

Sunday 19th
Tilan syvyys/Depth of Space/空間の深さ
Choreography, dance, installation: Mammu Rankanen
Music: Pauliina Syrjälä, Tom Lönnqvist, Hun-Huur-Tu and Bulgarian Voices

Tilan syvyys/Depth of Space/空間の深さ is based on site specific solo work, which I made during the artist residence in Space Department Nara, Japan in November 2024. It is based on my doctoral research and research question: How does ma orientate dancers embodied experience of space? In Japan, the performance venue was the residence house, a traditional Japanese house with sliding doors, tokonoma and upstairs’ tatami rooms. The choreographic score got inspiration from the architecture of the house and how it was designed according to compass points and places I visited during the residence. Co- performers were washi papers and wind and occasional passer-byes. This time the venue changes from an old Japanese house to a black box space, where solo is adapted and reborn, and still carries echoes from the past and the house it was originally made.
Mammu Rankanen is Helsinki based dancer, choreographer, pedagogue and somatic movement therapist, and doctoral researcher at the Performing Arts Research Centre in Theatre Academy, University of Arts Helsinki. In her artistic practice she integrates contemporary dance, butoh, somatic movement and bodymind methods based on Asian wisdom traditions. Her first encounter with butoh was in 1990, when many Japanese butoh artists visited Finland by performing and giving workshops. This had strong impacts on Finnish contemporary dance and dance artists. Mammu has studied butoh in the 90's with Maureen Fleming, Anzu Furukawa, Masaki Iwana, Eiko and Koma, Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno and in 2024-2025 with Seiji Tanaka, Yuri and Seisaku.