common moves is a new collaborative artwork, a ‘social choreography’ or ‘choreography of the community’. The work operates as a speculative site. Through the act of occupying public space and applying simple scores and choreographies, it questions our conception of what is held to be ‘in common’, whether social norms or habits, whether something shared, public, or regularly occurring, whether something that is not underrepresented or marginalized, or whether something that does not stop the flow, that belongs. The work softly resists the current by changing and moving what is ‘common’.
The work is realized in collaboration with BIPOC artists and volunteers in Helsinki and is thus rooted in local conversations and urgencies. common moves takes place in several sites around central Helsinki.
_
29.7 - 13.8.2023 around Helsinki.
The work can be experienced in Helsinki between 29 July and 13 August in several public spaces. Some of the dates, times and locations of the practices are published before hand but most are encountered without notice.
The work is part of Helsinki Biennale 2023.
_
Facilitated by Ritni Pieski, at Oodi Central library, 3rd floor
The public practice is lead by Ritni Pieski and presented by Ziggy Allen, Miklu Mikkanen, Kiia Beilinson, Bintu Hellman and Mellakka – along with preregistered volunteers.
Wed 2.8. at 18.00
Fri 4.8. at 13:00
Mon 7.8. at 17:00
Wed 9.8. at 13:00
common moves was presented on Oodi’s 3rd floor.
Facilitated by Ama Kyei, at Tallinnanaukio, Itäkeskus
The public practice is lead by Ama Kyei and presented by Chen Nadler, Christian Bejedi, Nia Sullivan, Phan Nguyen and Bentality – along with preregistered volunteers.
Thu 3.8. at 18:00
Sat 5.8. at 18:00
Mon 7.8. at 18:00
Sat 12.8. at 17:00
common moves was presented at Tallinnanaukio Market Square, at Itäkeskus.
Facilitated by Melissa Şimşek-Linsa , at Esplanadi park
The public practice is lead by Melissa Şimşek-Linsa and presented by Santi Garzon, Kai Soumah, Angel Emmanuel, Yoandy Jimeno and Naomi Holopainen – along with preregistered volunteers.
Thu 3.8. at 14:00
Fri 4.8. at 18:00
Sun 6.8. at 15:00
Wed 9.8. at 18:00
common moves was presented at Esplanadi park, in front of the central statue and towards the harbor from there.
__
Concept
Sonya Lindfors
Dramaturg
H Ouramo
Facilitators
Ama Kyei, Melissa Linsa and Ritni Pieski
Production
Helsinki Biennale and UTT ry
Drawing
Jade Lönnqvist
Pictures
Kirsi Halkola (HAM), Sonja Hyytiäinen (HAM), Roza Ahmad
something like this is a performance that looks at the possibilities of the stage and hip-hop culture to serve as a platform for telling diverse stories, taking over space, empowerment and communality.
In this work aimed at young audiences, four street dance background performers meet on stage. A rich whole is built from a simple starting point, where the scenes are constructed in front of the viewers' eyes. Performers from diverse backgrounds dance, tell stories and have fun – together. There is room for many kinds of stories on this stage.
something like this turns the stage into a dance floor where stories, identities and ways of doing things can meet. Together with the viewers, the work asks: How should a performance be viewed or experienced, how does dance or movement move from one body to another, what kinds of things can be told through dance or movement? What is a communal dramaturgy like?
The work is produced in the framework of Zodiak's Zodiak Youth project. The work will tour in the cultural houses of the Helsinki capital region during autumn 2023 and spring 2024.
More info here
__
Premiere
30.8.2023 in Zodiak Stage
Concept and direction
Sonya Lindfors
Choreography & texts
Sonya Lindfors & working group
Sound design
Sebastian Kurtén
Lighting design
Erno Aaltonen
Performers
Akim Bakhtaoui, Linda Ilves, Ramona Panula, Sophia Wekesa
Production
Zodiak – Center for New Dance, in the framework of the Zodiak Youth project
Supported by
Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation
ONE DROP is a speculative summoning, a decolonial dream, an autopsy of the Western stage and an operetta. Slipping in meanings, leaking through different categories the work dives into the poetics and politics of relations, creating a stage that awakens the ghosts, connections lost or forgotten.
The title of the work refers to two separate frameworks, the one drop rhythm which is a reggae style drum beat as well as to the one drop rule of the Race Separation Act, created in the United States in the early 1900s, according to which a single drop of “Black blood” made a person “Black” despite their appearance. Through its multiple starting points the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements and relationalities to capitalism, coloniality and modernity.
ONE DROP continues Lindfors’ series of works dealing with power, representation and Black body politics.
