Today, Tomorrow, and the Tales from the Wind
Tianjun Li (Timjune)
Today, Tomorrow, and the Tales from the Wind is an ongoing photography and sound exploration of human-nature co-existence, interpreted through an imaginative dialogue by reconstructing photos and sounds from the Nordic regions and East Asia. Together with sound and vocal experiments, photography is expanded as a synesthetic performative medium.
Responding to the questionable concept of the Nordics as a “Utopia” of human-nature co-existence, these images and sounds serve as visual metaphors, combining natural and artificial elements to reimagine a fragile utopia — a fable for tomorrow — reflecting on the current human-nature co-existence challenges.
Tianjun Li (b. 1999, China), also known as Timjune, is a Helsinki-based interdisciplinary artist with a primary focus on photography, sound, voice, and performance, currently pursuing an MA degree in Visual Cultures. Curating, and Contemporary Art at Aalto University.
Timjune’s works explore alternative narratives of the human-nature relationship within contemporary phenomena. Through reconstructing image, sound, and his vocal experiments, he expends photographic art into multi-sensory installation and performance, re-imagining surreal, fable-like utopias rooted in harsh realities, illuminating parallel trajectories between individuals and communities and the ever-changing natural environment in the Anthropocene era.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Tuesday 13.08 08:00—20:00
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Lobby
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12h 0min
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No dialogue
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Wednesday 14.08 08:00—22:00
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Lobby
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14h 0min
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No dialogue
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Thursday 15.08 08:00—20:00
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Lobby
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12h 0min
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No dialogue
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Friday 16.08 08:00—22:00
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Lobby
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14h 0min
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No dialogue
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Saturday 17.08 10:00—22:00
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Lobby
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12h 0min
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No dialogue
performance
Bed Time Stories from QAZ: The Faggots and Their Friends between Revolutions
Inhabitants of Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-line
This reading session of Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-Line invites the audience to share a bed. In the bed the audience will listen to the queer fable, The Faggots and Their Friends between Revolutions written by Larry Mitchell, illustrated by Ned Asta and dream the Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-Line. Queer Autonomous Zone is yet to be imagined by its subjects, queer communities that are torn apart by nation-state borders and the Pink-line* drawn by their homonationalist rhetorics.
Performers: Onur Tayranoğlu, Kolya Kotov, Rohan Stevenson.
Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-line is supported by Kone Foundation.
Inhabitants of Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-Line is an expanding network of queer artists between Finland and Turkey that gathers under the project Queer Autonomous Zone Along the Pink-line. The project, in collaboration with this network of fellow queer artists based in Finland and Turkey, envisions an autonomous zone for queers: a sanctuary where individuals can chart their own paths without the interference of a pink-line—a metaphorical border that refers to the construction of homonationalist rhetoric in the West and queerphobic ideologies in authoritarian Eastern states that attempt to equate queerness with westerness and foreignness, exploiting queer bodies for geopolitical gain. We explore artistic tools to envision how a queer autonomous zone could disrupt the hetero-cis world order and its nation-state borders without reproducing similar power centralizations.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Tuesday 13.08 18:00—19:45
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Library
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1h 45min
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English
performance
REVE(a)L
Waldane Walker
Performance artist Waldane Walker engages the practice of MAS (masquerade) as the amplification of self. Aiming to invoke and instigate a connection with the DIVINE. MAS as ancestral technology, manifests as the intermediary between us and our divinity, therefore as we dare to dream let us REVE(a)L to reconnect with our Divine.
Creole Performance Artist Waldane Walker contextualizes their interactions through the philosophy they have honed “Make your world smile”.
Their artistry illuminates and provokes socio-political concerns of gender, identity, and racism by challenging imperialistic strictures.
As a multidisciplinary artist working across the mediums of dance and physical theatre, performance installation, site-specific and immersive performance and theatre, Walker is fervent about research in the arts and culture and currently engages their artistic expressions in projects on screen, on stage and in the streets.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Thursday 15.08 16:30—17:00
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In front of the main entrance (weather permitting)
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30min
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English
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Friday 16.08 16:00—16:30
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In front of the main entrance (weather permitting)
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30min
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English
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Saturday 17.08 20:00—20:30
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In front of the main entrance (weather permitting)
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30min
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English
performance
A Boat & An End
Stefanía Ólafsdóttir & Hanna Heino
A Boat and An End is a score to stay with the question of holding: How can we hold in a physical, social and verbal manner; hold the time, hold oneself, hold each other, hold the space. What is a space safe enough to not give up?; To take care of each other and keep asking the question without being driven towards an answer. It is not the time to thank yourself for the practice, but it is the time to be grateful. How can we change time as a means to change the story?
