Review: (re)use

Kenneth Kvarnström recycles his past works in his farewell book



Kenneth Kvarnström’s (re)use contains pieces of familiar works, but recycled material does not create a nostalgia trip to the past. (Re)use is a completely new work. It is an intense journey into the heart of art-making and dance, a tribute to the many artists who contributed to the completion of the dance piece. It highlights details. At the same time, the viewer gets to take a journey into the depths of their own mind.

(re)use is the third, independent part of Kvarnström’s dance trilogy. In the first part, YOUMAKEME and in the second part (play), repetition, the relationship of versions to the original movement, and the relationship of seeing to music, movement, light and image were utilized. The (re)use performance uses parts of Destruction Song II, XPSD-, …. that was all I wanted, so I stuck my finger in his eye… and 325.4 kg performances mixed with new choreography.

Studio Elsa at the Helsinki City Theatre does not have a traditional stage or auditorium. Costumes and props from Kvarnström’s previous works have been brought to the edges of the hall. The audience can walk in peace among the pieces reminiscent of the performances. The pieces are not only inanimate objects, but also performers familiar from different works, who wander together with the audience among props.

From the very beginning, the dimly lit hall has a fascinating, but also distressing atmosphere. Many of the objects arranged in an installation-like manner hint at violence, such as the head of a mannequin with pins stuck in it. In the display case, a woman dressed in a fantasy costume twists a Rubik’s Cube. A man dressed in an all-black, face-covering, body-hugging suit writhes on the floor.

The importance of the costumes is emphasized when you can examine their details in peace and up close. Baroque costumes, sculptural shapes and, on the other hand, simple sweatpants live in perfect harmony. In dim space, sparkling details accentuated by lights capture the audience’s interest.

Right from the start, the atmosphere is interestingly ambivalent. It is as if the audience gets to know the memories that lie dormant in the artist’s mind, but at the same time, the fragments of the works seem to live their own life, detached from the performance, where the performers are not only the choreographer’s puppets, but also have their own vision, they carry memories and interpretations with them.

The mood of (re)use is dark-toned, dreamy, suggestive. The threat of violence, images rising from the mud of the subconscious, human animality, death and destructive sexuality flash through the stage. To counterbalance them, however, many situations exude warmth and a longing for touch. Kvarnström’s dark and grotesque choreographies are always accompanied by softness and porosity.

At first, the audience is allowed to move freely, but as the performance progresses, the audience is pushed back into a more traditional role of spectator. Sometimes the space is divided in two with a curtain and on one side the audience can see the dance, while on the other side a dancer looking dead in a glass coffin is carted in front of the audience. The movement changes from the fragmented fragments at the beginning to an ever-deepening, comprehensive tangle of movements. At the end, knives are waving and condensing the threat of violence that has been flashing in the atmosphere all along.

Music, soundscape and lights also play a huge role in how re(use) is absorbed under the viewers’ skin and subconscious. The music slides from the sentimentality of Chopin to the brutality of Diamada Galas.

(re)use is interestingly placed in the middle ground between the artist’s self-portrait and the self-portrait of the audience. In the performance, the audience becomes aware of their own position as spectators and creators of the performance in a new way, as the audience gets to choose what they want to see at any given time.
The energy emanating from Kenneth Bruun Carlson, Sofia Karlsson, Kai Lähdesmäki, Janne Marja-aho and Terhi Vaimala is conveyed in a completely different way when you see them up close. The audience tunes in to follow the tension of the muscles, warming up, exertion and sweat. The dancers’ personalities are emphasized, unlike in a more distant, traditional stand-stage situation. I find myself mesmerized by the power of the dancers’ presence, the animality that fascinates me in its strangeness, the wounding humanity, the ethereality.

(re)use is nightmarish in its beauty and beautiful in its suggestive nightmarishness. It offers a rare holistic experience that starts with the timid beginnings and ends with a wild spin.