Love, Fame and Fortune Part 1: A Lost Treasure

Photos: Samuli Roininen, Copyrights: Moomin Characters Ltd



Hi there.

Once again, thinking out loud.
Love, fame and fortune. We are eagerly looking for them. And still we are bound to lose them so easily. Also in the Moominvalley.
Sometimes the fortune may be a hidden treasure. - Along ago lost treasure, that we were lucky to find. Sometimes the treasure may be a single solitary chance to meet another person. The fortune may also be a place where one is sure to quickly fall in love with its characters.

*****

Personally I found a treasure, and a huge inspiration for the Dancing Moominvalley when I was first introduced to Toves comics and graphic novels.

The books were exceptional, that I knew, but Tove was also an outstanding artist.

I wrote down some of the early reviews on Toves comics.

Listen to this:
"There's optimism, sure, but always with complexity... (Jansson's) work soars with lightness and speed, and her drawings only echo her writing: delicate but precise, observant yet suggestive. She always knew what to leave unsaid, what to leave to the reader's imagination... Jansson was exceptional, an exuberant explorer of emotional independence and interdependence, a liberating force."

(Los Angeles Times Book Review)

"There's optimism, sure, but always with complexity..."

I keep reading this line again and again. It is so true. So important, sort of a key to the understanding of Toves work. This optimism, and understanding how very thin the layer between happiness and unfortune may be.

*****
There is this black-and-white image of Moomin with his speedos on, walking on the thin ice. When the ice finally brakes, we see on his face, rather than the suprise, just growing happiness and excitement.
Then we read Moomins line: "Delicious! I feel like a bull in a china shop."
(Jansson Tove Moomin - The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, Drawn & Quarterly, Originally published in the Evening news,London, 1953 - 1960)
Sometimes we do. But it makes whole of a difference whether you appriciate it or not. Moomin has that skill.

And the rest of us(...) we try to learn.

A good week of several Dancing Moominvalley performances.

We continue at the Hällä-Stage in May.

See you then again.

Samuli Roininen, Dancer-choreographer, Dance Theatre MD