Photo: Martin Jäger
Hanna Heino is an artist, dancer and poet, softened by North Karelia, interested in organic movement in inconsistent humanity. Stefanía Ólafsdóttir is an educated performance artist and aquatic bodyworker invested in the fluidity of bodies through the lens of queering kinship and community building. They grew into a duo dancing contact improvisation where a shared performativity and playfulness led them to the edge of expectation, still a part of the space, yet set apart from it in time, exploring holding as an act of art, play and resistance.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 15:00—16:00
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Bridge outside Stoa (weather permitting)
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60min
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No dialogue
screening
FILM NIGHT
Ubuntu Film Club
This screening consists of multiple films curated in collaboration by the Ubuntu Film Club and UrbanApa.
FILMS
What a life / Onpa elämä
“In this moment, everything we have may be missing from someone now or from ourselves tomorrow.”
What a life/Onpa elämä is a video artwork where the viewer encounters the kinder and more meaningful side of nature. The piece aims to provoke reflection on what exists and what has been lost as well as to take responsibility. It also challenges viewers to be sensitive and grateful towards their environment.
Finnish dialogue with English subtitles.
Director: Esther Shange
Filming: Saana Lyly
Producer: Peppi Takala
Actors: Miriam Shange, Patricia Carlitos & Suvi Öhman
Beyond Golden Line
SJ Rahatoka
19 min
Midnight. The moon is shining and the night is feverish in the colorful queer club. An injured Black transmasculine pole dancer is interrupted in his performance preparations by mysterious phone calls. Fear of rejection has prevented him from saying who he really is, and kept him away from everything. What if tonight, the magic of his pole offered him the chance to reconnect with the people he loves, and reveal his full radiance?
Volana’s Eclipse
SJ Rahatoka
7 min
Volana is a Black Transmasculine dreamer who hides their emotional and physical pain in the shadows of a club. One night, when everything seems fragile and close to collapsing, Volana gets stuck in another space where they meet Tia who will show them the multidimensional aspect of their being.
This Is Ballroom (Salão De Baile)
Juru & Vitã
92 min
In Rio de Janeiro City and its outskirts, LGBTQ+ youth of color recreates Ballroom culture on their own terms. A portrait of the dramas, the voguing performances, and the art of shade, 50 years after its inception in New York. Rio is burning!
Ubuntu Film Club, a helsinki based film club, dedicated to expanding narratives, with a twist of fun, one film at a time.
What a life / Onpa elämä
Esther Shange is a dancer and self-taught video artist originally from Tampere. Dance has always been present in Esther’s life, and her interest in video projects began at a young age. For the most part, she writes, directs, and edits her works. She released her first official video work, “Thunder Thoughts,” with her friends in November 2022. Esther’s works often emphasize dance, aesthetics, and tranquility. She also aims to highlight collaboration to emphasize the importance of community and togetherness. Additionally, personal aspects and meanings are essential in her works.
Miriam Shange has danced several types of dance since she was a child, but she finds jazz dance to be her own dance style the most. She has also taught dance lessons and choreographed dance performances. Miriam is currently in her second year of studying acting at the University of the Arts Helsinki. Miriam works as an actress, coreographer and dancer in the piece.
Additionally, the team includes a cinematographer and visual designer Saana Lyly, as well as Peppi Takala in the roles of producer and practical assistant.
Beyond Golden Line & Volana’s Eclipse
SJ Rahatoka is a Black Transmasculine interdisciplinary performance creator and filmmaker based in Berlin. He is from Madagascar and Mauritius and was raised in France. SJ’s creations explore the themes of Afrofuturism, Trans identity, Queerness, and Interconnectedness. In July 2021, their Queer Sci-fi script Falling into the Light about ancestral healing was selected by BAAB and he had 48h to direct it collectively with 5 other filmmakers. The film premiered at the festival Black Reels in July 2022 in Berlin. Since October 2021, SJ has been part of filmArche where he studies fiction directing and screenwriting. In 2022, SJ wrote and directed Volana’s Eclipse, an experimental short film performed by Kalil Bat. The short film was selected for the Vierte Welle festival in the category Trans Lives matter and Xposed festival in June 2023. SJ directed Beyond the Golden Line that received the Jury Award of Xposed festival.
This Is Ballroom
Vitã is a filmmaker and screenwriter. Director of the short film “The day I remembered the trip to Bicuda” (2015), producer of the feature documentary “It’s Not the First Time We Fight For Our Love” (2022). Curator of Brazilian Comedy FF and of showcases on Hong Sangsoo films in four cities in Brazil. Master’s degree in Audiovisual at UFF (Brazil). In the ballroom scene, they participate as an independent photographer and are a member of the Legendary House of Lauren Intl.