_
Premiered May 6th 2023 in Helsinki.
Directing, choreography and concept
Sonya Lindfors
Original working group
Antonia Atarah, Hamis Ahmed, Geoffrey Erista, Nori Kin, Isabella Shaw, Mariama Slåttøy, Alma Bø Gettachew, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Angel Emmanuel, Aino Koski, Janina Salmela, Sonya Lindfors
On tour 2023 - 2024
Isabella Shaw, Kamilla Halid, Senna Vodzogbe, Miranda Chambers, Selina Jones, Alen Nsambu, Leo Ikhilor, Maele Sabuni, Deogracias Masomi, Marlon Moilanen, Divine Tasinda, Ama Kyei, Aino Koski, Jussi Matikainen, Timo Tikka, Erno Aaltonen, Sonya Lindfors
Contributors to the process
Ornilia Ubisse, Judith Arupa, Alen Nsambu, Johanna Karlberg, Jaakko Pallasvuo
Production
UTT ry and Sonya Lindfors
Co-production
Zodiak - center for new dance, Goethe-Institut (International Coproduction Fund), Big Pulse Dance Alliance (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), Dance Umbrella, Julidans, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Apap – FEMINIST FUTURES (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), Beursschouwbourg, Finnland-Institut as part of the pARTir initiative funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
Residencies
Tanzfabrik berlin, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Buda Kortrijk
Supported by
Koneen Säätiö, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Alfred Kordelinin säätiö, Nordic Culture Point
Pictures & trailer
Tuukka Ervasti (+ second picture by Tiu Makkonen)
Reviews, podcasts & more
Review by Hanna Helavuori | FI
Teatterin politiikka - podcast | FI
Interview with the Finnish institute in Paris | Eng
Review by Leonardo Custódio in No Niin magazine | ENG
Review by Charlotte Myrbråten | NO
Review by Francesca Matthys | ENG
Review by Georgia Hawlett | ENG
Tour dates
2024
14.2.2024 | Icehot, Oslo
13.-14.9.2024 | Dansens Hus, Stockholm
18.-19.10.2024 | Beursschouwbourg, Brussels
25.-26.10.2024 | Kampnagel, Hamburg
2023
14.-15.10.2023 | Coda, oslo
20.-21.10.2023 | Dance Umbrella, London
24.-25.10.2023 | METEOR 2023, Bergen
27.-28.10.2023 | Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow
Sonya Lindfors, Sara Melleri & Elina Pirinen:
Armageddon - an infernal show about a world that will not end.
Espoo City Theater's production Armageddon is a new work by Sara Meller, Sonya Lindfors and Elina Pirinen. The work premiered in 1st of March 2022 at Revontulihalli, Espoo.
-
Armageddon runs free in the wild garden after the final battle and plays between apocalyptic and popular, classical and avant-garde. The audience is invited to embrace the feminist power of imagination and speculation, the mayhem of internal and external fires, side characters and asteroid showers.
The two-part overall work draws an infernal, humorous and poetic show, where diversity and difference live side by side on the stage as gods. The audience is shown the power of imagination, they are invited to various hells, purgatorys and paradises. Armageddon calls to a vulnerable state, a free, fearless, bare soul again, to fight together for vision, multipolarity, joy and hope.
Armageddon is a joint work created by actress-director Sara Meller, choreographer-director Sonya Lindfors and dance artist-musician Elina Pirinen. Melleri and Lindfors are responsible for the entirety of the first part of the piece, the alternative cabaret. Pirinen has created a foreboding and ritualistic juxtaposition as an epilogue to the work.
Armageddon is based on an artistic practice in which Melleri, Lindfors and Pirinen study feminist art-making long-term and collegially.
Concept
Sonya Lindfors, Sara Melleri and Elina Pirinen
Direction, choreography, script
Sonya Lindfors, Sara Melleri
Choreography, poems, scent and visual departure in a parallel vision
Elina Pirinen
Performers
Antonia Atarah, Leila Kourkia, Sara Paasikoski, Kreeta Salminen, Sonya Lindfors and Sara Melleri
The show's materials have been created in collaboration with the performers.
