Stretch Turku is proud to collaborate with local dance companies, venues and independent artists, who have put together a performance programme that shows off the diverse dance scene of Turku and Western Finland.
Discounted tickets for Stretch participants will be available during the sign-ups in September. Be sure to book your tickets as some venues have very limited capacity!
Stretch is collaborating with the international performance and live art festival New Performance Turku, which will take place on 18-20th of October. Their programme is free of charge and open to everyone, on a first come, first served -basis. See the programme here.
In alphabetical order:
AB Dance Company: Time of My Life
Fri 18th and Sat 19th / Manilla-theatre
AB Dance Company’s brand new dance production travels back in time to the chequered 1980’s. Time of My Life takes spectators for a ride through sparkling dance floors and flashes reminiscents from the heat and passion of 80’s blockbuster Dirty Dancing.
Apart from iconic features of the era like Moonwalk and Miami Vice, Time of My Life reflects what went on in Finland, a small country passing through enormous economical boom and living big for the first time. A performance with six dancers connects the past and the present into an intriguing dialogue. Above all, Time of My Life reaches longing for love beyond time and space.
Director: Sanna Silvennoinen / Choreography: working group / Dance: Linda Björkqvist, Mikko Kaikkonen, Päivi Kujansuu, Urmas Poolamets, Elina Raiskinmäki and Patrick Di Quirico / Costume design: Nina Paakkunainen / Light design: Juho Rahijärvi / Scenography: Nina Paakkunainen and Juho Rahijärvi / Sound design: Konsta Savolainen / Premiere: 5.9.2019 at Manifesti Factory Festival
AB Dance Company
AB Dance Company: A Real Prince
Wed 16th / Manilla-theatre
A Real Prince is a dance performance about friendship, play and social skills. In this whimsical dance-theatre piece for the whole family our main character Mette is searching for a soul mate to share the happy as well as the sad moments.
The performance is inspired by the famous literary fairy tale The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen. In this new take on an old tale by AB – Dance Company and JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre the audience in the theatre finds themselves in the middle of a topsy-turvy Play Date where new friendship candidates are tested with increasingly dotty assignments.
Mette is quite a character so you better put your best foot forward or you might risk missing the boat altogether. But are her expectations so sky-high that all the contenders are due to fail? Will our three princes win her over?
Choreography, concept and sound design: Jaakko Toivonen and Kinga László / Dance: AB – Dance Company’s dancers / Scenography and illustration: Peetu Pasanen / Costume design: Marjo Haapasalo / Light design: Lauri Jeffrey / Production: AB – Dance Company and JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre / Age recommendation: +4 years / Premiere: 2.3.2019
Trailer [Vimeo]
AB Dance Company
Dance Theatre ERI: Gaalat ERI30
Fri 18th and Sat 19th / Dance Theatre ERI
The glamorous Gala evenings celebrate ERI’s anniversary by presenting highlights from the repertory throughout the years. Humour and solemnity meet during the Galas, where a range of guest artists participate, along with the ERI dancers. The impressive, high-class dance performances are accompanied by stories born during ERI’s lifetime. The Gala evening is hosted by Tiina Lindfors.
The second part of the Gala Evening is dedicated to the first performance of Tiina Lindfors’s choreography Seita; a rhythmic, pulsating new creation which challenges the ensemble’s technical skills as interpreters of a fascinating and demanding choreography. The music is Kalevi Aho’s enchanting percussion concert Sieidi. Sieidi is the Sámi word for Seita, a place of sacrifice out in nature. In the Sámi shamanism, Sieidi can be a huge stone or a sacred well.
Premiere: 4.10.2019
Dance Theatre ERI
Fern Orchestra: Vox Herbārium – Plant Series IV
Wed 16th, Thu 17th and Sun 20th / Ruissalo Botanical garden
Herbarium aims for a collection that retains samples of plants for taxonomic classification. How do plants sound when they are touched? Information transmitted by the sensors attached to the plants is converted to sound. Vox Herbārium verifies the senses of the plants by collecting the information they transmit and transforming it into a stage-like form where the dancer´s kinesthetic intelligence is combined with the song of plants. The Audio Herbarium provides an audible and visible observation surface that will not be obtained from dried and flattened plants. Do we dare to reach out to the fifth dimension, which we do not yet understand, where time and space are overcome by a connection that may be small and snuggled?
Fern Orchestra is a bilingual, multifaceted multi-art group that has studied subjects such as photosynthesis, closed biosphere and the senses of plants in their works. Plants and micro-organisms operate as the orchestra’s intruments while the works include performance art, contemporary dance, publications and light and sound art. Fern Orchestra’s works highlight the relationship between humans, light and nature.