Juru is a researcher, dramaturgist and performing arts critic. Casting coach for the feature film “Com O Terceiro Olho na Terra da Profanação”, by Catu Rizo (2017) and the short film “Sunset”, by Bruno Roger (2014). Dramaturgist in the performance “Repertory n. 1”, by Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira. Master in Contemporary Arts Studies at UFF and PhD student in Arts at UERJ.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 16:30—19:15
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Music hall
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2h 45min
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English
performance
Escapism is not freedom
Tea Andreoletti
The performance is a storytelling choreographed around the architectural elements of Stoa. It explores how artistic practices can foster connection, understanding and participation with the territory and socio-political contexts in which they operate. The narrative recounts the artistic practice of Tea Andreoletti, which since 2020 has focused on issues related to the rural context of the Alta Valle Seriana. It continues with the introduction of CAP24020, an art collective dedicated to participatory and site-specific art practices that seek to co-create meaning with the valley, raise awareness of local issues and imagine alternative possibilities for its future.What is the responsibility of artistic practices towards the territories in which they work? How do they engage without falling into the criticality associated with socially engaged art?
The title is taken from a slogan in the song There Are No Spectators by The Pop Group and used in the exhibition Agit Punk by Rab-Rab Press in 2023.
This work is supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Interested in processes of shared responsibility, feminist leadership and local governance in rural areas, Tea Andreoletti works with participatory performance, water tasting and site-based storytelling to explore collective memory and resource management. Since 2020, her artistic practice has revolved around the issues of the rural territory of Alta Valle Seriana, in the Alps of Northern Italy, where Tea grew up.
Tea has presented her work at festivals including ANTI-Festival Kuopio, Baltic Circle Festival Helsinki, Mòzg Festival Bydgoszcz and Barents Spektakel Kirkenes. She has a master’s degree in live art and performance studies and has studied to become a water sommelier. Tea divides her time between Helsinki and Alta Valle Seriana, where she co-founded the art collective CAP24020.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 19:50—20:10
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Lobby
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20min
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English
performance
It's been a while
Pinja Poropudas
It’s been a while is a performance about loneliness and longing. It is an attempt to connect with a subject that isolates. Reaching out from a place that cannot be accessed without experience and an experience that cannot be escaped while present. In the performance I dance with ghosts and search for a long lost soul mate, perhaps a sister I never had the chance to meet.
A whole sandbox full of dreams that never arrive
No more
Not now that you’re gone
And every month I waste the future
Leaking from the toilet into the sewer
Sadness and relief in the same tank
No one waits
The work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Choreography and performance: Pinja Poropudas
Sound Design: Arttu Stoor
Photo: Irma Karsma
Pinja Poropudas is a dance artist from Helsinki. She graduated from the University of Arts Helsinki with a master’s degree in dance performance 2018. After graduation Poropudas has been working as a performer, dance teacher, choreographer’s assistant and co creator. In her own artistic work, Poropudas is interested of working with emotions and memories mixed with imagination and fiction.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 20:15—20:35
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Theatre space
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20min
-
No dialogue
performance
TIIKERI – The some@bility performance piece i.e. concerto and a biennianal goes UrbanApa X Stoa
Milla Jarko
Tiikeri (Tiger) ponders: Once upon a time in somelity (*Finnish acronym: some = social media + -lity as in (rea)lity = somelity)..Reality is being crammed into social media and slowly it starts to trickle back…We have become active performers…We whip up stories about ourselves and others for social media… We represent, that is, we perform ourselves… Social media has become an extension of self…What we post tells ‘who I am’ or polishes the self-image…What is ‘true’ then?… What is performing? Does it ever end? What is a performance? – Me, I am one!”TIIKERI can be experienced at UrbanApa Festival, Stoa cultural centre and is a performance piece and exhibition pimped with elements familiar from concerts and the social media. It is a short performance piece for the two feature performance pieces, which were originally performed in Cirko – Center for new circus and in Stage for Contemporary Performance in Helsinki city theater in 2023. Now it’s time for the takeover of Stoa’s theater hall: Tiikeri ventures into even the unknown corners of the theater hall and makes them a vessel for something unforeseen.The piece is one fragment of the multi-part Tiikeri project started by circus and performance artist Milla Jarko in 2018.Tiikeri is also Jarko’s alter ego and social media personality: what kind of way of being does social media create? Tiikeri is busy with the interaction in-between the real and fictitious, the physical realm and the social media, the self and the other – tinkering with and hoarding from the in-between. Tiikeri project actively seeks new ways of experimenting with performance on live and online.Tiikeri proposes the concepts rererererererererererererererererererererererererepresentation and someturgy for approaching itself and leans on sincerity, coincidence and on a ‘Yes’ chain. Anything can be or happen in the world of Tiikeri and its existence overflows its own grasp.The politics of Tiikeri is critical of institutions, feministic, personal and deconstructive, breaking the politics of form, stage, and circus, playfully, but for damn real!
