Juva and Savonlinna in Savo region. There we visited my dear friend Joel, who's got a real pretty farm over there. Landscapes are unbelievably rural with strolling cows on the meadows and high blue sky and glistening lakes.

Some of Joel's girls

Joel also has got two saunas by the lake and it was really eccentric experience for the boys to try out the steams of traditional "savu-sauna" -smokesauna. Smokesauna is totally different experience compared to normal one, since the heat is very gentle and moist due to the long heating process during which the smoke actually heats up the sauna room.

The traditional savu-sauna.

By the lake.

I was very happy about our visit to Savonlinna since I had the chance to meet one of my best friends, Anna, who had just arrived from Hong Kong after having spent there nearly a year. We also popped into Olavinlinna, castle in Savonlinna, where I used to work for the Opera Festival for several summers. There we met my old workmates who are still doing the festival.

From Savo we drove back to Southern Finland to visit my friends in Hämeenlinna, Riihimäki and Tampere. All in all the holiday was about the Finnish mentality and frame of mind, landscapes and open water, and various different kinds of sauna and general relaxing...

Setting sun over Vanajavesi, in Hattula county.

Swiss and Finnish.

Graduation at Theatre Academy

I finally got it done!! I got my Masters degree on light design from the Theatre academy of Finland after six years of on-and-off studies.

I could have had it done ways earlier, but I've been busy working, so studies haven't been my major priority. But better late than never.

Here we all are, the graduates of 2008.