Johanna

All photos by Pekka Mäkinen.

Now I’m on my way back to Kuopio, proofreading (for the hundredth time) the upcoming ANTIVERSARY book. But it should go to print today! Hurray. Ahhh, the ANTI Festival is coming up veeerrryyyyyy soon and I’m beginning to feel the excitement…

This week I’ve been already in Jyväskylä so it’s been a rather challenging week in terms of exercising. I’ve had rehearsals of Acts of Clothing as I’m performing it soon in Jyväskylä, had a Pilates class and yesterday Zumba. Tomorrow I’m back to studio with Acts of… and will have functional training sessions both on Friday and Saturday. And on most days I’ve cycled to work. So should be a pretty good week, enough aerobic and strength training.

Last week I got a -20% reduction coupon for Sokos’s beauty week and I’m now wondering if this would be the time to get the new Lancome eyeshadow… I really like the Doll Eyes Baby Pop….hmmm.

What do you think?

Johanna

We also ate some great sushi in Zen Sushi and amazing thai food in MaiThai. Yammy.

On Saturday afternoon I had a meeting with Satu in Minna Parikka’s boutique in Bulevardi and we tried practically every pair of shoes in the shop! Great fun. Unfortunately, the A/W collection wasn’t out yet so I had to settle into a pair of Acacias which were on sale, -50%. So that was a bargain. We also checked out Nanso and Marimekko…and sinned. Terrible!

On Sunday I finally got to meet my friend Maija and her newborn daughter. She was so beautiful, they both were! Hope I get to meet them soon again.

This week flew by so quickly as we have been working on the final corrections of the ANTIVERSARY book, written several grant applications etc. On Friday I finally got my hands on with ANTI Festival’s financial report of A Space for Live Art 2010… It will be so much work…and it always takes forever! Well, I do get some strange pleasure from Excel…

I’ve had a pretty nice training rhythm doing Kinesis, Pilates and Functional training and warming up Acts of Clothing. It was funny – yesterday I met a woman in Functional studios who asked after our functional training class that why do I look so familiar… Well, it turned out that she had seen my Acts of Clothing a year ago in Helsinki in the Ateneum theatre – and had liked it a lot. Small world.

Tonight is the time for some fun as we are going to see Jukka Poika, Raappana and Sound Explosion Band in Puikkari. See you there!

Johanna

La Pré Sale:

Los Torreznos performing at the Trouble Festival:


Pictures by Laura & Johanna.

Oh, it was such a great trip!

Johanna

From London we took the Eurostar to Brussels. It was my first time on Eurostar and I was amazed how quick and easy it is! Less than two hours and you are in Brussels. It feels like a miracle comparing to Finland where it takes four hours for me to get even to Helsinki….

In Brussels we had A Space for Live Art project meeting with all the partners. The meeting was during the Trouble Festival so evenings we spent watching works. Rosie Dennis was doing her Downtown project there and it was great to see her working in a different context, different city and language. She performed in Les Halles but I must say that I really preferred her shows in Kuopio as they were not hidden in some art space. Also the work of Mitch & Parry was great.

We had a wonderful time with Laura. The weather was great, +23 degrees and we enjoyed the city a lot. On Saturday afternoon we had a little time to pop into the city centre for shopping. I brought Laura to the Pierre Marcolini chocolate shop… I didn’t remember how amazing the chocolate really is! It blows your mind. Laura will probably hate me forever for bringing her to the Cora Kemperman shop…where we both did some shopping. Again we had wonderful tapas and on Sunday just amazing mussels in La Pré Salé. Oooh. Unforgettable.

La Pré Salé:





1st of May:

Laura’s Belgian waffle:


This week has been hard trying to adjust to the normal rhythm. Every time I’m away and then come back home, I feel that so much work has piled up I don’t know where to start. But I’ve been happy cycling, going to Zumba and getting my energy flowing. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to Functional Training with Pipsa and on Saturday a Zumba marathon with Outi! Yeah.

Johanna

I’ve been preparing a new collaboration with Rebecca French from FrenchMottershead. We’ll begin to work in June when Rebecca comes to Kuopio and although there’s a million things to sort out and do before that, I’m still looking forward to it all soooo much.

Later in April I’ll visit Brussels as we have A Space for Live Art project meeting during the Trouble Festival. I’ll be travelling with ANTI Festival’s producer Laura and we’ll also work a couple of days in London with Gregg.

Last weeks have been great for cycling in Kuopio! The snow has melted away from the streets so no need to worry about the icy roads anymore. I’m so in love with my new bike and the Ortlieb back panniers. So useful and beautiful! The only downfall is that the roads haven’t been cleaned up yet and it can be pretty dusty riding down the streets. But it still feels great!

Johanna

Since I came back from Australia, I’ve been getting back to my normal routines. The last three weeks I’ve exercised pretty intensively at the Functional studio and really enjoyed myself! Lots of Kinesis and Functional training but also Zumba, for the first time in my life! I’ve missed so much aerobic exercise that I was quite miserable until I realized that the Zumba classes work at least as well as a run. And it’s so much fun to dance and sweat to the holiday rhythms of calypso, salsa and reggae!

Do you remember when I wrote last autumn that I want a hybrid bicycle? Well, I’ve just bought one! Yes, it’s a bit crazy but I’ve thought about it so much that I’m convinced that this was a good investment. The sad thing is that it has been so cold that is has been practically impossible to ride much but I’ve done a few short tests and I love it! My bicycle is Merida S-Presso 700 with hydraulic disc brakes, beautiful matt black and sleek design.