TIIKERI – The some@bility performance piece i.e. concerto and a biennianal goes UrbanApa x Stoa (light version) working group: Milla Jarko and Jere Mönkkönen
Concept, dramaturgy, sound, visual, space design, props and costumes, production and performance: Milla Jarko
Technical and light design: Jere Mönkkönen
Visual and space design, props and costumes: Anna Pietilä
Thank you: Anni Koskinen, Henri Tuulasjärvi, Miradonna Sirkka, Anni Hurme, Kaisa Nieminen, Ainu Palmu and Tinja Nieminen
This work is supported by: WHS (co-production), Arts promotion centre Finland, Kone Foundation, Finnish cultural foundation, Cirko – Center for new circus and Sirkus Faktori.
Milla Jarko is a maker of performances and a circus artist. In their work they fuse together performance art, circus, sound and visual stuff. Circus pave the way for Milla’s artistic endeavors and is an excellent platform for non-normativity. In their longitudinal work with performing arts they beg the question: what does circus do? what does circus think? Jarko’s artworks have been described as benignly arrogant, interfering, accessibly weird, painfully honest, inimitable entities of performing arts which do not seek to please.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 21:40—22:00
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Theatre space
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20min
-
English
musical performance
RÄKÄlicious
This a live gig by the RÄKÄlicious duo.
RÄKÄlicious is a performing artistic duo which consists of sound artist Mai Pesonen and video artist Sandra Marins. RÄKÄlicious draws inspiration from DIY ethos, bodily expression and an approach that’s a little “off”. The duo’s working method is to bring art to non-art places for people to explore. Our actions are fueled by the thought of accessibility and social class structure.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 21:20—21:35
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Lobby
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15min
-
performance
Punking Diaries
Jérémy Gaudibert, Ira Wuolle & Angel Emmanuel
In our Punking Diaries, there are songs of gay liberation and Herstory moves, shredded pieces of fabric become fierce armours and each heartbeat a pose. Free ! Free ! Freedom for all
Jérémy Gaudibert is a creative person that operates both in the design and dance field. Gaudibert is one half of a design studio based between Finland and France and is involved in the Finnish Ballroom scene as well as part of Punking / Whacking dance culture.
Ira Wuolle is a dancer-choreographer whose practice is currently a chaotic but enjoyable mix of Breaking, Punking/Whacking, and recently Wuolle has also started the journey in ballroom culture. Besides dance Wuolle works with rap and spoken word with very DIY and feminist approaches to it.
Angel Emmanuel is a Helsinki-based textile artist specializing in costume design and styling for three years. Emmanuel is a performance artist and storyteller, a guide for the Finnish ballroom scene and has recently embraced plant parenthood.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Friday 16.08 22:10—22:40
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Theatre space
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30min
-
workshop
YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED
Paola Jalili & Hanan Mahbouba
You Have Everything You Need is a writing and collaging workshop to dream worlds outside the oppressive power structures that dictate our lives. Let’s build alternatives to these structures and celebrate nuance and difference together. By writing, collaging, and sharing within the session, we will cultivate an environment where everyone is able to marvel at the poetry of their written and visual creations, and catch some of the energy that comes from sharing your work.
No prior experience with writing or collaging is needed, everyone is welcome to join!
Please register for the workshop in advance here.
The workshop is free of charge!
Photo: Raul Vazquez & Paola Jalili
Paola Jalili (she/her) is an artist-publisher and cultural worker currently based in Helsinki. In 2021, she started Ei Mainoksia, Kiitos!, an independent art publishing initiative that aims to experiment with unconventional and sustainable book formats, and to highlight the time and labor behind the act of publishing. In her visual arts practice, Paola reflects on the intersections between labor, gender, and the contemporary workplace through the project Office Aesthetics.
Hanan Mahbouba (she/her) is a filmmaker, writer and artist. Lately she has worked with themes of postmigration and diasporic cultural legacy, exploring them through hybrid documentary, narrative and experimental styles of filmmaking at Maa-tila in 2022 and Titanik Galleria in 2023. Writing is an important part of her work whether as a stepping stool in her visual arts practice or as the end result itself. She believes in its transformative power as a tool for building and understanding the world and is passionate about sharing this approach through teaching.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Saturday 17.08 12:00—14:30
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Terraario-workshop space
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2h 30min
-
English
demo
~~<3¨¨blood bonding¨¨<3~~
Heini Hermunen & Nooa Paukkunen
“~~<3¨¨blood bonding¨¨<3~~ is a queer anarchist demo that combines spoken word with sound art and in which nonbinary vampyres dream of the ability to share blood-borne hormones with each other.
