Category Archives: Live Art

I’m looking for three women to perform in my new work

I will hold an audition on Thursday 31st of May at 3 pm at Hermannin salit in Kuopio, Finland. I will choose three performers for my new work. The working period will be between August and November,  premiere in November-December 2007 and they will be organized in Kuopio,  Finland.

The audition is held for professional performers who work in the contexts of contemporary dance, live art and/or performance art.
Mandatory registration at johanna(at)tuukkanen.net or +358 40 742 9091 by Monday 28th of May.

Further information: Johanna Tuukkanen




					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Good day (got the grant and much more)
			

								


				

			
Today was a busy but quite an interesting and good day in the end. First, I got a very exciting email asking if I was interested in one international project (which I was) and in the evening I got a text message from the regional arts council of North Savo saying that I have been given a one year artist grant for 2007. This is good news, but to be perfectly honest, I had applied a longer grant and was quite disappointed that I didn’t get one. It just makes the long term planning and commitments so much more difficult as I have again no idea how I will fund my work in 2008.

But now is now, and things are definitely moving to the right directions. I’m sipping champagne (the cheapest you can get in Alko), called my mom and just finished working. I sent my DVD to Norway today, talked with Emma Puikkonen on the phone about continuing to perform Cosmetics and green peas (yes!) and had a great Skype session with Gregg about the Talks & Deeds programme and ANTI 2007 artists etc. So yes, it was all inspiring and exciting.

Working with Jaana over the weekend was great, as usual. It is so much fun, crazy and reaching and referring to so many directions and issues and traditions. I just love working with her and I really do hope that audiences will find the work and pick up all the contradicting statements we make in it. And I hope they will forgive me my all but perfect figure! No matter how hard I practice ashtanga, it just stays the same…

But I’m not letting my body, my weight, my intelligence, my financial situation or my age to stop me. It’s all going to be out there and it is only through them, that I can resist, contradict and point out the issues I, we want.


I’ll be waiting for your congratulations and flowers and other possible gifts. You know how to reach me.


Johanna

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Longing, house, clothes, worries and www
			

								


				

			
Busy days since coming back from Glasgow. I’ve been a bit blue, missing Rebecca and Andrew, the presence of so many wonderful artists and general passion for live art. Nikki and Colin had once again created a fantastic festival with about 80 artists from around the world. At the moment I feel that the most important works for me to see and experience were by artists Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Rosie Dennis and also Nic Green who is a very young artist based in Glasgow. But I’ve found a touching naivety and sincerity in her works and a kind of romantic enthusiasm. I’ve seen two of her works and also her performing in Grace Surman’s piece in Bristol last year. There is something about Nic that I really like but at the same time something troubling, which is a nice feeling. There were lots of other interesting things and strong works, too many to list here. But one more has to be mentioned! The first time I saw Curious live with their new work (be)longing. It was very good to see and I found it really beautiful in its simplicity but it was kind of long. But I also saw it in the late evening having already watched works for about ten hours…so maybe it wasn’t the best time. But I really enjoyed it. Also some video works I’ve seen by them have been great. And of course Marcia Farquhar! She was just amazing and it was just amazing to see her work with an archive of her clothes.

I had very inspiring meetings and conversations with Daniel and Lois from the Live Art Development Agency. They were also very pleased with our decision to choose Gregg Whelan to be my co-artistic director which, acknowledging their experience on the field, I highly value. We also hope to work with them in the future.

It was also really great to meet with other live art festival producers from the UK, Belgium and France and I sense a great passion to promote live art and artists. Let’s see if we can be part of a live art focused EU-project in the future. It would be fantastic and I really hope we can find a way with ANTI to work it out.

It was fantastic to have Andrew and Rebecca over in Glasgow as well, although they didn’t present work in the programme. Last year they were artists in residence along with Richard Dedominici (who also has shown work at ANTI) and I must say I missed the kind of presence they brought to the NRLA last year. And there were so many other people I so much enjoyed seeing like Jennie Klein, Steven Hodge, Dominic Johnson, Manuel Vason, Deen, Eleine Kordys, Andrew from LADA etc….


When I flew to Glasgow, my luggage was lost for two days. What a nightmare! I had all my new great clothes with me that I didn’t get to wear because for the first two days I just had to wear the same clothes. Actually, I had to by lots of new toiletries (cleansing milk, tonic water, shampoo, toothpaste, deo etc.) and some new undies to survive. It’s a pain with the new hand baggage regulations. Well, luggage arrived finally and I got to wear my new boots, jacket and Ponten skirt which never goes unnoticed. And Andrew and Rebecca got their Nordic Walking sticks…


I’ll have a rehearsal period with Jaana next week and I’ve been booking some studios space for us and also just for me individually. Today I was supposed to send material to our graphic designer but I didn’t manage. I didn’t get our exact performance dates in Helsinki from Jaana yet, Pekka is still working on some photos and I decided to go and do some at the Blue House today. It was so great. At 1 pm the light in the house is so beautiful at the moment that I just had to take a few photos.


upstairs1


upstairs2


yoga1


yogaview


downstairs


Mladen, who has been and is working on my website, emailed me today and it’s all moving on at least a little bit now. There has been all kinds of obstacles on the way and Mladen has now moved to Sweden, but I hope you’ll have patience as we sure do our best to set it up. Backloading removal services were perfect too.