Set and costume design
Virpi Nieminen
Sound design and composition
Johanna Puuperä
Lighting design
Ada Halonen
Performance dramaturg and outside eye
Louna-Tuuli Luukka
Choreographer's assistant
(internship Turku University of Applied Sciences Arts Academy)
Janina Salmela
Lighting design assistant
Alina Pajula
Seamstress
Jenni Räsänen
Makeup designer
Saara Sarvas
Photos and teaser
Silja Minkkinen
Performance photos
Venla Helenius
Outside support
Annu Kemppainen
Directors' working residency
Reykjavik Dance Festival 2019
Responsible organizer
Päivi Koskinen
Organizer
Emma Tainainen
Lighting master
Sasu Suntio
Sound technicians
Tommi Koskinen and Grégory Maisse
Set builder and stage master
Seppo Aapro
Stage technician
Olli Kettunen
Audience Outreach
Hanna Häyhä, in collaboration with intern Janina Salmela
Hand program
Teemu Junkkaala
Duration
1h 45min
Languages
English, Finnish, Swedish
Premiere
1.3.2022 in Espoo City theater
Camouflage (Eng): The use of any combination of materials, coloration or illumination for concealment, disguise, mimesis, simulation or falsification
camouflage is a multilayered landscape where things are both revealed and covered. Under the variegated surface is a speculative (auto) fiction, where the Artist reveals their trick. But not everything is what it looks like.
_
camouflage, a new work by Sonya Lindfors and working group, examines the act of looking and the politics of the gaze. The stage has the potentiality to reveal and obscure, make things invisible or hypervisible. But how do we recognize what we see. What happens in that moment of recognition when you categorize something as “contemporary”, as “art” or as “Black”?
The work scats with ancestors, slips in meanings and dreams of the right to opacity.
_
Premiered in October 2021 in Helsinki
Choreography and concept
Sonya Lindfors
Working group
Esete Sutinen, Julian Owusu, Johanna Karlberg, Riikka Lakea, Elisa Tuovinen, Tony Sikström, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Sonya Lindfors
Contributors to the process
Lydia Östberg Diakité, Pauliina Sjöberg, Zen Jefferson
Production assistant
Tuure Kaukua, Riikka Lakea
Residencies
Reykjavik Dance Festival / NREP ; MDT, Stockholm; Koneen Säätiö
Production
Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Sonya Lindfors, UrbanApa, Stoa
Teasers
Dates
19.-23.10.2021 | Zodiak - center for new dance, Helsinki
26.-29.5.2022 | MDT Stockholm, Sweden
7.-9.10.2022 | Kampnagel, Hamburg
5.-6.11.2022 | Berlin, Tanzfabrik
Reviews
Hufvudstadsbladet review here.
Helsingin Sanomat review here.
Berlin Art Link review here.
Hanna Helavuori’s review here.
Supported by
Arts Promotion Center, Finland, Svenska Kulturfonden, Nordic Culture Point
It is the year 2021.
A brown artist is sitting on a brown stage.
A brown artist is sitting on a brown stage dreaming of a future still unimaginable.
It is the year 3024.
A brown artist is sitting on a brown stage.
A brown artist is sitting on a brown stage. It no longer means anything but still feels like something.
—
Afrofuturism, a term coined in 1993 by Mark Dery, provides the framework for the radical dreaming that is COSMIC LATTE. The term, initially used in sci-fi contexts, defined, reimagined and dreamed blackness and black identity. Afrofuturism dreamed of a place where freedom, equality, past, present and future are come together in a mystical interzone that escapes all limitations and borders.
COSMIC LATTE plays with the idea of an utopian future where present, future and past are present in a boundless, mysterious in between space. The logic of our thinking has changed, black and white are no longer opposites, but contain one another. The boarders are malleable and the meanings mix with each other like liquids.
Afrofuturism, contemporary art, West African cosmologies, Sun Ra and Bach coexist on a stage that is porous, diverse and beige.
Cosmic Latte is a name given by researchers for the average colour of the universe.
COSMIC LATTE is also the third instalment of Sonya Lindfors’ series of works focusing on blackness.
—
Premiered 2018
Choreography and concept
Sonya Lindfors
Working group
Deogracias Masomi, Ima Iduozee, Pauliina Sjöberg, Geoffrey Erista, Sonya Lindfors, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sanna Levo, Esete Sutinen
Production
Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Sonya Lindfors, UrbanApa
Residencies
BoraBora, Århus; Schwankhalle, Bremen
Pictures
Uwa Iduozee, Ernest Protasiewicz
Production
Zodiak - center for new dance and Sonya Lindfors
Dates
23.3.2024 Theatre de Vanves, Paris
14.-15.7.2023 Julidans, Amsterdam
29.6.2023 Buda, Kortrijk
26.-27.11 Alkantara, Lissabon, Portugal
6.-8.10 Dansens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden
1.10.2021 Göteborg dance and theater festival, Gothenburg
Reviews & interwievs
Read the review by Isaiah Lopaz here.
Review from Helsingin Sanomat in Finnish here.
