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Image: Timo Wright
Sonja Jokiniemi's Hmm has been selected for the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series of this year's ImPulsTanz - Vienna International Dance Festival. Hmm is performed on 26 and 28 July in Schauspielhaus.
The [8:tension] series presents powerful statements by 13 dance professionals from all over the world. The artists featured in the [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series are nominated for the Casinos Austria Prix Jardin d’Europe and the FM4 Fan Award 2016.
Drawing: Sonja Jokiniemi
Sonja Jokiniemi's RRRRR will get its German premiere as part of NoMad House in Theaterdiscounter on 9 June. The Mad House Helsinki crew will take over Theaterdiscounter in Berlin from 8 to 11 June 2016 and set up NoMad House: a place where people, artists and audience are taken care of. It presents PERFORMANCES, invites everyone to join WORKSHOPS and the THINK THANK open discussions for pondering current topics with invited guests and a moderator. Every day there will also be the Art via Stomach SOUP CAFÉ with an interior created by Niina Lehtonen Braun and hosted by Heidi, Juha & Markus (soup, sandwiches, sweet buns, hot & cold drinks) as well as a LATE BAR.
Mad House Helsinki gets three new curators, when artists Elina Pirinen, Mikko Niemistö and Sonja Jokiniemi join the team. They are planning the program for Mad House’s 4th Season, taking place in 2017 together with curators Leena Kela, Martina Marti, Annika Tudeer and Juha Valkeapää.
TU will be showcased in TEHDAS Teatteri in Turku on 31 May as part of RECEPTION, the 1st Triennial of the Community Arts organised by the Saari Residence maintained by the Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre Finland together with several local partners.
TU is a collaborative performance work by Sonja Jokiniemi and Veera Kivelä. The base of the work is on Veera's language that appears in complex intimate sound systems and movement patterns. Jokiniemi and Kivelä map the performance space through touching, sounding and moving through, communicating with objects, the space itself and with one another. TU is part of a community-based research project Without an alphabet, where Jokiniemi worked with four autistic young adults investigating subjective language systems. Kivelä is one of her collaborators from this project.
The first triennial of the community arts in Finland offers a broad view on socially engaged art practice and on the works of art created in interaction and collaboration with various communities. The theme of the triennial RECEPTION refers on the one hand to the act of receiving as well as to hospitality. On the other hand, it raises questions about the resistance and the power structures. Who do we welcome, to whom do we turn our backs? In which troops do we stand and whose voices are being heard? In this time, what creates the feeling of togetherness? What kind of reactions and artistic outcomes creates the trinity of the artists, the communities and society ?
Between the spring and the early summer of 2016 RECEPTION will spread out to the west coast of Finland. The participating cities are Helsinki, Kemiönsaari, Turku, Mynämäki, Rauma, Pori and Vaasa. In each city, both local and visiting artists open and showcase their collabrative art processes and practices to the wider audience. The full triennial programme contains e.g artists-in-residence, discussions, presentations and works created during the event together with local communities.
Sonja Jokiniemi discusses her work, the role of objects in her pieces and the upcoming premiere of RRRRR in Bern.
The trailer for Forever Young festival is out and it includes a teaser of RRRRR. Premiere coming up on 23 February in Dampfzentrale Bern.
Sonja Jokiniemi's new piece RRRRR will premiere in Dampfzentrale Bern during their Forever Young festival on 23 and 24 February 2016. The piece will be in a double bill together with Nick Steur's Freeze.
RRRRR erzählt von schizophrenen Zügen in uns selbst, unserer Umgebung, der virtuellen Welt und den gesellschaftspolitischen Strukturen. Das besondere Interesse von Jokiniemi gilt der ständigen Präsenz von Künstlichkeit und der Entkörperlichung in der Online-Existenz. Ihr Projekt zielt darauf ab, Verdrängungen, Entgleisungen und Chaos in unserer Umgebung und in unseren Seelenlandschaften zu analysieren, sie zu verstehen und sie methodologisch für ihre Arbeit als Performerin aufzubereiten.
Image: Kansallisgalleria / Petri Virtanen