| BallettTanz Aktuell, by Arnd Wesemann The blind man asks if pictures are deaf. He thinks they are because they don’t speak to him. Sari Salovaara has a stiff spine from rheumatism and a dog named Jesperi. She guides Kalle-Antti Raunu through the space, who has to endure six times the amount of electricity in his nervous system compared to the rest of us. He shakes constantly. At home he has an apparatus at his table, on which he can suspend a fork, which then through its sophisticated design subdues his jolting shivers. Kalle-Antti has become a dancer, to help deal with his shakes: he is a member of the Finnish dance group “Rajat’on”, which could be translated into “Limit’less”. A play on words. It tells us that fate puts limits on our bodies, and that the body has no limits. “Olotila” (State of Being), is the name of their current piece, choreographed by the John Neumeier’s ex-soloist dancer Tomi Paasonen. Paasonen, 31, has the blind, the shivering, the wheelchair users dance to Chopin’s “Les Sylphides”. The audience gets out of its mind! Out of the imprisonment of the defects of their bodies, comes out rare beauty. With crutches floating on pointe, they dance around Tuuli Helkky Helle. She is hardly one metre tall. Like a newly born she lies in a cloud of tutus, and laughs from the bottom of her heart. She can hardly speak. In Finland she is a known author, she recites one of her poems which is translated: Consider speaking difficult?/ By no means/There’s always something to say/And in lack of things to say, one can always say words/To understand what is said is the problem of the listener! So the only mute part is the dancing of the “real” dancers. Riikka Kekäläinen and Günther Grollitsch are necessary initiate the flow of the movements, but their technical dancing collides obscenely with the movements of the disabled which are rooted in necessity. Naturally these override the classically trained helpers in beauty, strength and elegance. |
| Hufvudstadsbladet, by Gitte Lauströer 8.12.2004 The body’s own story “The wheel chair is like the point shoes: both require exact technique. Even though the shoes are voluntary, both are an obstacle before they’ve grown accustomed to the body and become part of the physical identity”, says choreographer Tomi Paasonen BERLIN The Finnish choreographer living in Berlin is known for transgressing taboos. His ballet Olotila with disabled dancers was shown recently at the Simple Life festival, arranged by HAU – Berlin’s forum for contemporary dance and theatre with three houses right next to one another. Olotila was declared already in the year 2000 to the best theatre production in Finland. Now it has toured parts of Germany and landed in Berlin – with the same cast but slightly new version. Tomi Paasonen’s choreography is perfect. No fumble, no stumble – everything works. The Berlin audience is breathless. What an aesthetic! I hear during the intermission. Especially enchanting is the Heart part, with Tuuli Helle, with cerebral palsy in a wheel chair. With a flattering fan and wit in her eyes she takes us far away from physical flaws. The Simple Life festival is about outsiders. Apart from Finland there were productions from Belgium, Poland, Russia, Canada, Germany, Latvia, and Italy. Among the themes were trans sexuality, schizophrenia, immigration, and prisoners. Paasonen’s disabled production was one of the highlights. He himself is disabled. He started his education at the Finnish National Ballet School. After this he went on to Hamburg where he danced for 5 years as a soloist. 1994 he moved to USA – San Francisco and Chicago. But three years later it was over with dancing: during a rehearsal for the Joffrey Ballet he was severely injured when a piece of the ceiling fell on him. He became a full time choreographer and started the group KUNST-STOFF – a mix between different forms of art, such as performance, theatre, dance and architecture. 2001 Paasonen chose Berlin as his base. With his group PAA (Public Artistic Affairs) he made the Icarus project at Germany’s largest male prison. It was a success with 8 sold out performances. -“More than heavy”, he remembers. “The piece was about ability to fly and escaping. Of course these toughies wished it with all of their hearts, but it required discipline and authority to keep them concentrated. Tomi Paasonen’s new Berlin-projects explore memory and the body’s own story, skin and the question why plastic surgery is booming these days. Also here prefers non-professionals: they are more honest” he says and quotes Oscar Wilde, “Bad artists are better!” |
| Helsingin Sanomat (main Helsinki Newspaper) by Jussi Tossavainen in 15.9. 2000 Dance with pointe shoes and crutches Tomi Paasonen’s marvelous “Olotila” (=State of Being) links together the disabled and the healthy. The Rajat’on (=Limit’less) dance group that consists of disabled and non-disabled dancers made a wise choice when they asked Tomi Paasonen to make a piece for them. Olotila is brilliantly funny, gently ironic, dramatically touching and an incredibly inventive piece of dance theatre. The best thing is that Paasonen succeeds to integrate the disabled with the non-disabled so seamlessly, that all preconceived attitudes regarding “disabled dance” seem to vanish. Tomi Paasonen himself is a former first class dancer, who had to give up his career because of a strange accident that took place during a rehearsal in a Chicago studio. Luckily he seems to have a lot to say as a choreographer and director. That he proved with Olotila, which nailed the audience densely to its seats despite of a length of almost 2 hours. Paasonen handles his dancer material marvelously – he exposes every expression, no matter what the physical limitation is. As a whole he succeeds with this group far better than the famous British equivalent CandoCo dance group. Olotila is far more developed in its artistic ambition, in its refusal to compromise and even in its way of being political. Olotila leaves no space for pity or sympathy, but it earns its praise simply because it is an authentically superb show. The structure of Olotila is somewhat sketch like. It is constructed out of short scenes held together by a backdrop of thoughts surrounding the body, its limits and a body culture that serves holistic ideals. The most choking moments are born out of conflicts, which Paasonen serves on purpose: An alarm clock chimes “Wake up, today is a great day!” which is followed by a suicide story by a young woman. Even the most intensely dramatic moments are saved from pathos, because they are released by contrasting sarcastic elements. The most admirable aspect is the precise