Review: Jemina – The Great American Show
JEMINA – THE GREAT AMERICAN SHOW!
Helsinki Dance Company’s (HDC) and Zodiak’s co-production Jemina – The Great American Show takes us on a journey from where Jyrki Karttunen’s many lives of Jemina left off a few years ago. I saw the original Jemina soon after the premiere at Zodiak and again a couple of years later in Kuopio – I remember not only Karttunen’s amazingly versatile expertise, but especially her harshly warm-hearted, anatomically incorrect carnivalization of gender and its representation. That’s what I expected this time as well, and I got it – but that’s not all.
The intimacy and light-heartedness of the previous Jemina performance had now grown to American proportions: ten dancers and as many as five stages around the walls of Pannuhalli and even a diagonal catwalk in the middle, and the audience at tables between them. The hall with its bar was open in advance: Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Réserve from a plastic red wine cup at a table decorated with a shaky Christmas tree light and plastic flower arrangement seemed to provide just the right pre-tuning for the atmosphere. Kitsch glamour!
The episodic ensemble of the performance smoothly weaves together themes such as standup, music, dance, drag, etc. means. Many of Jemina’s previous characters are on this journey as well, such as the flight attendant and, of course, Meryl Streep absent – also dropping by the fans from My Imaginary Friend Is with Me from ten years ago. Some of the familiar characters have grown up to American proportions, such as a German militant feminist whose unique girl-ball choreography (to the beat of the song Shuttle to Venus) is led by an entire (female) army group; as a new individual character, e.g. Sebastian, Heidi Naakka’s embarrassingly joyful arch-abomination, whose stories are ashamed to laugh at.
There are also wonderful individual scenes in the dance, such as Karttunen’s solo in a pink huleta and long blonde wig and Kalle Pulkkinen’s solo on the catwalk (to baroque music, I wonder if it was Purcell). Karttunen’s fascination with group foolishness comes into its own, for example, in the brisk girling scene in the first half (with Justus Pienmunne’s solo at the end) and in the boisterous saloon fight. On the other hand, there are also superbly enchanting dance scenes, such as a frenetic flamenco song, a glowingly erotic version of Ravel’s Boléro – and especially the overwhelmingly enchanting finale on the steps to wistful, renunciation-themed Irish music.
The performers are not only skilled dancers, but also singers, actors, multi-talented musicians, who, under the direction of Karttunen (choreography & concept) and Heidi Räsänen (character direction & script), create an excellent – well, show! Tuomas Fränti’s soundscape helps to support the whole, especially between scenes. Jukka Hutila’s set design and lights and Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila’s costumes support diverse and rapidly changing situations.
The revolutionary modelling of gendering and gender representation was given plenty of space it deserved: the characters repetiting traditional roles were presented in an embarrassingly hilarious way. Drag is always political, especially if you don’t know it is. Karttunen & Räsänen’s drag knows: the ridicule is not only directed at women or men, but at the entire unnecessarily ambivalent gender system (and, well, through that, of course, mostly men). Fairy tales have also been brought into the discourse with merit: allusions abound, for example, with Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood – tools used to indoctrinate children into our gender system that supports the prevailing power relations.
Perhaps more strongly than before, the text also strives for a more general political ethos. In my opinion, it is not implemented quite as maturely and effectively as the gender perspective. Parody of political decision-makers is difficult – in Haavikko’s words, even impossible, because they do it themselves. How can you effectively carnivalize the use of power when the day of the wrong king seems to be every day? Even as a result of democratic processes. In comparison, even the pen of a sharp satirist becomes dull. In the finale, the state of the world seems to make the towel fly into the ring (“who would inhabit this bleak world alone”). However, the epilogue still gives us hope: maybe we shouldn’t expect solutions from the president or even from the edge of the clouds: “you’re a new person and you can figure out how to be here!”
(Experienced: 25.3.2017)