Review from Huvudsstadsbladet in Swedish here.
Interview from Dance Art Journal here
"The possible has been tried and failed. Now it's time to try the impossible!"
-Sun Ra
—
WE SHOULD ALL BE DREAMING is a concept that focuses on the radical potential of dreaming as a restorative and subversive practice.
It comes with a straightforward suggestion: we should all be dreaming radical utopian dreams of common futures. Situating itself somewhere between a collective think tank, choreographed gathering, a performance and a lecture the project gently invites the participators to spend time together, listen together and dream together.
WSABD is a collaboration between choreographer Sonya Lindfors and writer and activist Maryan Abdulkarim who both are interested in radical utopian and decolonial practices.
The world around us is plagued by fear, anger and hate of the unknown but WSABD attempts a strategic deviation - it does not only fight against, react to or reveal the grim realities of the surrounding world but instead works as a platform of soft resistance by making space for communal coexistence.
—
Premiered in 2018
Concept
Sonya Lindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim
Working group
Sonya Lindfors, Maryan Abdulkarim, Roy Boswell, Erno Aaltonen, David Muoz, Danai Anagnostou
Pictures
Essi Orpana, Sonya Lindfors
Co-producers
Spring Utrecht – festival, Baltic Circle – festival, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux
Words Make Worlds - publication
Download the free publication here
Soft Variations is a score for brown performers both professional and unprofessional.
Inspired by the scores of the sixties postmodernists the piece creates a landscape where questions of blackness, pedestrianity, neutrality and contemporaneity are unsettled.
By this act of occupying the stage with POC performers, the piece attempts to softly resist the existing norms; through soft variations meanings are deconstructed and new ones created.
—
Premiered in 2018
Concept
Sonya Lindfors
Working group
Sonya Lindfors, Esete Sutinen, Julian Owusu, Zen Jefferson
Co-producers
Schwindelfrei – festival, Mannheim, UrbanApa
Supported by
Taiteen edistämiskeskus, The Finnish Institute in Germany
The Miracle Workers Collective (MWC) :
A GREATER MIRACLE OF PERCEPTION
The MWC presented their inaugural project, A Greater Miracle of Perception, for the Finnish Alvar Aalto Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
The MWC is formed and informed by a transdisciplinary and anational community of artists, filmmakers, writers, intellectuals, performers, and activists.
Exploring the miracle as a poetic vehicle from which to expand perceptions and experiences, the exhibition presented MWC’s collective film work The Killing of Čáhcerávga (2019), which was in dialogue with the site-specific sculptural installation Ovdavázzit – Forewalkers (2019) by Outi Pieski.
_
The Miracle Workers Collective:
writer Maryan Abdulkarim
scriptwriter Khadar Ahmed
writer Hassan Blasim
choreographer Sonya Lindfors
artist Outi Pieski
artist Leena Pukki
artist Martta Tuomaala
artist Lorenzo Sandoval
cinematographer Christopher L. Thomas
storyteller Suvi West
curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif
curator Christopher Wessels
and curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.
Curators
Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Christopher Wessels, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.
Commissioner
Raija Koli, Frame Contemporary Art Finland.
SHAKE!
Short film, part of the film anthology Force of Habit (Yksittäistapaus)
Synopsis:
When Eva (Tuuli Heinonen) lets loose and starts dancing at a company party, disapproving leers drive her away from the dance floor. To make matters worse, Eva’s new boss Kirsti (Wanda Dubiel) humiliates her in front of everyone. Eva realises she can’t just accept the situation and decides to return on the dance floor to own the room and dance away the shame. Shake! is written and directed by Sonya Lindfors and Aino Suni, and it is part of the film anthology Force of Habit.
_
“Shake! is a film about freedom. The freedom to be yourself and the courage to resist the demand for uniformity.
We live in a society where being different is punishable. Exclusion, bullying, and discrimination are cruel ways to guard the boundaries of normality. Gestures, looks, and hidden remarks constantly control our behaviour and existence. Already as a child, we learn to be ashamed of ourselves, to diminish and to censor ourselves. With repetition, the toxic atmosphere spreads and gets normalised – we start requiring others, too, to conform to the social norms. We use a massive amount of time and energy in trying to fit into these impossible moulds. The human body is a rebel; it is exactly the shape, colour, and size that it is.
Historically, the dance floor has offered a place for different kinds of people to meet each other just the way they are and to liberate themselves together. Shake! was created out of the need to make visible that moment when we let go and surrender to the movement that shakes up old structures. Suddenly the music pulls us in and the body starts moving almost by itself. The movement is unstoppable. When diving deeper into the feeling of freedom, all those looks and demands are forgotten. Dance brings us together and lifts as up in the air, all the way to pure pleasure. Enjoying your own body is the most radical freedom there is.”
