Category Archives: Dance

in the process of Map Of Scars


it’s a bit challenging to be a choreographer, producer, set designer and costume designer at the same time. Luckily I don’t have to be a performer, light designer, photographer nor sound designer for this upcoming show!




I have three gorgeous performers Sannamaria Kuula, Tuovi Rantanen and Pirjo Yli-Maunula, my favourite sound designer Tatu Metsäpelto, wonderful performance photographer Pekka Mäkinen and a new collaborator, light designer Ainu Palmu, and of course the great graphic designer Tomi Leppänen.

Aren’t you just dying to see the show? A few weeks to go!!!

Johanna

towards a new work

Now the approaching premiere of MAP OF SCARS has started to become more and more concrete. Last week I worked with Sannamaria Kuula and this week Tuovi Rantanen joined rehearsals. What amazing, beautiful, gorgeous women, dancers and performers they are! I feel so blessed. On Sunday Pirjo Yli-Maunula will join the team. Although our rehearsal period is short, I have a very positive and confident feeling. The team includes light designer Ainu Palmu, sound designer and composer Tatu Metsäpelto and photographer Pekka Mäkinen.
This week we also got some performance costumes from Tyra Therman and I have to say that they are just stunning.

I feel like we are on our way to something very special, very beautiful, touching, intimate….

Premiere is on the 16th of November. In Kuopio, Finland.

Johanna

Montreal in pictures

As you can see, I had a short but intense visit to Montreal. Thanks for the invitation Les Escales Improbables de Montreal!
My morning run to Parc Mount Royal was also unforgettable and the view just stunning:

I met some great people, saw exciting works, traveled for days and ate some good foods! What else can you wish for?

Johanna

in Stockholm

I have the luxury to spend a couple of days in Stockholm before traveling to Uppsala where I’ll perform on Thursday.

Last night I hardly got any sleep as I had so much work to finish before the trip that I was really late packing. I had maybe 1-2 hours sleep before getting up at 4am so was rather exhausted. Luckily my flights were on time and all went smoothly. I arrived in my hotel in Södermalm very early and was rather doubtful that they would have any rooms available but they did and gave me one at something like 10am. I was so happy and had a little nap before heading off to town for my business.

In the evening I went to visit Fotografiska and ended up walking a route that took me to completely new places in Stockholm. Here are a few pictures from the way.













Nicest thing today has been speaking Swedish – after my course in academic Swedish this spring I really really enjoy catching up with the language. And now it’s just lovely to be able to speak better Swedish and use the language. Great! You never know where life takes you.

Hope to see you in Uppsala on Thursday!

Johanna

milk load

I performed MILK last Friday in the Functional Studios in Kuopio. I had completely forgotten what a nightmare that show is to organize!!! It took 14 hours from me to pick up all the props and materials including the dance carpets, empty milk boxes, fresh milk, bags to pack the boxes into and the bucket in which I bathe and then to set up the space, tape the dance carpets, organize the milk boxes in chronological order and back them, then to get ready for the show, perform, shower, clean up and pack everything and transport all the gears into different storages and places. I WAS EXHAUSTED.

But of course the greatest thing was to perform and to experience once again that the work is strong and it really touches people, provokes ideas and somehow also connects. So yesterday when I went to the studio for my training, I got such a warm and lovely feedback which made me feel very happy and also more connected to that place and the people who work and train there. So it was a beautiful experience.

I need to thank my son Zulani and his friend Elina who help enormously before and after the show! And I couldn’t have survived without the help of my daughter Justiina with whom we taped the dance carpets earlier during the day! So it’s all like a family business except that it’s not a very good business… Well, call it collaboration then!

I’ve been deep into dialogical and relational aesthetics and I need to work on my article rather intensively this week… Lots of work still to do. And in fact I have so much work in May and July that I can only focus on one thing at a time otherwise I’ll go crazy. But if I’m still alive in the end of June, I know I can be very pleased and proud of myself and will really enjoy a proper holiday. But until then, back to work now! So probably not a very active blogging season ahead of me – but I’ll try my best.

Hauskaa vappua!

Johanna

Kuopio-Vienna-Kuopio

Last weekend I was in Vienna, Austria, in one of our EU project meetings, UP TO NATURE. I left of Friday which was the beginning of the skiing holiday in Kuopio. The Kuopio airport was packed at 5.30am with wealthy families travelling to skiing holidays either in Lapland or somewhere in the Alps. I have never ever been able to take my family on a skiing holiday and I must say, I felt a bit jealous. I realized, once again, very concretely, that there are all these people who can afford to take their whole family on holidays (and have all the expensive skiing gears along) – in fact, for them is normal to take family holidays at least once a year abroad. I also realized that instead of having a proper skiing holiday, I was on a work trip for the weekend. Never mind that, because I really, really, enjoyed our meeting. It was great, useful, inspiring and informative. So thank you so much Thomas, Olivia and Nicole at brut Vienna and Helen & co and Hedda, Philip & co for a great meeting. We have created a great project and I’m really looking forward to the outcome. Unfortunately, I’m not able to make it to the first festival in Vienna, but I am planning to visit Bristol in June and Oslo in August. How exciting!



