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Situation Room
| Choreographer |
Karttunen, Jyrki |
| First Performance | 11.4.2008 |
| Finnish premiere | 11.4.2008 |
| Style | Contemporary Dance |
| Duration (min) | 70 |
| Scenography | Kimmo Karjunen |
| Costume designer | Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila |
| Lighting Designer | Kimmo Karjunen |
| Sound designer | Tuomas Fränti |
| Description |
"My previous work My Imaginary Friend Is With Me and the artistic Catch-22 situation that I dealt with left me with the thought that of all the creative components that comprise a work on the stage, the most important is perhaps that they exist and happen in the moment, now...now...and still now. So yet again, nothing that can be seen on the stage in this work relates in any way to society or other contemporary issues. The content of this work is how it is performed. Instead of this, the broader significance of my works is hopefully the fact that they remind us that this material world and we who live in it are in the midst of something unfinished. Existence is an opportunity. As dance expression is abstract and non-verbal, it seems that in principle anything can mean anything, depending really only on the way it is performed and interpreted. The same can also probably be said of existence. Perhaps the question of why we exist is also in the end a matter of "how" rather than "what". Looking from the outside the most characteristic feature of this work is perhaps the abstract source and undefined impulses of the material, and their ongoing journeying towards something concrete, understandable and familiar to everyone. Or not, as the case may be. In making this work I have allowed the possibility of the kind of concept that as dancers we can not only highlight the present moment (future history), but also orientate towards different levels of our own or shared knowledge that is stored in our bodies. This knowledge is recognisable as dance, or something that we usually call behaviour. Something that we constantly create to share with each other, because consciousness of this perhaps subconscious history keeps us together and belonging to some continuum in stage expression just as in real life. It is wonderful to understand that all of us, you and me, or anyone at all, could in a way also be someone else. But in our behaviour and in creating the history of the future right at this moment we luckily have some direction, role or task to perform. In the spirit of absurd dance theatre, however, I have actually occasionally imagined in this current work that we have not yet assumed such permanent roles. Jyrki Karttunen 8.4.2008" |
| Other Information |
Photos and graphic design: Marko Mäkinen Production by Satu Immonen/Karttunen Kollektiv, Zodiak - Center for New Dance, Stoa the Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki. |
| Companies |
Karttunen Kollektiv Zodiak - The Center for New Dance |
| Dancers |
Halonen, Joona (2008) Hiekkaranta, Anne (2008) Karttunen, Jyrki (2008) Mäkinen, Mirva (2008) Priha, Linda (2008) Vesterinen, Eero (2008) |