Nooa Paukkunen and Heini Hermunen will perform their co-written, bilingual text that merges with Nooa’s music-sound-scape. On the stage, Heini will perform the lyrics as spoken word poetry and Nooa will perform sound both live and through computer. Heini might also move during the performance.
The performance is a poetical dream about self-willed microdosing of so-called sex hormones; legitimizing nonbinary body identities without the need for medical validation. In this performance, the blood-bond is a mysterious bond between two or more vampyres that have committed to each other heart-to-heart. Because of this, the performance is also a mythologically playful ode to friendship; a fantasy of blood relation that goes beyond the nuclear family as the chosen family of friends becomes the most intimate and caring family unit.
The perfomance relates to the festival theme as an activistic gesture; not-consenting to the discipline subjected towards nonbinary bodies, which might require not only dreaming, but also scheming and disobedience.
For accessibility reasons, the performance is bilingual and it’s written partly in Finnish and partly in English. Audience members can ask for a paper/digital document that includes complete translations in both languages.
Artistic mentoring: Kaino Wennerstrand
Photo: Hertta Kella
Heini Hermunen (they/them) is a performer and writer who text with feeling and wants radically more vitality, justice and coexistence!
Nooa Paukkunen (they/them) processes many things simultaneously and combines them into one. One of these elements is sound, which they explore and use intuitively and mature over long time.
Together <3 Heini ja Nooa <3 are queer vampyres, who share trust, humour and play – and the will to hug and broaden the bone-dry bodily norms sensitively yet with a frenzy.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Saturday 17.08 15:00—15:30
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Lobby
-
30min
-
English & Finnish
performance
new in town
Jaakko Pallavuo & Teo Ala-Ruona
New in Town is a monologue about a dentist who has decided to leave everything behind and move to a new city to become an artist. The dentist chooses to begin his first, half-improvised public art performance directly upon arrival.
New in Town is a collaboration between artists Jaakko Pallavuo and Teo Ala-Ruona.
Text: Jaakko Pallasvuo
Performance: Teo Ala-Ruona
Costume: Ville Pölhö
Dramaturgical dialogue: Martta Jylhä
Jaakko Pallasvuo (1333) is someone.
Teo Ala-Ruona (1990) is a performance artist who loves surprises and risks on stage, with an endless fascination for the possibilities of language and spoken text in performance.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Saturday 17.08 16:00—16:30
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Lobby
-
30min
-
English
performance
Hornyhorn
Satu Kankkonen
Hornyhorn is a piece of live-sound art, a concert, a moment of breathing out. The work is based on the interplay of human voice, baritone horn and sound design. Hornyhorn asks what are the things that you would like to breath out or scream out in this time / this moment / right now? What is it like to need and desire this breathing out or screaming out more than anything else? In relation to the theme of the festival, the work asks what would you need to breathe out, before there is room for dreaming, for new schemes? What can be let go of already? Hornyhorn has been inspired by trauma, a desire for silliness and a need for a bit of catharsis.
Photo: Venla Helenius
Satu Kankkonen is a Helsinki-based sound designer and musician. Kankkonen is interested in gentler working cultures, unapologeticalliness, being stuck, brass instruments, and feministic working methods. They are inspired by deep bodyness, queerness, Jinkx Monsoon and playing piano, now and forever. They have done sound designing for Deep Time Trans (2021) performance performed at Baltic Circle festival, Rakkaudesta performance by Jani Toivola (2022), and the dance piece Labia (2023) by Kauri Sorvari that premiered in Cultural Centre Caisa. Kankkonen also makes music under their Varjova project.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Saturday 17.08 16:45—17:00
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Lobby
-
15min
-
no dialogue
dance performance
Charge
Karoliina Loimaala & working group
Charge is a dance-filled outside piece for 7 dancers and tehcno / beat / pulsating music and soundscape. The dancers charge together, from movement, from playing superheroes and antisuperheroes, video game characters, bouncing, feeling the beat, from speed and slow recharge. It celebrates togetherness, enjoyment in movement, embodies a human battery and functions as its own bionic light.
This work has been supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
Photo: Krista-Julia Arppo
Karoliina Loimaala is a Finnish choreographer and dance artist. She has invited artists from different parts and contexts to come together and chaaaaaarge with dance. The members of the working group are Krista-Julia Arppo, Maurice Bessanh, Anika Edström-Kawaji, Iida Hägglund, Anni Kaila, Louis Nam Le Van Ho, Karoliina Loimaala, and Maya Oliva. The group represents Benin, Finland, France, Italy, and Sweden. The artists all freelance in various and partly shared fields, dancing and prancing, singing and blinging.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Saturday 17.08 17:00—17:35
-
Outside (weather permitting)
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35min
-
No dialogue
performance
SOFT BLAST
Elli Roth
SOFT BLAST is an immersive exploration that delves into the intersection of sound design, body movement, and social commentary within the music industry. This performance challenges traditional norms by inviting participants to embrace the oppositional forces of heavy, strong spaces through dynamic movements and evocative soundscapes.
