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Note: No longer in repertoire!
Choreography and direction: Andonis Foniadakis
Choreographer’s assistant: Harri Kuorelahti
Costumes: Erika Turunen
Music: Julien Tarride
Lighting design: Juha Westman
Sound design: Jyrki Sandell
Dancers: Kirsi Karlenius, Mikko Lampinen, Jenni-Elina Lehto, Kai Lähdesmäki, Heidi Naakka, Unto Nuora, Valtteri Raekallio, Inka Tiitinen, Kaisa Torkkel
PLAY OF BEAUTIFUL CRUELTIES The City Theatre’s dance performance Apospasmata depicts a violent metropolis.It all starts with the rumble of the tracks and the squeaks of twisting metal. We are in a huge railway yard or somewhere under intersecting metro lines. The slowly brightening lights bring out the nine dancers waiting on stage in tense poses. Everyone is dressed in black tights. The face is covered. The lights reduce Studio Elsa’s stage to almost two dimensions. The figures appear to be standing on a narrow platform.The beginning of Apospasmata by Greek-born choreographer Andonis Foniadakis takes the viewer straight to its core, to a restless metropolis. There, the people are a nameless mass, the pace of life is too fast, and the soundscape is percussive noise. Apospasmata is a choreography commissioned by Foniadakis, 35, for the City Theatre’s dance group. Its name means parts or excerpts. The work is divided into three parts, which are united by violent urbanism and the beating music of the Frenchman Julien Tarride . In the world of Apospasmata, relationships are always mixed with power, eroticism is the play of beautiful cruelty, and love tears the skin to blood ─ literally. Life in the metropolis is brutal, but Foniadakis can’t help but admire it.The dancers of the City Theatre cope well with physical and demanding choreographies. In most scenes, they appear only as flesh and only towards the end as individuals.The lights, set design and music fascinatingly create different spaces on the stage, from a dark alley to a bright nightclub.Foniadakis has said that he was able to try things in Helsinki that could not have been done elsewhere. Apospasmata is a turbocharged depiction of life, power and violence in a city of millions: interesting, gripping, but perhaps even too hectic for the northern mentality.
Read moreThe wind over destruction Andonis Foniadakis’ dance piece Apospasmata at the Helsinki City Theatre is an amazing experience, not least because it hides the dancers’ faces almost completely. No one can be identified. The dancers become part of a crowd that dances with hidden faces and wigs in the terrifying world of the stage. Men and women are not distinguishable from each other.The world of the stage is largely created by obscurity and Julien Tarride’s soundscape, where the wheels of an invisible machine rumble and rattle, sirens cut through the darkness and lights flicker in the background of the “street chasm”. The dancers sometimes approach each other like insects crawling out of traps, sometimes aggressive, energetic and audacious. The movements create images of loneliness, threat and power, but also of recklessness – at least in my head. Is our world just like this: tearing people apart and stripping them of all privacy? In the performance, there is also real undressing and undressing, but that is beside the point. If someone wants to see only naked dancers on a dimly lit stage, don’t bother. The power of the experience given by Apospasmata lies elsewhere.In the end, a man and a woman meet two, and it’s not easy. The viewer feels anxiety, a lack of trust and a longing for closeness on their skin. Neither of them has protection from themselves or the other. At last, however, the hand reaches out to a simple gesture: Come! To the new world or to the destruction of the old one?The red color of the carpet has colored the sweaty dancers; The woman looks at her “bloody” hands for a long time. A techno wind circulates over the darkness and destruction. Did the old end or did I see the birth of the new world? In an hour, you can sometimes get astonishingly far.
Read more… so that your eyes flickerLike a fierce painting that creates something new is Helsinki Dance Company’s novelty, Apospasmata. The title of the work alone gives a good reason for the parallel, because just as the usual structure is sometimes deliberately broken in visual art, the same seems to have been done in his creation by the Greek-born choreographer Andonis Foniadakis. Apospasmata is Greek and refers to parts, extracts. The dancers have their own firm grip on the premiere, since its inception, and not least the music, which burns Julien’s fire. The composer is Julien Tarride from France. The pair is well-known throughout Europe.
Read moreIN THE GRIP OF A VIOLENT GAMEHelsinki Dance Company’s new premiere work Apospasmata evokes conflicting impressions. On the one hand, when looking at the work, one thinks that a similar theme, i.e. the relationship between the big city and violence, has been dealt with a lot in dance as well as in other arts. On the other hand, the final scene of the work is so great that it completely removes the doubts that have arisen in the mind.The choreography of the work is a collaboration between Greek Andonis Foniadakis and a dance company. Foniadakis (b. 1971) currently lives in Lyon, France, where he has his own group, Apotosoma Dance Co. Previously, she has worked as a dancer in Maurice Bejart’s troupe, among others, and has since visited as a choreographer in the United States and various European countries. The music for the work is by the Frenchman Julien Tarride. Music is a sound carpet made by machines. It is an essential element of the work, which creates not only sonic but also spatial effects. Through music, the work gets the feel of a big city through various effects. They include the roar of heavy machinery, sirens or the sounds of the subway.Tarride also combines an organic female vocal voice with machine-produced tunes. The most intense part is the rhythmic movement created by the various percussion instruments. Tarride’s soundscape is one of the most profitable departments of the work.
Read moreBlood on the dance floor!One of the absolute dance events of the autumn is the freshly physical, powerful, raunchy urban, touching Apospasmata by the Helsinki City Theatre Dance Company. The choreographer of the commissioned work, which premiered in October, is the Cretan-born Andonis Foniadakis, who is on a significant international rise. Foniadakis, 35, tells the story of Apospasmatata. “fragments”) are said to have started from the latest images of world news, war, violence and anonymous victims of spirals of violence.“I wanted the dancers to ask with their bodies what it’s like in an era like this. Images of life in a metropolis where speed of action is everything – where people are important on the one hand, but only a single number on the other.Foniadakis’ trademark, the physicality of the movement language, is not to the liking of all dance lovers. In Apospasmata, physicality is especially emphasized because the dancers’ faces are covered.“Dance performances often work better with less physicality, with more mental presence of the dancers. Physicality is especially important in this work, because it carries the anonymity of the dancers.
Read moreSTAGGERING ABUNDANCEFirst comes the sound. It fills the darkness and prepares the body. Then comes the movement. And what a move! Apospasmata is full of wonderful movement: beautiful, energetic, broken, stopped, ugly, flowing, sensual, aggressive, anti-gravity, rotating, organic… I can’t remember the last time I went crazy about movement language like this. Foniadakis has created – together with the dancers of the dance group, he remembers to remind us – an unforgettable tapestry of movement, which is the soul and wisdom of the entire work.
Read moreCHOREOGRAPHY FOR THE FACELESSExtreme physicality describes the new work Apospasmata for the dance group of the Helsinki City Theatre by the Greek artist Andonis Foniadakis. The lighting moving on the edge of the twilight envelops the content of the work in a tight squeeze. All kinds of violence mutilate both body and soul. Whether it’s touch, abuse or a slowly growing state of fear, they both scream powerlessness through the dancers’ bodies against what is happening. Foniadakis, who currently leads his own group in Lyon, is creating a strong career as a choreographer both in Europe and America. She began her dance studies at the age of 18 on her home island of Crete and moved to Switzerland via Athens under the guidance of Maurice Bejart . Joining the Lyon Opera Ballet also opened the way for the direction of other renowned choreographers ( Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Nacho Duato, Ohad Naharin, Mats Ek, Tero Saarinen, etc.) and to start his own choreographic work.
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