Now that I have the bike, I realize that I also should have all kinds of gears to be able to take full advantage of it but I have to take it slow. I can’t possibly buy a whole set of wind stopper cloths, gloves, cycling bags and shoes etc. all at once! I’ve bought a helmet, for the first time in my life, and that’s pretty much what I can afford at the moment. But to be able to cycle to work on a regular basis, I need to get these Ortlieb panniers. I really love the white line!

About work

Some of you know that I’ve started to work with the support of the Arts Council of Finland’s three year artist grant in January. This year I will not be producing any new performances or shows but I’m doing a lot of research as well as touring and performing Twirling World and Acts of Clothing. I’m working on an international collaboration with Rebecca French from FrenchMottershead and I’m very very excited about it! The downfall has been that I haven’t been able to raise much funding for the project which is to premiere in 2012 and not this year. I find it rather disturbing and I’m not really sure how to proceed with the project. We’ve got 2 000 € from the Regional arts council of North Savo but you might be able to imagine that it isn’t much of anything for an international collaboration. So we’ll see how that goes and what the rest of the foundations say.

Tomorrow I start rehearsing Twirling World with Sonja and we have shows coming up in Kuopio in March. I’m a bit scared to return to that work which as a performer, was quite challenging for me. So I’ll see how I feel next week.

I’ve been also really really shocked by the City of Kuopio cutting ANTI Festival’s funding. We have a tenth anniversary of the festival and a lot of special programme planned to celebrate that in the city of Kuopio, a book coming up by a national publisher and the fourth year of A Space for Live Art project going on. So WTF???? I don’t really know what to think.

Johanna

Kampnagel foyer with the Forsythe Company’s installation City of Abstracts on the background:

studio where I gave my workshop today:


A Space for Live Art meeting with Claire, Emmanuelle, Cathy, Anne, Jochen and Fabienne: 

I look really strange, I know – I guess I’m just happy about my beautiful salad (and a glass of wine…):

Rhododendrons blooming not only in the Kampnagel courtyard but all over Hamburg:

A walk in town:

Lovely pink rubbish bags on the streets:

Tomorrow I’m off to Berlin for the weekend. How exciting!

Johanna

The only thing causing a little bit of a headache was the BA strike which cancelled my flight from Glasgow to London. In the end, I managed to change my flight and fly to London on Monday night, but had to stay overnight at Heathrow and fly to Finland the next day. This was truly exhausting. And with my knee still in recovery, I was pretty fed up dragging my luggage around Heathrow airport in the middle of the night…only to sleep a couple of hours at the airport hotel and get the shuttle bus back to the airport in the early morning hours. Anyway, I managed.

As soon as I landed in Helsinki, Risto Löf from Savon Sanomat newspaper called me and wanted to do an interview because of the prize I received from the regional arts council of North Savo. I didn’t have much time to talk then so when I finally got home I called him back and we did the interview on the phone. I think I was about 1 and half hours at home before rushing to the VB photographic centre to receive my prize. It was a small & cozy little event but at least I got to wear my golden Finsk shoes… This was the second time as I also wore them at the Tramway in Glasgow. They are so comfortable! I must say I find a bit strange the way the regional arts council organizes the prize reception. For one thing, I still haven’t actually ‘received the prize’ but the way they inform about it (or rather the lack of informing about it), invite people to the event (or rather don’t invite people) and celebrated with me was rather dull. Well, luckily Pekka, Anniina & Tatu came by later and we had some champagne.

Last week, weekend and this week have been very busy at the ANTI Festival office. I’ve spent a lot of time on the proposals, skyping with Gregg, thinking about the programme, organizing the annual association meeting etc. Luckily Kaisa started her work last week as the producer of 2010 festival. I think we’ll make a great team. There’s so much work at the moment that I’m all the time tempted to jump to work but I need to take these Easter days easy as I’ve worked the last two weekends. Yesterday I forced myself to finish my tax papers from 2009. It took me 7 hours. I’ve always hated doing the tax papers but especially now that the regional tax office of North Savo has refused to accept physical training costs as part of a freelance dance artist’s professional costs I’ve kind of lost faith in the Finnish tax system & authorities. 

Although things at the ANTI office have been exciting and interesting, I’ve been a bit concerned because I haven’t had time & energy to exercise much. It’s ok for a week or two but cannot become routine. So I’ve been catching up with exercising and it’s all gone pretty well. Last week I also returned the crutches that I had borrowed from the health care centre of Kuopio. The day before yesterday I walked 8.3km and today 8km. These are the first ‘longer’ walks I’ve done after the surgery (I know they are not that long but keeping in mind that I had a ACL surgery 7 weeks ago it’s not that bad). Probably many people don’t recognize anything strange in my walking but I know it’s far from ‘normal’. I cannot fully straighten the knee or push from the left foot they way I can from the other one and especially after a while, this shows in slight limping. The first hour of walking went on both days pretty well but after that the knee starts to feel a bit unstable and wobbly. Yesterday I went to the gym to do some strengthening exercises and also cycled on an exercise bike for 25mins and 15mins on the cross trainer. So I think the knee is definitely getting better, I just have to be patient with it. It’s great to be able to walk outside now that the ice has melted from the streets and there’s no danger of slipping and falling. But for now I can only dream of running. I was so envious of people who went by me running or jogging. I just wanted to shout ‘I also would be running hadn’t I had a knee surgery 7 weeks ago!’ Anyway, I think it’s soon time to find my bicycle from the storage and repair it for another spring-summer-autumn season of cycling.

Tomorrow I need to prepare for next week’s works as I’m involved in many things. But it’s great to be back at work, much nicer than being stuck at home with an injury.

Johanna