I also went to the opening of Imagetanz and saw a very strange performance…

Like I said, we are having the skiing holiday here but Vienna was very summer like already. It’s so strange to be located literally on the edge of Europe and see weird middle European road signs like this way to Budapest and this way to Prague… This was my second time to stay in hotel Fürstenhof, the strange but nice old fashioned simple hotel. This time I had a nice & spacious room and I slept surprisingly well. We also had some lovely dinners & drank some gorgeous Riesling and Grüner Veltlieners so I had a great time in Vienna! And I spoke some German, feeling very proud of myself.

Although I just received excellent grades from the economics of culture course and exam, please have a look at this wonderful article (in Finnish) by theatre director Esa Leskinen about why art shouldn’t bring any economic benefits!

In general, I have felt rather depressed recently as I haven’t received any project funding to produce my upcoming works. So I’m facing the same old same old questions of what to do, if to do then how or not do at all. Very inspiring start for new productions!

For the sake of the international women’s day, I wore Minna Parikka’s fuchsia Women are dangerous animals boots and went with my daughter to see a wonderful dancer Tuovi Rantanen performing a solo by the wonderful choreographer Ervi Siren. Women rule!

Johanna

-32.7 in Kajaani

Was teaching dance critique in Kajaani this weekend and really enjoyed it a lot. Inspiring conversations, lots of short choreographies as part of Kajaani Dance weekend, many collegues and good talks with Kira Riikonen and Sonja Pakalén for example. Busy and tiring but a great weekend!
Now waiting to get the results of the Finnish presidential elections…. As you may know, I’ve been in the support groups of Pekka Haavisto so it’s very exciting to see how the Finns have voted in the second round. But whatever the result, Pekka is the winner of these elections. He has brought very important issues into public conversation and I’m forever grateful for him for that. Pekka photographed with me in one of his campaign events in Kuopio by Savon Sanomat photographer Marko Happo:

Johanna

cultural diversity and other thoughts

The first weeks of January have been a bit difficult and depressing. I didn’t receive funding from the Dance Council to produce my upcoming group choreography which has left me very puzzled. It’s again this situation where I’ve spent a considerable amount of time preparing this work, gathered most of the team for the work and now there’s not enough resources to produce it. What to do? Cancel the whole thing? Produce 1/3 of the plans? And what is that, artistically?

I’m still waiting to hear from few funds but somehow the situation doesn’t seem very promising. I have a similar situation with the international collaboration that I’ve worked on with Rebecca French. So let’s see what happens…

This week I spent two days thinking about multicultural cultural policy and cultural diversity in Finland. Multiculturalism has become more present in the Finnish society since the 1990s but why is it still in such an infant stage in the Finnish cultural policy? It’s about time for the Arts Council to reconsider and rethink their organization, structure, strategy, and funding decisions!

Minzi is one of my favourite clothing shops in Finland. It’s located in Jyväskylä where I spent a few days this week. Actually the first item I ever bought in Minzi, was a Lumi Accessories handbag a few years ago. It was on sale and advertised on their website. So I emailed them and asked them to send it to me to Kuopio – which they did. This is the kind of service I like! Since it’s the sales time at the moment, I went to have a look what they had in Minzi… and found this gorgeous Tiia Vanhatapio hat which I already had a look at earlier in the autumn but it was a bit too pricy for me. But now it was on sale and I’m a happy owner of my first Tiia Vanhatapio item.




My glasses by Kenzo, the woolen scarf by Marimekko.

And the silver ‘Carpe Diem’ pendant by Efva Atling.


Johanna

images of Amsterdam

Before Christmas I spent five days in Amsterdam where I performed Twirling World as part of the Nordic Gold event.
I haven’t been to Holland since my graduation in 1997 (besides the Schiphol airport) so it was great to visit Amsterdam again. Walking down the canals and narrow streets of Amsterdam brought back so many memories and emotions that it was all a bit overwhelming. Amsterdam has such a special character and feeling and I must say that I’ve missed it!




Walking on Nine Streets, I came across this pop-up party:

And I swear I wasn’t looking for and didn’t even know where the Marlies Dekkers‘ shops are, but this came on my way:





In one of the vintage shops I saw the exact glittery top that I bought in the 1980’s from London and which has been stolen from the performance I don’t have anything to wear.


I had a wonderful Saturday morning at the Farmers’ Market in Nordmarkt and the most delicious apple pie and coffee in Cafe Winkel. I bought tons of Dutch cheeses for Christmas – they are the best. I’m a very big fan of old gouda, especially the ones made of goat’s milk.






We performed Twirling World in Rabozaal, a new space between the city theatre and Melkweg. The space was great, a huge stage with a big seated audience. We just used the stage, cutting of the seating with a metallic wall.



The performance itself went ok, I think, but the day building up the show, trying to do a run through, warm-up, prepare and to get all the necessary stuff was very stressful. Two things I learned: Twirling World cannot be toured without my own technician and I need to have my own private accommodation.
This is the painting of the Amsterdam show:

I’m sorry I haven’t been a very active blogger recently. I’ve been extremely busy and therefor a bit too tired and stressed at times. But now I’m trying to relax and take it easy. A party with a group of girlfriends today – really looking forward to it!

Johanna