Interview: Sonja Jokiniemi in Ma culture: "Hmm is about something that cannot be caught in a box"

Guillaume Rouleau spoke with Sonja Jokiniemi on July 28th as part of her performances in the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series 2016 at ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival. 

"Her solo Hmm shown at the Schauspielhaus on July 26th and 28th had a decor of wooden sticks, thick cellophane, a cardboard box and a triangle lying scattered all over the floor. Sonja Jokiniemi is standing in a beige leather suit when the public arrives. Flickering sounds are filling the space. Few elements produce a multitude of effects.
With these objects, Sonja Jokiniemi composes a cosmos on the scale of the theater. She associates them through tactile and vocal manipulations, talking to them, talking for them, in a linguistic performance, in which the language is a capacity to generate meanings and actions. A language that is sometimes hermetic, as the communication she establishes with the public. The spectator has to make the effort, if not to understand, then at least to be attentive to what slips from the ordered and defined language. Sonja Jokiniemi explores the borders of sonority, of meaning, of communication by numerous interjections, onomatopoeias, exclamations; sounds and gestures which have numerous significations but don’t call for any answer or reaction. The audience interprets these significations and the structures of language with pain, with joy, impatience and satisfaction. An experience brilliantly led by Sonja Jokiniemi which she accepted to discuss."

Read the full interview on Ma culture.