Busy busy fun On the Kitchen Table

Here is couple of press photos of my latest undertaking. Photographer is Uupi Tirronen / Kuvaunit. 

I have to admit that I cannot remember when I had as much fun doing a production as this time. The week we had on the actual venue was heavy and tiring, but also very rewarding. It turned out pretty much as me and the choreographer had been discussing all along. 

I hope the fun we had also shows on the outcome. We are hoping to to create a new fusion between the contemporary dance and the music of Mariska. A fusion that would interest wider audiences by combining these two fields. The aesthetical approach lies more along the lines of rock concert than a traditional way of staging dance.

Here's what the choreographer and musician think of the concept:






For getting into the mood:










- Live versions are somewhat more energetic, rock and rough. Come and check it out yourself if you're around in Helsinki this or next week.

ON THE KITCHEN TABLE (event description in Facebook)

Satu Tuomisto’s new choreography sets the table with a feast of fierce dance, flirtatious Finnish tunes, adult games, big hopes and a pile of broken taboos. 

 
The music is composed and performed by ex-rap artist turned grown-up singer-songwriter Mariska, accompanied by her band Pahat Sudet. Four dancers deliver an electric performance with the ever-energetic Mariska and her band. The old factory hall Pannuhalli fills up with dance, music, singing and talking. And at times the silence falls.

The premiere on Sat 22nd Jan will be followed by a unique dance club event. Join in some funky group choreography, let your body do its thing and sample our home-made pancakes! Beats will be provided by legendary Basso radio DJ Selecta Andor. Competitions, surprise performances and more: Don’t miss this one, dance yourself happy! Over 18s only.

Choreography, concept and directing: Satu Tuomisto
Music: Mariska & Pahat Sudet
Performers: Mariska, Luis Herrero, Jaakko Jakku, Klaus Suominen, Satu Elovaara, Elena Ruuskanen, Petri Kauppinen, Teemu Korjuslommi
Light design: Minna Heikkilä
Photos: Marko Rantanen
Production: Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Satu Tuomisto, Mariska & Pahat Sudet

Premiere 22.1.2011 at 7 pm Pannuhalli

Other performances
26.1 at 7 pm
28.1 at 7 pm
29.1 at 7 pm
1.2 at 7 pm

On the Kitchen Table in the Facebook

Sky on fire and other wintry visions

We are rehearsing at Cable Factory in Ruoholahti. Starting in the morning, through the day all the way into the evening. The procession of the day and light behind the windows.

Early  morning and the day outside.

rehearsing

From the windows of the studio we can see over the water to Lauttasaari. Weather has been genuinely wintry and the landscape has shown us many different faces. The sea is finally frozen flat. Mostly it gives you the impression of calmness and space, like everything was sleeping through the cold winter months.

Southern Lauttasaari

Today while watching out of the window, I got the strangest urge to go skiing. This is something that I didn't volunteer to do since I was 13 years old. Somehow the quality of light reminded me of my childhood skiing trips on the frozen lake. I would take hot chocolate and sandwiches with me and ski to an island or somewhere to eat my packed lunch. I usually liked doing this all on my own, the solitude of it was very important to me.

Brrrright light

Yeah, that was something special to me. But then I reached the delicate age of 13 and went to the upper high school. The nazi gym teacher we had killed all the enthusiasm in me. Didn't ski ever since. Strange how the elementary school can kill all the interest in a kid =)

Länsiväylä bridge

Perhaps now, some 23 years later I could consider to take up on my childhood hobby again. The gym teacher is only a vague recollection anymore, so maybe it would be okay?

Sky on fire

Sometimes there is quite spectacular views in the horizon. Sadly the cameras very rarely manage to capture all the splendor of the phenomena. But perhaps you at least get the idea?

Grayish and open daylight

Fiery sky in the evening

Subtlety of coffee

O'joy o'happiness! Tram stop, early morning, temperature app. -10*C, mostly clear skies.

Today

When considering the subtlety of warm latte in a to-go cup in your hand on cold winter morning, I'm seriously lost for words. Pure happiness and definitely worth getting up 20 minutes earlier to prepare it to go.

Mmmmmm.... waiting for number 8

That's all....

Loooooooooots of snow and a cool production

I was reading the online weather forecasts before I came to Finland. I have to say that I was bit worried about it, since the temperature hovered quite steadily somewhere around -25*C, I'd freeze my butt out, brrh. But, luckily the "shit cold" had subsided by the time I got here and it was only somewhat peachy -6*C or so. Lucky me =)

Of snow we have here plenty, though. It's kinda nice, since it is all puffy and fluffy and not wet at all. It started snowing on 6.12, the Independence Day, and by the evening Helsinki region had gained some 50cm thick layer of it, covering everything. Most of it is still around, because nobody bothered / had time to clear it away. Car owners are having major problems because their vehicles are seriously blocked and the city is sending out police to hand out fines for illegal parking instead of shovel teams to help dig the cars out. Fair game...