Led by the guiding principles of choice and impetus, SOFT BLAST celebrates the fluidity of stage femme while confronting stereotypes and glass ceilings prevalent in the music industry. Voices move through the space, weaving a narrative that transcends boundaries and fosters connection among performer and audience members alike.
Elli Roth is a Helsinki/Copenhagen – based dance artist who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Dance and Choreography from The Danish National School of Performing Arts in 2024. Alongside her studies, Roth has worked extensively as a dancer and performer in various ensembles both in Finland and abroad. Most recently, she performed as a dancer in Pori Dance Company’s spring 2024 production Sumua/Farewell, choreographed by Olli Lautiola, in the Netflix film An Honest Life, directed by Mikael Marcimain (premiere in 2024), and in Amos Rex’s GENERATION 2023 exhibition. Next fall, she will perform as a dancer in the Finnish National Opera’s production of Pohjalaisia.
In addition to her performance work, Roth also works as a choreographer. Her latest piece, SOFT BLAST, was a part of Dansehallerne’s New Shit Vol.8 production (2024).
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Saturday 17.08 18:10—18:30
-
Theatre space
-
20min
-
No dialogue
performance
ROCK/STAR Vol. 1
Erika Rustamova & Johan Högsten
ROCK/STAR Vol.1 is a mixed-reality audiovisual dance performance, where a virtual avatar, animated in real-time by a human performer, explores and interacts with the virtual cave environment through movement and choreography. ROCK/STAR Vol.1 was made in collaboration between Erika Rustamova (creative technologist), Johan Högsten (choreographer), and Henia Nikkilä (sound designer) in winter/spring 2023 as a part of Rustamova’s master thesis artistic research. The themes that the performance series revolves around are an exploration of identity in the era of amalgamation of digital and physical worlds as well as mechanisms of empathy between the physical and the digital entities. Elements constituting the performances are sound, choreography, projection background with a dynamic and responsive virtual world, and 3D characters that replicate the movement of human performers in real-time through advanced motion capture technology.
This work is supported by Department of Art and Media, Aalto University.
Erika Rustamova (she/her) is a Master of Arts in New Media, creative technologist, and virtual performer based in Helsinki. Rustamova has performed with her Audiovisual performances at different Helsinki festivals such as Ääniaalto (2021, 2023) and Aavistus (2022) as well as at numerous underground cultural events and exhibited her digital work at group exhibitions (2021, 2022).
Johan Högsten (he/him) is a Bachelor of Arts in dance, choreographer, and dance artist based in Helsinki. Throughout his artistic career Johan has performed in numerous dance and theatre productions such as Offering for a Monster choreographed by Tamara Cubas for Julidans 2022, Don Giovanni at the Finnish National Opera and others. His personal work was exhibited at the Generation 2020 group exhibition at Amos Rex, as well as at the URB20 Festival.
Henia Nikkilä (she/they) is a sound designer, artist, producer and DJ. Their work has varied from sound designing for contemporary dance in Amsterdam (What can (not) be seen from here by Simone Gisela Weber) to playing music in Tokyo and Warszaw (as part of Fixit, performance by Kaino Wennerstrand) to releasing music in Helsinki and Madrid (Murrettumeri – Back Life, C-cassette and digital release, Interior, 2023). In December 2023 they exhibited their sound piece in the 90mil gallery in Berlin.
Through our performance practice which comprises sound, real-time motion capture, live visuals and choreography we explore topics of empathy and identity in the era of blending of physical and virtual realities. Inspired by Post-Humanist and New Materialist theories we question what we consider to be real or what we perceive as reality, who and what is worthy of empathy and what can we as humans empathize and identify with.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Saturday 17.08 18:30—18:50
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Theatre space
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20min
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No dialogue
performance
LESBOLESBOLESBO
Johanna Karlberg & Iiris Laakso
LESBOLESBOLESBO is a two-performer lounge-styled erotic DIY contemporary musical about a lesbian encounter and love story. A mix of cover and original songs form an arc of intense drama, where lesbian love tries to survive in a straight world. The two and only main characters sing, dance and recite poems with exuberant pathos, indescribable emotion and a few suave clichés.
This musical is a lesbian exploration and translation of musicals as a genre and a narrative of a lesbian passion and love. In this subgenre of contemporary dance, we’re bringing back passionate eye contact and expressive expression. The musical ends in a tragic and haunting death.