Aino Suni & Sonya Lindfors, director-writers
_
Directed and screenplay
Sonya Lindfors & Aino Suni
Produced by: Elli Toivoniemi
Cinematography by: Kerttu Hakkarainen
Production design by: Sanna-Mari Pirkola
Costume design by: Roosa Marttiini
Make-up design by: Kaisu Hölttä
Sound design by: Lotta Mäki
Editing by: Jussi Sandhu
Original score by: Niko Liinamaa
Pictures by: Theofanis Kavvadas
CAST:
Eva: Tuuli Heinonen
Kirsti: Wanda Dubiel
Country of production: Suomi
Duration: 7:28
Domestic content rating: S
Watch the film (only available in Finland):
NOBLE SAVAGE deconstructs the processes of othering by creating a black stage where whiteness is the ‘other’.
The term noble savage dates back to the 17th century – yet the dominant media image of blackness as an exotic and fascinating yet also potentially threatening and untamed otherness is still alive and well.
The dramaturgical frame of the performance is one of the most known white savior – narratives of our times, the story of Pocahontas. She was a young princess is kidnapped and taken to Europe, but her story has been popularized, with the lucrative Disney version from 1995 as the best known – widely criticized for its historical inaccuracy and for presenting offensive and damaging stereotypes of Native Americans.
A further metalayer is formed by a roleplay of representations. Who is allowed to play whom, and how? Who is allowed to tell whose story? Who is the hero and who is the villain?
—
Premiered in 2016
Concept and directing
Sonya Lindfors
Performers
Esete Sutinen, Ima Iduozee, Julian Owusu, Amira Khalifa, Deogracias Masomi, Erno Aaltonen, Jussi Matikainen, Sonya Lindfors
Design team
Erno Aaltonen
Aino Koski
Jussi Matikainen
Sanna Levo
Laura Jantunen
Pictures
Ilkka Saastamoinen
Sanna Kaesmae
Production
Zodiak - center for new dance, UrbanApa and Sonya Lindfors
is an ongoing lecture - performance concept and an artistic practice that studies and investigates the socio-political roots of hiphop culture and the friction between blackness and the post- modern. The concept is always site and context specific and it has taken many different forms from clubs and morning sessions to performances that happen in public spaces. This on-going project is inspired by and an homage to Adrien Piper’s piece “Funk Lessons”.
—
Premiered in 2015
Concept
Sonya Lindfors
Working group
Anniina Jääskeläinen, Erno Aaltonen, Mitja Nylund, Sonya Lindfors
Co-production
Jojo - Oulu center for dance, Routa Company, Zodiak - center for new dance, UrbanApa
Picture
Sari Palmgren
Trailer
Erno Aaltonen
A commission for dance group Gruppen Fyra.
GR8 XXXPEKT8TIONZ is a personal, bold and ironic Dickens adaptation that moves in the fields of contemporary, urban dance, theater and pop culture.
(POSSIBLE) READINGS
1. A narrative story of growth were the protagonist is both the main character and the narrator, both the subject and the object.
2. A piece that deconstructs the tradition of dance theater by means of dance theater.
3. A well established dance theater group hires a trendy up and coming black choreographer to rebrand the group’s image.
4. A group of artists is working outside their comfort zone using their knowhow.
__
Premiered in Helsinki in 2014
Choreography and consept
Sonya Lindfors
Gruppen Fyra / performers
Jenni Nikolajeff, Pia Liski, Virpi Juntti, Kaisu Hölttä, Tommi Haapaniemi, Lotta Wichmann
Light, video and spatial design
Erno Aaltonen
Sound design
Roy Boswell
Costume and spatial design
Sanna Levo
Production
Gruppen Fyra
NOIR (French): Black, dark, gloomy, a Black person
NOIR? is a journey into Blackness, Black performance and Black identity. The work is a macabre roleplay where the performers play with the notions of Black performance and being Black on a contemporary stage summoning ghosts from the past.
—
Premiered in 2013
Choreography & directing
Sonya Lindfors
Performers
Esete Sutinen, Ima Iduozee, Deogracias Masomi, Sonya Lindfors
Design team
Erno Aaltonen, Aino Koski, Hannu Hauta-aho, Sanna Levo
Pictures
Uupi Tirronen, Ernest Protasiewicz
Trailer
Hannu Aukia
Production
Zodiak - center for new dance and Sonya Lindfors
