Anna Torkkel & working group: Ray of light

Lighting and projection design, scenography (in collaboration with Piia Rinne)

Premiere: Thursday 23 February 2023 at 7 pm at Contemporary Art Space Kutomo, Turku

Ray of light is a solo dance performance by Anna Torkkel and the working group, which plays with wavering, fading out, and fantasy. The performance is a mirage where something begins and ends and begins again transformed. It exists for a moment just to disappear. The dance is framed by metamorphosis and vanishing, breaking away and circulating. In Ray of light, a body of work ends when, after several group pieces, Anna Torkkel dances to the music according to her practice in a solo performance. The working group examines the tentative illogicality, experimentation, and amorphous nature of dancing to extend the same logic to encompass all the aspects of the performance. The makers are staying open to an outcome, which might not be structured and set, but as sparse and erratic as life.

And I feel quicker than a ray of light

Then gone...
Madonna, Ray of Light (1998)

For approximately an hour, dancing merges with the haptic and entrancing aesthetic, as well as with music made from found and self-made soundscapes. The dancing happens within poetic light and video design by Kristian Palmu and scenography by Palmu and Piia Rinne. The sensory and unconventional costume by Rinne creates an unnamed character, which forms from the essence of what dancing feels like. Biitsi, a collaboration between Heidi Wennerstrand and Kaino Wennerstrand together with Johanna Porola supports the emergence of dancing with a non-conforming sound design, made to entwine with the dance.

Choreography, dance, and convener: Anna Torkkel

Costume design: Piia Rinne

Lighting and projection design: Kristian Palmu

Scenography: Kristian Palmu and Piia Rinne

Live mixing of the sound and singing: Johanna Porola

Sound design: Johanna Porola and Biitsi (Heidi Wennerstrand and Kaino Wennerstrand)

Artistic dialogue and co-dancing: Mira Kautto

Residencies: Cité international des arts (Paris), Ehkä-production/Contemporary Art Space Kutomo (Turku)

Production: Ehkä-production, Anna Torkkel

Supported by: The Arts Promotion Centre Finland, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Regional Dance Centre of Western Finland

Duration: approx. 50 min

Photography: Katri Naukkarinen

More info here