Review: HDC2
Flowing dance work
Helsinki Dance Company’s performances are not to be missed. The full work of the dancers is a pleasure to watch. It creatively combines versatile use of the body, dance technical confidence and sensitive expression.
In the autumn premiere, HDC2 will have two premieres. The works of Norwegian Ina Christel Johannessen have been seen in Finland since the 1990s. Personally, I was impressed by his production in Norway in 2004 and the following year in Kuopio.
In her choreographies, Johannessen uses a method based on improvisation that is demanding for dancers, in which the movement language is created through improvisation, but carefully polished to its final form.
Something Spooked the Horses takes Sofia Hill, Jenni-Elina Lehto and Valtteri Raekallio into the world of business, which seems to be enough material for several works.
I only remember one scene where two dancers are doing the same movement. The work is built up of solos, duets and several simultaneous movement scenes of the dancers, which sometimes intersect and merge with the movement of another dancer.
Despite the overwhelming abundance, the movement is interesting and includes different body nuances so that the movement seems to flow constantly through the whole body. Both the movement and the use of space are surprising.
Dozens of bottles with red flowers have been used as scenery. The moment of tension is caused by a bottle slammed into the floor, the chips of which spread out on the stage in an arc. At first, the choreography seems to avoid fragments, but in the end, the dance moves directly into dangerous territory. I feel the fear in my back and I start to wait for a trail of blood on the white floor.
The emotions of wistfulness, anxiety and inner tension can be seen on the dancers’ faces, but I will continue to ponder the world and message conveyed by the work even after writing this.
The second piece of the evening, Simo Kellokumpu’s Daydream Junkies, is more one-liner in many ways. It is already opened by the evening’s press release, which says that the work is about people who are full of passionate thirst for life and dreams.
The thirst for life and dreams appear to be quite tragic and desperate attempts. Can this time be described as “nothing feels like anything” and only extreme actions and experiments are imagined to bring happiness.
Kellokumpu moves the dancers in the space perfectly, making use of all possible variations from solos to group formations and from simultaneity to canon. The movement language is clear and very, perhaps too characteristic, of contemporary dance today.
Kellokumpu’s work seems to be firmly in the present time, but Johannessen is already moving into the future.
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