Photo: Caroline Suinner
Johanna Karlberg and Iiris Laakso are dance and performance artists, lesbians and friends. They properly met during their MA studies at the Theatre Academy in 2019, but knew of each other before then. Their joint artistic work is driven by a burning desire to produce lesbian art and representation, as well as different lesbian narratives for the Finnish cultural scene, and to make performances that wink at – you guessed it – lesbians.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Saturday 17.08 19:00—19:30
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Theatre space
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30min
-
English
performance
The right to white
George Rallis
In this piece, what George Rallis is unfolding on stage is a process of transformation and of queer decoloniality. Through various field recordings and vocal processes, what will be communicated is an attempted dialogue with the feral, the embodied and the primal that is incubated within queerness and militant non-assimilation.
Photo: Tuomas Puikkonen
George Rallis is a genderqueer Cypriot cultural practitioner and performance artist whose practice extends to varying ways of non-normative embodiment. With an anti-assimilative point of view, through belly dance, flow arts and drag, they question notions such as colonialism, homo/hetero-normativity and white supremacy and the ways that those occupy the body and its different manifestations; the socio-political, the corporeal, the spiritual body.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Saturday 17.08 20:30—20:55
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Theatre space
-
25min
-
No dialogue
performance
Disco Le Coq d'Or – club dreamscapes
Tzor Edery & Daniel Shaya
Disco Le Coq d’Or – club dreamscapes is a proposed audio-visual performance combining electronic beats, live instrumental music, vocal performance and animation projection. The performance will include DJing with contemporary electronic beats and archival material, and live vocal and instrumental performance on the Oud. Drawing on the 20th century musical scene of North Africa – which embodied the breaking of boundaries, in language, geography, genre, and societal norms – Tzor Edery and Daniel Shaya want to create a soundscape of mixed temporalities that rejects nostalgia, but rather creates a dialogue between traditional and contemporary communal musical experience. While they take inspiration from the history of cross-communal Muslim-Jewish relations in SWANA region, they recognize the terrible violence and injustice of the current moment in Palestine.
The dreamscape is not an escape from reality, but an opportunity to confront it from an imagined place where our voices and body movements are forces of nature, able to bring down the oppressive structures which contrain us in the real world. They see the club as a space to reckon with the injustices of the present, and dream of radical change. The club is a space out of time, an ongoing night that holds infinite possibilities for the morning. They want to create a surreal environment that evokes the space of their dream club; using the soundscape and animation projection to create lighting, ambience, drama, and mixing natural elements of the mediterranean summer and the dark club environment. Following the tradition of Tarab – the concept of seeking musical pleasure – in classical arabic music, they invite the audience to participate as they like, shout, sing, dance, and step inside the performance.
Tzor Edery is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker of Moroccan-Jewish background, working in a range of fields (from animation to printmaking to music to dance). Their award-winnning films Tamou (2019) and Maurice’s Bar (2023) have screened in film festivals worldwide including Cannes Festival Cinefondation selection, Annecy animation festival, and Clermont-Ferrand short film festival. Their work focuses on the cultural exchanges and migrations of the Mediterranean and beyond, with a focus on North African Jewish culture. An essential part of their work is reinterpreting historical texts and breaking down physical spaces through a contemporary queer lens, bold and expressive visuals, and uncompromising subjectivity. Tzor lives in Tampere and works between Helsinki, Jerusalem and Paris.
Daniel Shaya is a Helsinki-Based DJ of Iraqi-Jewish and Finnish backgrounds, and a student in the Middle Eastern studies department of the University of Helsinki. He is a founding member of Yalla Collective, a group of DJs that pioneered arab-middle eastern parties in Helsinki. His fields of interest intersect the great Jewish-Arab musicians of the 20th century and contemporary music from the Swana region today.
Both are founding members of the group Nahlieli – Jews for Justice In Palestine, and co-organizers of the Mimouna Helsinki event in IDA radio.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Saturday 17.08 21:00—21:40
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Theatre space
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40min
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English
discussion
SOFA - Conversation on utopias
Pilvi Porkola & Salla Salin
You can sit or lie on the couch, eat cake or wonder, but above all, talk. The sofa appears in different parts of Helsinki. Come listen or discuss how you would like to change the world.
SOFA – Conversations on Utopias brings current and political discussions into the hustle and bustle of the city. In the series, one can hear what artists, activists and academics think on social change and utopias. At the same time, the performance discussion invites everyone to sit down on the sofa and contemplate what kind of future we want to build.
SOFA – Conversation on utopias is part of Pilvi Porkola’s artistic research in The Research Institute at Uniarts, Helsinki. In her study Performance Pedagogy – Politics of Art Pedagogy Porkola explores poltical aspects of art teaching and public interventions as artist pedagogical tools.
The work is produced by Reality Research Center
Pilvi Porkola is Helsinki based performance artist, writer and researcher. She is interested in everyday life performances and utopia. In her current research at Uniarts Helsinki she explores performance and politics of art pedagogy.