Working group: Vespa Laine, Markus Heino, Janne Kilpiö, Maileena Vaajoensuu, Titta Kotilainen / Natural Resources Institute Finland / Premiere: October 2019
Fern Orchestra
Maria Nurmela: Closer to the Wild Heart
Thu 17th / A secret underground location, to which the audience will be led by a staff member. Meeting place: inner yard of Manilla Quarters.
Closer to the Wild Heart received its name from the novel Near to the Wild Heart by a Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, without being a reconstruction of it. Lispector’s existential prose has served as the initial spark for the crew; for their working methods as well as for their expressive and aesthetic aims. Inspired by Lispector, the crew sought out to create a dramaturgical and visual language – relentless minimalism and pure, infinite aesthetics. The crew also aimed to detach the work from the theatrical apparatus and illusion, in order to achieve a certain honesty. All design elements are built on an sustainable operating system that is powered from a standard household power-outlet.
The solo performance draws a portrait of a woman between reality and fiction. The work examines the themes of invisibility and self-reinvention. As an installation-like performance, it consists of fleeting moments that begin and end without claims of finality.
Concept/choreography: Maria Nurmela / Set/light design: Kalle Ropponen / Sound: Jaakko Vastapuu / Mentoring: Liisa Pentti, Tarja Härkönen (about Clarice Lispector) / Production: Maria Nurmela / Co-production: Manifesti Factory Festival 2016 / Katja Lehmussaari / Premiere: 16.9.2016
Teaser [Vimeo]
Maria Nurmela
New Performance Turku Festival
Fri 18th – Sun 20th
Stretch Turku collaborates with the international performance and live art festival New Performance Turku that takes place on 18-20th of October. The festival has no admission fees and is open for everyone (first come first served). Evening performances will take place in the Manilla Quarters, which is also the main evening venue of Stretch.
The theme of the New Performance Turku Festival 2019 is FUTURES. What kinds of new futures can we envision, dream and imagine as our worldview is currently in a dramatic process of evolving and changing? The festival aims in looking at multiple futures from the point of view of performance art – and what kind of means and visions we have to understand and create our possible futures. Artists include Leyya Mona Tawil (PLE/SY/USA), Nathalie Mba Bikoro (DE/GA), Wathiq Al-Ameri & Ali Al-Fatlawi (CH/IQ), Nathalie Stirnimann & Stefan Stojanovic (CH/CS), Tiia Kasurinen (FI) and Niko Hallikainen (FI).
See the full programme and schedule here
Nina Renvall & Jouni Järvenpää: Chasing Butterflies in Unequal Time
Thu 17th (double-bill with KÅNKEN phase 3 #Coincidences) and Fri 18th / Barker-theatre
Chasing Butterflies in Unequal Time radiates joy of finding and all-encompassing, movement-oriented decision making. The dance shows thinking as a bodily discussion about the topics and themes brought up by live situations. Chasing Butterflies in Unequal Time considers the abstract themes and motifs as rare butterflies, in which one must concentrate wholly to have a chance of catching them.
Choreography and dance: Nina Renvall ja Jouni Järvenpää / Production: Barker-theatre / Premiere: 3.10.2019
Barker-theatre
Jouni Järvenpää is a dance maker. He graduated at 2002 in Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten’s School for New Dance Development. Nina Renvall is a choreographer and a dancer. She studied dance in London Contemporary Dance School 1986-89.
Pori Dance Company: ROOM
Thu 17th (double-bill) / Manilla-theatre
ROOM to let go.
ROOM, that we let fill ourselves.
ROOM in us.
ROOM between us.
Choreography: Johanna Nuutinen / Choreographers assistant: Anni Koskinen / Dance: Meri Tankka, Riikka Tankka / Light design: Erno Aaltonen / Sound design: Joonas Pehrsson / Costume design: Johanna Nuutinen, Erika Turunen / Costume implementation: Raila Rautiainen / Premiere: 20.11.2017
Teaser [Vimeo]
Pori Dance Company
Pori Dance Company: LAPSE
Thu 17th (double-bill) / Manilla-theatre
”There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley
Lapse dives in between the layers of awareness and challenges the concept of the mind as an undivided entity by looking into to boundaries of the human and natural environment. Lapse is inspired and led by the texts from The Art Of Meditation by British philosopher Alan Watts.
