"The multimedia dance play adapts Tove Jansson’s The Tales from the Moominvalley. The Finnish classic is given a family friendly contemporary dance makeover and won a Shanghai EXPO 2010 Culture Award." thatsmags.com

tiistai 24. elokuuta 2010

Greetings from the Shanghai Expo part 5
































Photos: Samuli Roininen, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd


Hallo again.

Time for some dance news from Shangai?

Finland at EXPO 2010 writes:

MOOMINTROLL DANCED HIS 65TH BIRTHDAY AT THE SHANGHAI WORLD EXPO - Dancing Moominvalley at Shanghai EXPO celebrated Moominvalley and Tove Jansson's art in a splendid way



Dance Theatre MD, Tampere Art Museum Moominvalley, Heikki Mäenpää & Moominvalley Orchestra, Moomin Characters Ltd and Moomin Friends Association with their co-operators brought an example of Finnish culture aimed for the whole family to Shanghai Expo. Music and dance pulled the vast Chinese audience into their whirl, even though Moomins were a new acquaintance for most spectators. A happy surprise waited for some families which had the opportunity to learn a birthday dance in the dance workshops and perform it to Moomintroll.

The culture export project, produced as a part of Finland's culture programme in Shanghai Expo, got huge visibility in the programme of the Expo and also in Chinese Media. Crossmedia artwork's executive producer-scriptwriter Mr Heikki Mäenpää and choreographer Mr Samuli Roininen have a reason to be happy. Right after the first show of the dance theatre performance Dancing Moominvalley at Europe Square the production team received an invitation to perform their art in the World Leisure Expo in Hangzhou, China in autumn 2011
.

http://www.finlandatexpo2010.fi/?99_m=1710&s=14

Very happy. And excited by all this.

Remember also that the performances continue in Tampere at the Hällä Stage in September from Tuesday the 7th at10 following the Finnish tournee.

You are very welcome.


With Warm Greetings,

Samuli Roininen, Dance Theatre MD

perjantai 20. elokuuta 2010

Kulttuuritekoja Osa1: Nukkuuko Muumi huonosti?

















Photos: Samuli Roininen, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd


Moi taas.


Hyviä uutisia. Tanssiva Muumilaakso -esitykset jatkuvat taas pian Hällä -näyttämöllä!!

Niin. No, sekin(...) Mutta tiesitkö, että Voima-lehti on alkanut julkaisemaan sarjakuvasivuillaan vanhoja Muumi-strippejä?

Loistavaa!

Korrekti näkökulmakin löytyi.

Kuuntele tätä:

"Voiman tulevissa numeroissa julkaistaan sarjakuvaa, jossa kaiken halutaan pysyvän ennallaan ja jossa poliisi on ystävä. Vallankumous, taide ja journalismi on pantu viralta. Kehitystä tai demokraattisia uudistuksia ei kaivat ja töissä ei tarvitse käydä.

Silti jostain syystä eletään jatkuvassa yltäkylläisyydessä. Radikalismiin kyllästynyt silinterihattuinen perheenisä vaihtaa sanomalehden rakkausomaaneihin, koska minkään ei tarvitse muuttua."


Voima-lehden ensimmäisessä Muumi-stripissä Neiti Sananvapaus esittelee Muumeille radikalismin alkeita kouluvaltauksesta poliittisen palopuheen pitoon. Paljon on muumeilla tietenkin vielä opittavaa. Ollaan vielä kovin "Alhaisella anarkian tasolla."

Hanna Kuusela kirjoittaa Voimassa siitä kuinka vallankumous epäröimättä syö Muumilaaksossa lapsensa. Niinkö? Tässä se tarkoittaa Muumilaakson 'helppoutta' ja saavutettua 'tasapainoa'. On löydetty jotain, jota ei helpolla huojuteta. Onko Muumilaaksosta tullut Sveitsi?

Tove on ehkä kokenut olevansa taiteilijana toivottoman porvarillinen. Taiteilijalla on vain oivaltavan ironian taju kuitenkin aina ollut suurempi kuin poliittisen palopuheen tarve. Toven tuotannossa on kyllä anarkiaa. Se saa lukijan miettimään, ja itse yrittämään pientä sabotaasia, vaikka sitten vain boikotoimaan omia tuttuja tottumuksiaan. On puhuttu ulos ja uudelleen oppimisen taidosta. Olisiko tämä sitä?

Kuusela jatkaa:

"Muumit kun osaavat ivata muodin aallonharjoja ja korskeaa touhotusta. He kehoittavat pieniin seikkailuihin kohtuuden rajoissa ja muistuttavat modernien keksintöjen olevan usein huonompia kuin pussillinen esimodernismia.

Rivien välissä kai sanotaan, että Muumilaakso on mahdollinen vain, jos kukaan - silinteripäiset herrat mukaan lukien - ei tavoittele liikoja tai turhia."


