Review: Special Night
In Helsinki Dance Company’s celebration of joy and light, the kettles were raised towards the ceiling – Special Night was a wild burst of energy and a triumph of creativity – 55 minutes included the spectrum of time, the universe and everything
Can there even be such a thing? That feeling came as a hum like the touch of angels’ wings – ecstasy.
Fortunately, it was dark in the auditorium of the Helsinki City Theatre’s main stage when tears began to run down the old man’s cheeks. For a moment I was almost completely happy. I forgot myself. This is what art is for!
Helsinki Dance Company’s Special Night was an experience that is difficult to write about. It is almost impossible to share or put into words such an experience.
I knew what to expect. Gravity , produced jointly by Helsinki Dance Company and Kinetic Orchestra and returning to the City Theatre’s repertoire in the autumn, was brilliant and Helsinki Dance Company’s Lomonosov engine was world art that crossed the wind walls.
At the gala performance of the dance theatre, which is now celebrating its anniversary, the dancers of the ensemble, led by choreographer Anton Lachky, had squeezed the expertise and energy committed to the group into a 55-minute aesthetic outburst that included the entire spectrum of time, the universe and everything.
Dance is an art made by the community. An impressive result is achieved when all the different areas of the performance are in balance. Even though dance is characteristically theatre of empty space, in Special Night, William Iles’ magnificent set design with crystal chandeliers and velvet curtains, Toni Haaranen’s video design, Maria Rosenqvist’s costume design and Jutta Kainulainen’s make-up were essential parts of the whole, which at least in this writer’s head made pleasure hormones boil.
The jubilee performance of the group, which is celebrating its fifties, challenged our understanding of time. Time was the unifying theme of the performance. From the entrance to the cave videotaped at the back of the stage, you could see space-time illuminated by the Milky Way, whose gas clouds were illuminated by occasional supernova explosions. In those flashes, the elements that make up us and our world have been born. The fire burning on the floor of the cave told about what life was like for us humans 10000-200000 years ago. The dancers, with their presence, represented the moment we were in at that very moment.
The creators of the show told us stories. However, its near-perfect beauty enchanted me at least so much that it didn’t even occur to me to start thinking about the meaning of crystal chandeliers as symbols of power or Plato’s cave theory.
Special Night began with a scene that focused on Elina Lindfors’ gorgeous dancer’s legs. They reached for the sky. The scene reminded me of theatre and dance critic Raoul af Hellström’s book Winged Legs, which I leafed through for the first time in my life years ago and tried to understand at least in some way what classical ballet is all about.
This scene that opened the performance was followed by a wild burst of energy, the development of which has had no limits to the imagination of the dancers and their choreographers. Then the performance turned into a series of human encounters, as is customary in a good party. Dance is certainly the most impressive way of describing how we communicate with each other without words.
The performance ended with an extraordinarily beautiful and touching scene, where the dancers’ legs were lifted once more and this time the group towards the heights and the crystal chandeliers descended close to the surface of the stage in the blue light of the morning twilight.
Perfect, so perfect.
Special Night is a celebration of joy and good mood. This is how the proposal has been marketed. At the premiere, the joy was unleashed, and as a final guarantee, choreographer Lachky made the audience laugh by greeting us on stage with a funny somersault, while we, the spectators, had stood up to applaud us.
The drastic rise in prices and interest rates has certainly already made a nasty dent in the personal cultural budget of many theatregoers. You have to make difficult choices. Personally, I believe that the Helsinki City Theatre is again a good choice if you want to see world-class performing arts at least once a year.
It is good to take advantage of the joy with the dancers of Helsinki Dance Company and perhaps experience something unique. I am already afraid that in addition to us theatre-goers, theatres will also have to make difficult choices next year at the latest.