Choreography & dance: Mikko Lampinen / Texts: Alan Watts / Sound design: Kristian Merilahti / Music: Kristian Merilahti, Colin Stetson / Light design: Anssi Ruotanen / Visual design: Sensus Pool Project, Mikko Lampinen / Costume implementation: Seija Raunio / Premiere: 24.2.2018
Teaser [Vimeo]
Pori Dance Company
Rea-Liina Brunou & Anna Mustonen: Noidankutu
Sat 19th and Sun 20th / Kutomo
Noidankutu is a project where dance artists Rea-Liina Brunou and Anna Mustonen work together with their children. Their aim is to create ways of working and performative situations where both adults and children could spend time together effortlessly. They wish to combine all the energy, astonishment, frustration and love the children have to all the exhaustion, astonishment, frustration and love the parents feel.
Premiere: 19.10.2019 / The premiere will be followed by a post-performance discussion.
The performance is suitable for audiences of all ages.
Ehkä-production / Contemporary art space Kutomo
Anna Mustonen works as a choreographer, dancer, dance teacher and yoga teacher. Her works have recently been seen in Helsinki at Zodiak Centre of New Dance and in Turku at Kutomo. Anna Mustonen and harpsichordist Marianna Henriksson were awarded the 2018 Finnish State Prize for Performing Arts for their collaborative work. Rea-Liina Brunou is a dance artist working as a choreographer and dancer. Her latest work was a sound installation Erotic Breathing Exercise (2019), that imagined an erotic connection between a human subject and a personified oxygen molecule. She runs a small gallery space in Kolari, Lapland, and has been working as a dancer in Helsinki based Liisa Pentti + Co since 2012.
Riikka Kosola: XXYZ (demo presentation)
Fri 18th (double-bill with Household Dance Protocol) / Venue: Turku City Theatre
“When given a chance, DNA organizes itself into harmonic symmetric series”
XXYZ is a mathematical dance piece that focuses on the concept of space and the symbiotic relationship of mathematics and dance. The dance piece portrays the journey of human chromosomes from unicellular to multi-dimensional functioning organisms. XXYZ uses CV-technology to track and transform the organic movement into equations and projections, that in turn show up as pixels, colours and forms of visual reality.
Concept: Riikka Kosola / Sceno-choreography: Riikka Kosola, Artturi Elovirta, Amita Kilumanga / Dancers: Riikka Kosola, Emmi Pennanen, Eikka Alatalo / Production: Kustavi Korps, Riikka Kosola, Markus Kaustell / Premiere: 15.11.2019 / Instagram
Sandrina Lindgren: Household Dance Protocol (demo presentation)
Fri 18th (double-bill with XXYZ) / Venue: Turku City Theatre
Household Dance Protocol (HDP) is using dance to understand the nature of everyday movement and everyday movement to understand the nature of dance. The project, centered around the collaboration between choreographer Sandrina Lindgren and composer Antti Tolvi, combines contemporary dance and music improvisation, household work and somatic movement approaches. Since 2017 HDP has produced workshops, podcasts and artistic works. In 2019 the project staged the performance Requiem for vacuum cleaning at Barker-theatre in Turku that featured 4 dancers, an amateur choir and 16 vacuum cleaners. The HDP project is produced by Grus Grus Theatre.
The demo presentation is an introduction to the multifaceted project and its activities during the recent 3 years, including a short demonstration of the vacuum cleaner yoga workshop that was developed as a part of HDP in 2018.
On stage: Sandrina Lindgren, Antti Tolvi / Uniforms: Pia Bartsch
SweetDreams Kollektiv: KÅNKEN phase 3 #Coincidences
Wed 16th and Thu 17th (double-bill with Chasing Butterflies in Unequal Time) / Barker-theatre
“It’s all about coincidences, all things happen just by accident, it’s all uncertain, and oh, in all chaos ….you die anyway.” – SweetDreams Kollektiv.
This is the third and last phase from the series KÅNKEN, in which SweetDreams Kollektiv explores the contents of time, space, life and age.
With KÅNKEN phase 3 #Coincidences we present an earthy, at times poignant, kind of rough, but also sensitive duet about the power of people, the sense of time and the reality of life. The significant age difference of 30 years in between the dancers gives this piece and extra flavor.
Concept & choreography: SweetDreams Kollektiv / Dance: Linda Björkqvist & Marjan Raar / Sound and composition: SweetDreams Kollektiv / Light design and technology: Antton Kainulainen / Sound edit: Linda Björkqvist / Video and web: Marjan Raar / Premiere: 14.10.2019
Barker-theatre
Marjan Raar is a Dutch dancer and choreographer living in Finland with over 30 years of dance career behind her. She has been working as a freelancer and presented her work in Finland and other countries. She is one of the founders of Barker-theatre. Linda Björkqvist had her education at the Ballet Academy in Stockholm and works now as a freelance dancer and choreographer in Finland. She works with Marjan since 2014, and at the moment she also dances in AB Dance Company.