Niin. Otamme käyttöön sananvapauden.

http://www.voima.fi/

Ensin on vain seikkailtava pikkuisen, jotta saa perspektiiviä ja sanottavalleen sisältöä. Vai?


Terveisin,

Samuli Roininen. Tanssiteatteri MD

sunnuntai 15. elokuuta 2010

Greetings from the Shanghai Expo part 4
















































Photos: Samuli Roininen, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd



Hallo again.

Beeing now back in Tampere the whole Expo week seems like an awfully big adventure. I am still a bit in doubt whether it actually happend or not. - Well, there happend alot. My reporting here is more of a diary put together afterwards. Fragmented and without a proper cronological order. A bit like Expo itself.

Looking back into the fotos here above I would reckon we managed to fit well into this carefully-thought picture of Finnish high-tech, culture and design. Making images and appearances seems to be an important task when it comes both to selling products or making people to come to see your show. - Or when trying to describe what beeing Finnish is all about. All those nationalities showing off. Showing off their best. I realized once more how the Moomin phenomenon has become one of the few truly big Finnish brands also known oversees. And how differently it all started.

Walking around the well-air-conditioned Finnish pavilion (for it actually forms a circle)Kirnu made me asking myself whether an actual dance performance could be seen as a designed object as is a well-known Finnish rocking chair. - I thought about the rocking chair and dance: If the idea of chairs success comes from fact that we see it everywhere (and in many different colours) how much of a 'value' of a choreography is coming from its repetition. Is a single performance less valuable than a piece that sells hunderds? Can you build a strong brand without a repetition? A 'successful'choreographer has to create repetitiosly pieces that reclaim their promise. So then eventually, if it works, a strong brand becomes a promise of high quality, what ever that means in arts.

Naturally, a well designed choreography differs from a well-designed rockings chair in many ways. The most relevant difference might be the fact that we cannot own a performance the way we can own a chair. Though, we seem to enjoy sitting in a rocking chair a bit same way than we enjoy a dance performance. We experience it. How it moves. It involves us.

But back to the original question of making brands and products. It's clear that a true value in dance has to be elsewhere, not in its repetition. But could we learn something about commercial image building and marketing? Would we eventually know how to apply it into dance without loosing its 'artistic integrity'(and why does this sound so easily a bit phony?) Would 'better' marketing make dance easier approachable? Or just better dance? Better dancers? Better audience? And better how? That's a bit of a downer.

To sum it up I admit that Moomins meeting contemporary dance might be here a bit of an extreme example. And an Expo World Exhibition an extreme environment.

But there could be also a lesson to be learned in there.


Samuli Roininen, Choreographer, Dance Theatre MD
from the Shanghai World Exhibition 2010

keskiviikko 11. elokuuta 2010

Greetings from the Shanghai EXPO part 3

Ni hao. Today is the final show of the Dancing Moominvalley at Shanghai EXPO. What a thrill the whole trip has been! Over two thousand people have already seen us on stage and on different events including the concerts, workshops and other stuff we've offered them, so after today's performance it will raise up to three thousand. That's something huge!

We've been in Shanghai and Hong Kong media, number of Chinese web magazines, and the EXPO organisation has given us the highlight position on their own event calendars three days on a row which is extraordinaire.

We'll give you the photos and other stuff including links next week, tomorrow we'll enjoy the well earned day off in Shanghai as the plane takes of early on Friday morning and takes us back to Finland.

Written on Wednesday 11th of August 2010 at 17:30 PM Shanghai time

tiistai 10. elokuuta 2010

Greetings from the Shanghai EXPO part 2

Ni hao. Yesterday we had the first full performance of the contemporary dance piece Dancing Moominvalley on the Europe square. And hooray, nobody fainted! Although the dancing in the furry costumes, as I was told, was truly sweaty and exhausting. Luckily for us, the sky was cloudy so the stage wasn’t so hot as we anticipated. Some thousand spectators gathered to see the show!

Today we’ve already had the symposium called In Search of Synthesis. Sirke Happonen, Ph.D., who has made her thesis citation on the image, word and movement in Tove Jansson’s work, held a lecture about the illustrations and the dance in them.

The lecture was followed by Sophia Jansson’s, Tove’s niece‘s memories of her aunt, who really loved to dance even on rocky cliffs on a Haru island and without any music. The whole artistic group then gathered to discuss the different perspectives on the subject. Samuli, the choreographer, told how he started to sketch the characters and their own typical way to move. We learned that Snufkin is more like a contemporary dancer as Mama and Papa are more like ballroom dancers! Then the visualist Carmela Wager told about the challenges a costume designer faces when she is supposed to make the costumes wearable, dansable and yet autenthic looking.

As part of the whole project there is also an educational branch. Some elementary school pupils from Rahola school in Tampere attended a workshop where they had the opportunity to experience the dance of the moomins themselves. They also saw the dance piece and attended the art exhibition in the Moominvalley of Tampere Art Museum. After he workshop they draw ‘Happy birthday’ cards for Moomin and the cards were presented in the symposium side by side with Tove’s original art.