Salla Salin is an artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Working via several media – both as a solo artist and in various collaborative projects – she situates herself often at the intersection of visual art and performance. Her practice is informed by investigations on the structures and concepts of reality, reflecting especially an understanding of space as a complex weft of relations. Manifested mostly in large scale immersive installations and/or interdisciplinary projects her art poses questions about the relationship between perception and existence. Salin has graduated with an MA degree both in visual art (2014) and performing arts (2005). Her work has been widely exhibited and performed both in Finland and internationally.
Guests for the discussion will be published later.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Thursday 15.08 18:00—20:00
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Lobby
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2h 0min
-
English
POC OPEN MIC
Vishnu Vardhani Rajan & Ato Kwamina Hasford (Oteanankanduro)
POC Open mic is an open mic event for performers that have heritage or roots from the global south i.e Black, Indigenous, or a person of color. You are welcome to perform whatever you wish, be it spoken word, song, rap, monologue, comedy, tell a story. The idea behind POC Open Mic is to have a space especially for those of the global south to be able to tell their stories safely, supported by producers and MCs that are also racialized.
Oteanankanduro, the healer of snakebites, is a ghanaian multidisciplinary artist and activist in social justice work. He identifies as Experimental, Vocal, Nostalgic and Queer. His performance is in solidarity with black and queer marginalized groups and immigrants everywhere, in protest to the Anti-Gay Bill passed in his Homecountry, Ghana. In celebration of Nwomkoro, the women’s folk music genre of the Akan tribe, and a call out to Western Powers to stop committing genocides and numbing the masses through religion and white supremacist ideals. Oteanankanduro’s work is in support of his art residency by Artists at Risk and Platform rf.
Vishnu Vardhani Rajan is a body philosopher who explores shame through dance, acting, and stand-up comedy. They are interested in the unconscious and subconscious mind, expressions of power, manipulation techniques, and unacknowledged biases in groups, which also serve as premises for their stand-up sets.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Wednesday 14.08 19:00—22:00
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Music hall
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3h 0min
-
workshop
Anti-Apartheid in Action and Public Spaces
Sumud
The Finnish Palestine Network chair Noora Dadu and board activist Eero Yli-Vakkuri present how the association promotes Palestinian rights internationally. The presentation will share information on how to influence Finnish authorities in practice and will also provide an overview of the current reality Palestinians are facing. Participants will learn about the de-escalation (pacification) at demonstrations and events of Sumud, a key tool for creating pluralistic safer spaces in urban areas. After the presentation, participants will have a solid basis for understanding the Palestinian situation and be prepared to act more safely in public spaces and express radical opinions.
Please register for the workshop in advance here.
The workshop is free of charge!
Sumud is an intersectional organisation that works for ending Israeli apartheid, occupation and colonialism and for the realisation of Palestinian human and political rights. Sumud works with artistic, political, cultural, and other collectives to advocate rights-based, accountability and justice-oriented frameworks for Palestine, in Finland, in Palestine and internationally. Sumud promotes and helps make visible Palestinian culture and identity in Finland and elsewhere. It aims for at least one third of the Sumud board members to be Palestinian. An international advisory board annually assesses the activities of Sumud and provides advice.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
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Tuesday 13.08 12:00—15:00
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Terraario-workshop space
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3h 0min
-
Finnish and English
performance
Onko tää mua?
Sofia Charifi, Mathilda Kauppila, Siiri Laakkonen, Taika Rautiainen, Janina Salmela, Leo Terävä & Vilma Viita.
Onko tää mua? is a demo of a possible performance circulating around different dance practices and video art. Elements that emerge in the work in progress for the collective are the seriousness of youth
the empowerment of naivety
fleshiness
fluidity
depth/lightness and community.
The working group has come together through the UrbanApa’s Mentoring Platform and met for the first time in February 2024, with a common focus on peer support, broadening expertise and community attachment. The Young Artists Mentoring Platform is a lightweight support structure designed to support artists as individuals but by finding community and togetherness. This summer, the group spent 5 days in residence at Indictus Studio, during which time they started their work as a collective. During the residency the group worked on a Demo, which will be seen at Urban ApaxStoa.
The residency has been a collision of different and similar backgrounds and paths. Finding collective ways of working that decentralize power and responsibility has been at the heart of the group’s work. The group of individuals embraces a range of gender and sexual identities, as well as ethnic, educational and dance historical backgrounds.
The artists at UrbanApa’s Mentoring platform this year are Sofia Charifi, Mathilda Kauppila, Siiri Laakkonen, Taika Rautiainen, Janina Salmela, Leo Terävä and Vilma Viita.
Performances
- Date & time
- Location
- Duration
- Language
-
Friday 16.08 20:35—21:05
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Theatre space
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30min
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