Review: HDC2
A great celebration of movement
If you want to predict something about the future trends of contemporary dance in our country based on the premiere of the Helsinki City Theatre’s dance group, it is that we are moving from strong theatricality, speech, singing and visual abundance to pure dance movement.
The premieres of both the Norwegian Ina Christel Johannessen and Simo Kellokumpu were clearly focused on movement. And specifically for a dance movement that uses the whole body in a versatile and holistic way.
Both Johannessen’s Somehting Spooked The Horses and Kellokumpu’s Daydream Junkies were a celebration of movement and even surprisingly similar in terms of movement quality. Neither was clearly descriptive, but there were relationships and changes in them in both.
Johanssen’s very physical work is in a certain way clearer and sharper in its movements. It also has a strong sense of drama and danger.
In the performance of three dancers, I found a man and two women – a mother and a daughter? – which had a clear beginning, climax and conclusion.
As the wonderful dancers in the work, Sofia Hilli, Jenni-Elina Lehto and Valtteri Raekallio were extremely sensitive and strong at the same time. There was something going on in them both internally and externally. The sea of bottles and flowers on the edges of the stage could be interpreted as a symbol of both the vast landscapes and the inner lives of the characters.
The unknown threat surrounding everything was manifested above all in the dark tones of the music compilation and also in Jukka Huitila’s lights, which at times turned the entire stage into an old brown photograph.
Energetic mix
Simo Kellokumpu’s dream hunters seemed to be more lost with their own existence. The only escape from life’s nightmares seemed to be a constant, desperate and artificial intoxication of happiness or a genuine touch of another person that was rarely encountered.
One such genuine encounter was in the scene between Sofia Karlsson and Unto Nuora , where a very simple touch and holding close had a strong calming effect.
In her choreography, Kellokumpu combines both violent, expressive and painful movement with sometimes very provocative movement vocabulary familiar from the world of entertainment and advertising. The result is an intensely energetic mix, where each of the six skilled dancers takes turns getting their own moment.