I still don’t know about the artist grant for this year from the regional arts council and it’s really depressing. I know I didn’t get anything from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and that also put me down. Sometimes I feel I’m too old for this kind of uncertainty. By this time, at 33, and having worked as an artist professionally for 10 years, after receiving a State Prize for the Arts among others, I should have a little longer time phrase than 9 months in which to develop work. Don’t you think I deserve it?


Johanna

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Glasgow
			

								


				

			
…was fantastic! Well, I actually didn’t get to spend so much time in the city itself, but I had a great time. It was so good to visit NRLA again, see so many great artists and promoters and friends. This time around it was all very busy, lots of performances and durational pieces, many meetings and talks and discussions. Many projects planned and discussed. It all was so inspiring and exciting that it is almost scary to be back in Kuopio. Because life here is nothing like that. There is very little sense of support, enthusiasm, experimentalism. It was so great to meet people from all over the world who are so excited about ANTI –festival and find it extraordinary and fantastic that we do it each year. So do I get any vibes like that over here? The answer is no. None. But maybe it is also the cultural difference in behaviour and language. But I’m sure it is not only that. On my way back yesterday, I thought that maybe it is my destiny to move to Britain at some point. You know, in 1997 I was supposed to, but didn’t in the end because of love and my son. So maybe when I’m older, we’ll sell the Blue House and move to Britain. I already have suggested house swapping with some friends in London. The only hindrance at the moment is the fact that Blue House is not yet finished!

I went to the Blue House today with my daughter by bus. It was the first time we took a bus there and it wasn’t that bad. I was so exhausted that I didn’t really do any work there, I just watched Pekka and Juho working on the upstairs’ floor and I measured some walls and windows. It all looks very good but there is a lot of pressure time and money wise at the moment…

I need to get some sleep now. More about NRLA etc. is coming up in few days.


Hope you are all well.

Johanna

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				The column
			

								


				

			
was published today. For those of you who don’t get the Kuopion Kaupunkilehti, here it is (in Finnish):


“Kuka saa, kuka jää ilman?


Alkuvuosi on monelle piinallista odottelun aikaa. Lukuisat kolmannen sektorin toimijat ja taiteilijat odottelevat päätöksiä erinäisistä toiminta-avustuksista, apurahoista tai hankerahoituksista joku kaupungilta, toinen valtiolta, kolmas taidetoimikunnalta, neljäs lääninhallitukselta ja joku näistä kaikista. Toiminta on käynnissä tai ainakin sen pitäisi alkaa, mutta rahoituspäätöksiä ei vielä ole. Tilanne on monelle toimijalle vaikea. Miten rekrytoida ihmisiä töihin, millaisia sopimuksia uskaltaa tehdä ja kuinka paljon voivat työntekijät joustaa?

Ja mitä sitten kun päätökset tulevat? Jos avustusta ei tulekaan, miten käy suunnitellun toiminnan ja vireillä olevien hankkeiden tai projektien? Tai jos avustusta tuleekin, mutta vuosi toisensa perään se on toiminnan laajuuteen nähden riittämätöntä? Miten esimerkiksi taiteilijat, kulttuurialan toimijat ja yhdistykset pystyvät toteuttamaan pitkän aikavälin tavoitteita ja strategisia linjauksiaan ja tuottamaan valtakunnallisesti ja kansainvälisesti korkealaatuista ja kiinnostavaa sisältöä kun rahoitus on joka vuosi katkolla ja päätökset tulevat suunnitelmallisen toiminnan kannalta aivan liian myöhään?

Tuntuu, että monilta odotetaan kohtuuttoman suurta joustoa ja luottamusta huomiseen, ilman minkäänlaisia turvatakuita. Pelissä voi olla perheen toimeentulo, etenkin vastavalmistuneilla päätös asumispaikkakunnasta, kenties jonkun toisen työn vastaanottamatta jättäminen hankerahoituksen jatkumisen uskossa.

Vakituisessa työsuhteessa olevien lienee lähes mahdoton ymmärtää millaisessa tilanteessa useat korkeakoulutetut, Kuopion kaupungin imagolle ja vetovoimalle tärkeät kulttuuri- ja taidealan toimijat ja kolmannen sektorin organisaatiot ovat. Ja mitä nämä toimijat sitten ovat tehneet Kuopion imagon eteen? Tuottaneet esimerkiksi kansainvälisiä, valtakunnallisia tapahtumia, vauvoista vaareihin ja mummoihin kohdistuvia projekteja, useiden taiteen alojen teoksia, näyttelyitä ja esityksiä, vähemmistöryhmiin kohdistuvia hankkeita ja tietysti verotuloja. Ja monille, luoneet Kuopiosta innostavan paikan elää ja asua. Olisiko kohtuullista huomioida tällaisen voimavaran tarpeet hiukan paremmin ennen kuin toimijat vetävät johtopäätöksensä ja siirtyvät heitä paremmin huomioiviin kaupunkeihin tai maihin? Tutkimukset osoittavat, että kaupunkien vetovoimaa mitataan niiden tarjoamilla kulttuuripalveluilla. Osaamista täältä ei ainakaan puutu.”

ANTI -festival’s ex-producer Maija emailed me today which was a nice surprise of the day. She is currently in Göteborg in Sweden and I really miss her, in work and privately as well.


I’m off to National Review of Live Art next week and I’m really looking forward to seeing new work, meeting artists, producers, art officers and friends.


I bought with my daughter two DVD’s of Cold Feet today. Cold Feet was my absolute favourite series ever and when I bought the first season on DVD about a year ago I was delighted to watch it and cry in peace. Now I’m looking forward to new emotional trips.


Johanna