Pikku-Huopalahti 7.12.2010

The snow kept coming down for the following couple of days. Judging by the visuals, it really is a winter wonderland here now. So pretty, and also comfortable to experience, since it's not so freaking cold just now. I already thought that I don't really care much for winter, but this is nice, I have to admit. Snowflakes are somehow friendly =)

Frosty tree on the inner yard.

I came to Finland to participate on a new dance production. It is called "On the kitchen table" and choreographed by Satu Tuomisto. Live music is by Mariska & Pahat Sudet. The performance will open on January 22nd on the Boiler Plant on Cable Factory, Helsinki, as a part of Zodiak Center for New Dance program.

Our brand new poster! (baaaad quality jpg, will be fixed)

Is this modern dance? -Perhaps, at least until snow covers it.

I'm very thrilled about all of this, since I already did one production for Raatikko with choreographer Tuomisto and greatly enjoyed the experience. This time we get to do something even more rock'n roll. Yeah!

Bicycles by the Cable Factory

I have to say that it is really nice to work with such a team of people that feed your imagination constantly. I cannot ever remember the last time I would have scribbled so many things to my notebook in such a short time. It's just brilliat and I believe the performance will turn out fine too. You should come see! Tickets are available since to day on Lippupavelu. Bring your friends too!!!!

So, it can be stated that I really like being in Finland this time around. Groovy, I even don't mind the winter and wet legwarmers =) And it's so pretty here one can only smile =) =)

Bio waste bin got a new hat on Cable Factory yard.

(Hyper)Active weekend

It all started already on Thursday, when I went to see a play at Theater Academy. "Maallisten ilojen puutarha", directed by my friend Anne Rautiainen, turned out to be very refreshing experience which I enjoyed thoroughly. It was nice to see some real illusions on stage since a long time. Somehow illusions have been banned for a while now and nobody really uses them anymore. Sad. Even if bit kitschy, this post-modern handling managed to deal out strong emotions and beautiful, very visual pictures.

On Friday I popped into a party at Sun Effects to meet some colleagues and hear about some new innovations. It was cool that this party happened to happen just as I was in Helsinki. Managed to meet many people I hadn't seen in the longest time =)

On Saturday afternoon I went to see one of the last rehearsals of a new comedy "Eila, Rampe ja palvattu onni" by Helsinki City Theatre. This was also a positive surprise. Usually I don't think that much of comedies, unless they are really, really precise. The actors were brilliant, those real old warhorses, but the text was the thing that blew me away. The dialect Sinikka Nopola uses and the elasticity the text twists and turns makes it priceless.

After the play we went to have couple of drinks at the cafe next door and little later we got the idea of glow-bowling. I haven't done any kind of bowling since high school, so I was bit dubious about it. All I could remember from that one and only time I tried the sport in the past was, that the ball was too heavy and it refused go anywhere but the gutter. This time it was different. I actually had a blast and didn't suck at it half that much I feared. Cool sport, cool friends, nice cider. Blast!

After the bowling the Helsinki tour continued to a bar called Populus to do some karaoke. I doubt that I'll ever go there again. Far too aggressive and jam-packed for my taste. There is in the same region many others, that are ways friendlier. Not recommended. I did sing couple of songs nonetheless.

Ugly lantern and karaoke screen.

After some 11 hours of cider-sipping and various activities I went home only to continue the following day.

My Sunday started with brunch at cafe Tintin Tango with a friend. At 11.00!!! The night  wasn't so sure I'd manage it. I'm a superwoman, yay! Anyhow, I spent couple of very nice hours with Favela catching up on everything that had passed since the last time we saw each other.

From brunch I continued my journey to "Habitare '10" fair to check out what's new in interior design, light and appliances. In three hours I figured out that this season design's are to my taste bit too boring and old news. The most interesting part of the whole fair was the the section of eco-designs.

Habitare '10

Stripes are popular this season, some of many

Quite pretty eco, made out of PET-bottles

Another sample of ecological design

The organizers had thrown also Art Helsinki expo to the same fair bundle. Compared to Art Basel the collection felt quite humble and pale =)

Art (?) Helsinki '10

For the evening I had got myself invited to Pikku-Markku and Kalle to cook some dinner to them. I sold my idea quite easily by promising to cook my notorious green thai curry =). There was altogether five people dining and the six liters of curry was fast consumed. My worry about loads of leftovers was premature. For the dessert we had again some apple tiramisu, it never fails.