Today the weather is a lot hotter than yesterday, but the forecast also says there might be thunderstorms on the way, so again I’m asking you to keep your fingers crossed for us!

Written on Tuesday 10th of August at 16 PM Shanghai time

maanantai 9. elokuuta 2010

Greetings from the Shanghai EXPO part 1

Ni hao. Wow. Here we are, in the World EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, China. The EXPO area is huge and crowded and humid and so is the city itself.

We arrived on Sunday morning and got to EXPO for a rehearsal. Today we've already opened the digigraphie exhibition of Tove Jansson's art by the Moominvalley of Tampere Art Museum and celebrated the 65th birthday of Moomintroll (which is the same day as the birthday of the late artist, 9th of August). The characters have made appearences inside and outside of Kirnu, the Finnish pavillion in the EXPO.

Later today we'll have the first whole performance as the contemporary dance piece Dancing Moominvalley will take over the stage on Europe Square. Wish us luck! The hot and humid weather is very challenging for the dancers, but nevertheless we'll put up a mighty show. We also made the cover of the daily EXPO Events Chedule so we're expecting a good crowd.

Monday 9th of August at 4 pm Shanghai time

lauantai 7. elokuuta 2010

On the Road Part 7: Travelling Miles

































Photos: Samuli Roininen, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd


Hallo again.

Heading for the whole day travelling all away to China. That is a lot of miles ahead.

Yep. Today we are finally taking off for the Shanghai Expo 2010 performances.

http://www.finlandatexpo2010.fi/uutiset_ja_tapahtumat/?68_m=1674


Keep reading the Dancing Moominvalley blog. We try to update the happenings in real time. From Shanghai.

See you soon again.


Samuli, Dance Theatre MD

perjantai 6. elokuuta 2010

Havaintoja esiintymisestä Osa 1: Kosketus

































Photo: Ari Ijäs, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd


Päivää.

Tapahtumien yön tanssit takana. Kiitokset niistä.

Kurkistuksia.


Ja muutama ajatus. - Kosketuksesta.

Mietin kuinka lähelle yleisöä pääsee.

Ajattelen, että esiintyjänä olisi tottunut katsottavana ja kosketeltavana olemiseen. Olla sitä rutiinilla.

Näiden hahmojen saama ihailu ja hellyys tuntuu hämmentävän esiintyjää.

Yleisö harvoin koskettaa näin kirjaimellisesti. Ja hellyys, jos se on hellyyttä, kohdistuu johonkin tuttuun ja turvalliseen, ei esiintyjään itseensä.

Tai että miten esiintyä, kun katsoja on sokea, ja olet itse mykkä?


Sitä koskettaa. Muumin kuonoa on hyvä koskettaa. Siitä sen tunnistaa.

Vai olisiko sitä voinut tanssia hetken yhdessä?


Sitäkö tämä on?


Tampereen Teatterikesästä.

Samuli Roininen, Tanssiteatteri MD

maanantai 2. elokuuta 2010

Kielellisiä Part 4: Fantasy Reading

































Hallo.

The Tampere Theatre Festival is getting started this week. Did you know?

http://www.teatterikesa.fi/in_english/


Also The Great Nocturnal Happening is arriving to town on the 5th of August.

So, be aware while walking the Hämeenkatu. You might run into the dancing moomins. That is Thursday. Starting around at 4pm.

I suppose it might be Little My leading the whole bunch towards the Moominvalley.

What else? There is definitely fantasy in the air.


*****

Have you ever heard of the Transcript?

"Transcript is a bi-monthly review of books and writing from around Europe. Its aim is to promote quality literature written in the 'smaller' languages and to give wider circulation to material from small-language literary publications through the medium of English, French and German."

In Transcript I found an article by Sirke Happonen, 'Pictures that give wings to fantasy: the relationship between illustration and text in Tove Jansson's Moomin books'.

http://www.transcript-review.org


(An article by Sirke Happonen, Translated by Thomas Warburton.)

Listen to this:

"The distinctiveness of the Moomin books is largely due to the marriage text and picture, and the tension between illustration and storyline. "


"The collaboration between word and picture achieves Jansson's view of the relationship between illustration and text: the task of illustration is to continue the fantasy, not to restrict it."

I keep reading, "(...)the task of illustration is to continue the fantasy, not to restrict it." As is the task of contemporary dance. Dance leaves a great deel for the audiences own fantasy, in both 'misreadings' and 'understanding'. Whatever they may be.


One more thing about Transcipt:

"Transcript is published by Literature Across Frontiers, the European programme for literary exchange and policy debate, with the support of the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union. Literature Across Frontiers operates through partnership with a network of literature and translation organisations."


So, greetings from Tampere. On our way to Shanghai.

Samuli Roininen, Dancer-choreographer, Dance Theatre MD