Concept & original performance: Marcia Farquhar
Performance and choreography: Johanna Tuukkanen
Photography: Pekka Mäkinen
Music & sound: Tatu Metsäpelto
Light design: Jari Piki Lappalainen
Supported by: Finnish National Council for Dance, Regional Dance Center of Eastern Finland and the City of Kuopio
In collaboration with: Functional Hyvinvointistudio: www.functional-team.fi
Thanks: Daniel Brine, Anniina Aunola, Vilja Ruokolainen, Johanna Tähtinen, Pipsa Rautsi, Riikka Valve
This performance has been created under the guidance of Marcia Farquhar.

Marcia Farquhar is delighted to have been invited by the highly esteemed Johanna Tuukkanen to come to Finland for a performance of her acclaimed Acts of Clothing. This performance will however be altogether different and exactly the same as anything hitherto presented… It will be the same conceptually, one woman alone on a catwalk with her wardrobe spanning a lifetime and telling stories prompted by the garments. But altogether different in that Tuukkanen will present her own outfits, her own associations and above all her tales will be told mostly in Finnish, in her own (mother) tongue.

Coming, or going, back to Finland to direct a performance in a language she doesn’t understand entirely fits the absurdity attendant to translation so important to Farquhar, who in 2000 made a piece of work with her husband Jem Finer, for a tram in Helsinki. ‘O is Rocket, H is for Shark’ was a word play in 25 acts in which the artists pondered the pain and pleasure of translation. Acts of Clothing similarly interrogates the pain and pleasure of getting dressed…

“I’ve gotten to know Marcia Farquhar during my visits to the National Review of Live Art in Scotland over the past ten years. Her extravagant appearance, outstanding charisma and audacious complaints that as the artistic director I had rejected her proposals to perform at ANTI Festival, made me fall in love with her way before I saw her perform which wasn’t until 2007. Her performance Acts of Clothing left an imprint for life. Seeing this gorgeous woman on a catwalk sharing a life time of clothing, memories and incidents related to them, dressing and undressing, was a performance I simply adored. After the performance I said to Daniel Brine, then a co-director of the Live Art Development Agency in London, now the director of Performance Space in Sydney, that I would love to perform that score with my clothes, my past, my history. Daniel loved the idea and later that year I had the courage to approach Marcia with this concept. She immediately said yes, so here we are.
Although Marcia did call this invitation a kind of consolation prize (as supposed to being invited to the ANTI Festival) in one of our encounters at the NRLA, for me this is everything but consolation. Marcia has very generously followed and commented on my working process. It is a scary idea to attempt to perform a score created and performed by such a brilliant performer and a star but like Marcia puts it: You must not be worried about the clothing performance AT ALL. One of the most ingenious things you have done is to suggest you perform it and invite me to “hand it on” in person, that is very good and very FLUXUS and it will be marvelous whatever it is and as it is over some nights it can be different each night or the same. It is a very flexible form. This should only cause you excitement. Happy terror like going on a rollercoaster but better, not so fixed.” Johanna Tuukkanen

Performances:
27.11.2009 at 7 pm premiere
28.11.2009 at 7 pm
29.11.2009 at 2 pm
1.12.2009 at 7 pm
2.12.2009 at 7 pm

Venue: Sotku, Suokatu 42/2, Kuopio, Finland
Tickets: 0-36€
Limited audience capacity!

Acts of Clothing has been performed in the Ateneum Theatre in Helsinki, at the Paikallisliike 2010 Festival in Kuopio, Lonely in the rain? Festival in Joensuu, JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre, Tanssin Aika Festival in Jyväskylä, in the City Theatre of Kuopio, Tanssimanteli event in Mikkeli and in several private events. Next it will be performed in Uppsala, Sweden.

Acts of Clothing from Johanna Tuukkanen on Vimeo.

Due to an injury, Johanna was assisted by Marcia in this performance.