So, it was some weekend, I'll say. On Monday I felt more tired than before the weekend. So much for relaxing time off.

Bears in Helsinki

142 colorful bears have showed up in Helsinki! These United Buddy Bears arrived couple of weeks ago from Kazakstan and collect money for Unicef and other charities. Two-meter-tall statues promote tolerance between the nations and reflect the member countries of UN by standing paw in paw. Each of them is designed by local artist.

Colorful line-up at Senaatintori

Behind the idea stands an artist couple Klaus and Eva Herlitz, from Berlin, Germany, The collection of bears have been put together in 2002 and has been touring the world for past seven years. Exhibition in Helsinki is the 20th. This collection has already managed to raise 1 600 000 euros for child welfare, even though there is no admission. Money is collected out of auctions, that sell the national bear in the end of each exhibition.

Big bears

I think this is a very, very cute and cool idea. All the bears are very different from each other and one can easily spend a long time checking them out. Some of them are somewhat obvious, some really strange, but nonetheless all of them are very interesting. So colorful. And joyful.

Swiss and Finnish bear side by side, what a coincidence =)

Depeche Mode, Helsinki 02.02.2010

Prologue
It's been something like 14 years since I last went to see a really big name in concert, that being Deep Purple on Summum stadium in Grenoble, France. Although I fully enjoyed that, somehow I've missed the big events since. Hmm. Anyway, Depeche Mode is one of my absolutely favorite bands, so it was high time to end the silence.

Some time ago I suddenly remembered that Depeche Mode is gonna play on Hartwall Areena in Helsinki. Once I had finally confirmed my arrival to Finland, it was time to see if I can still land a ticket to this particular event. To my delight there was quite bunch of them on sale in Huuto.net (sort of national Ebay in Finland), so I could even choose.

I got a seat pretty close to the stage -so, with bit of imagination, I could reach out and try to touch Dave =)


The Act
So, how it was in the end...? It was cool. Having never seen the guys live before, it struck me as a quite energetic act, although you can sense that Gahan is not youngest of men anymore. But he gave it his best effort and the audience really bought his show. That was probably the best part of the whole show to see how all of the audience was singing along, clapping and waving their hands to the music. It gave me somehow strange sense of community even though a was sitting in the middle of total strangers.

The sea of raised hands - Personal Jesus.

The tunes were mostly the old faithful ones and included more or less all my favorites also. The band played pretty exactly two hours. The general mixing levels left me wanting bit more precision and the sync was also bit wavering time to time, but then again, it's supposed to be live act and not brain-surgery-level-perfection. Couple of the feed-backs I could have lived without, though. All in all, it was very entertaining experience and some of the melodies really rocked, like "Wrong" and "I Feel You". Some of the slower tempo ballads didn't fit so perfectly into the mix, but they gave nice breathers in between.

Wrong.

It also looked good, albeit not really revolutionary new. The highlight of the set was humongous LED-screen with a half-sphere extension "bubble" in the top-middle. Both live-stream from 7 cameras and pre-designed videos (by Anton Corbijn) were projected to this surface during the show. Read the whole concept on manufacturer XL Video's press release.

They also had four movable trusses, which were sort of arc-shaped and hinged, so with chain-hoists they can be moved both vertically and bent in various angles within one unit. These trusses were equipped with six moving heads each. This you can see from the video clip below. (I'm so sorry about the dreadfully bad sound quality.) I was sitting on the side, so the stereo sound was probably far from perfect for me, but I imagine that the movement of the trusses looked cooler from this angle than from straight front =)

A little sampler of "I feel You"
-just for technical aspects, of course =)

Set list
In Chains
Wrong
Hole To Feed
Walking In My Shoes
It's No Good
A Question Of Time
Precious
World In My Eyes
Insight (sung by Martin)
Home
Miles Away / The Truth Is
Policy Of Truth
In Your Room
I Feel You
Enjoy The Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

Encore #1
Dressed In Black
Stripped
Behind The Wheel
Personal Jesus

Runoja raiteilla - Poetry on tracks

This August Helsinki public transportation took part to Helsinki Juhlaviikot already for the third time. Company had placed again little yellow posters with poems on the trams and metros. This is something that I find amusing and sometimes really uplifting when homebound after a long working day.

The campaing is called "Runoja raiteilla" aka "Poetry on tracks". From these little posters one can read small glimpses on everyday life and writers' dreams.

Here are couple of my personal favorites, unfortunately only in Finnish.

=).

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.