self-ironic criticism with which Paasonen and the entire group approaches almost everything. Nobody is saved, - not the disabled, neither the healthy, not even the entire society. It is fantastic that this subject can be brought out in such a relaxed and politically incorrect fashion. We see a commercial break, where the new wheelchair model “Millennium” is presented with its detachable mobile phone holder. We see “Miss Blind” who is performed by a man followed tightly by the entrance of charming “Miss Handicap”! Not to mention a thrilling variation from the ballet Don Quixote, which cannot be described in words. Paasonen does everything exactly like one isn’t supposed to. He makes Tuuli Helkky Helle with cerebral palsy to hold a speech. The audience doesn’t understand her speaking, so as translator he uses Günther Grollitsch who pronounces her words with a strong German accent. And the content of the speech is of course the ease of speaking! “To understand what is said is the problem of the listener”, they claim. Olotila is the kind of self-ironic intelligent theatre in which an endless stream of inventive scenes mixes the card-game perfectly. It puts every performer on the same start-line so that in the end it’s hard to say who is disabled anymore. Sometimes the dances originate in the movement quality of the disabled, which the professionals also execute. Don’t miss this performance if you want to air out your thoughts and enjoy a tickling and funny dance theatre performance. |
| 25.1.01 Helsingin Sanomat Tomi Paasonen and Rajat’on –group receives an award Choreographer Tomi Paasonen and Rajat’on Dance Collective received the annual Theatre Event of the Year award, granted by the Theatre Center for their piece Olotila. Olotila was performed last September to sold out audiences at the Zodiak Theatre in the Cable Factory. The piece will return to the Zodiak stage from 14th -25th of March 2001. Choreographer Tomi Paasonen is a former first class ballet dancer who had to give up his career due to an accident, where as Rajat’on Dance Collective brings together disabled dancers with professionals. In the Olotila performance Paasonen was able to use everyone’s individual movement quality to their advantage. The Theatre Center claims in its report that “Olotila approaches humanity and its problems directly yet in a touching way. Rajat’on Dance Collective deserves to be thanked for a seamless collaboration and for an inventive and funny dance piece that was able to break through all preconceptions. Turun Sanomat Rajat’on (Limit’less) Dance Collective receives “Theatre Event of the Year 2000” award. Rajat’on Dance collective gets the award, given annually by the Theatre Center, for its contemporary dance performance Olotila. Olotila was part of the collective’s ‘Limit’less Dance 2000’ initiative, that aims to create collaborations between professional dancers and disabled people with dance as a hobby. According to the report by the Theatre Center, Olotila has brought out themes of our times in a piece of art that is artistically ambitious and reaches beyond its goals. Performed by disabled and non-disabled dancers, this work of art is a self-ironical and liberated yet ambitious piece, that makes no compromises and doesn’t shy away from social criticism. Rajat’on has been active since 1994 with a goal to search for different kinds of dance expressions that bring people together. The premier of Olotila was on the 13th of September 2000 at the Zodiak Theatre in Helsinki and had sold-out audiences through out the fall. The choreography was made by Tomi Paasonen, who also directed the piece with nine dancers. Nyt Lehti, Now Magazine announcement Disabled who dance As the new year begins, critics are often asked what was the best stuff from last year. Nobody ever asks me anything! So I’ll ask myself. What was the best dance performance I saw in the year 2000? After some hesitation I’ll answer: “There were many good ones, but the most impressive must have been Olotila (State of Being) What state? “Well, Tomi Paasonen’s dance piece choreographed and directed for disabled and professional dancers of the Rajat’on Group.” What Paasonen? “That young super talent, who got a ceiling on his head during dance class. His ballet career was gone but luckily his brain remained sharp as a knife.” And why this piece? “It tells about depressions without being depressing and without announcing any human rights. I cannot remember when I would have seen dance, that evokes so many feelings, -from moving me to tears to hysterical laughter.” I’m not the only one who has a crush on Olotila. Last falls performances were sold out and due to the demand of the audience, the piece will be seen anew this spring. At Zodiak they tell to hurry up if one still wants a ticket. |
| Dans tidningen by Ann Jonsson 3/02 Dreams without borders During Malmö Dance Days Olotila was shown, a dance work where fine actors shared unusual experiences. Choreographer Tomi Paasonen says: “It is a collage of personalities, bodies and possibilities. Bodies that have a history, bodies that have a lot to tell.” Ann Jonsson reports from a different and powerful performance about struggle, joy and will to live. The international dance day was celebrated in Malmö with a guest performance that was beyond the usual, Olotila, a dance production for disabled and professional dancers from Finland. The piece was awarded as “Theatre Event of the Year 2000” by The Finnish Theatre Centre. And that is easy to understand. No one leaves the theatre untouched. The piece is powerful, enriching, liberating and self-ironic. The focus is on the situation of the disabled and the reactions towards it. In many countries it probably wouldn’t have been possible to show. Disability is still burdened by taboo. Sure we all have difficulties to see that part of reality. The meeting of two bodies: a deformed and crippled, a beautiful and aesthetically attractive puts the situation poignant. Everyone is touched, some leave during the intermission. If one breaks up the word olotila, it means something sense or feeling (olo) and space (tila). The Swedish translation Tillstånd (=state, allowance) doesn’t sound as good, State of Being in English is better says the choreographer Tomi Paasonen, who himself sees the piece as a collage of personalities, bodies and possibilities. Bodies that have a history, bodies that have a lot to tell. Of the 7 dancers who belong to the group Rajat’on (Limit’less), only two are without disability. Two are paraplegic and move in wheel chairs, one is blind, another has rheumatism in her spine, and the central figure of the piece, who everyone’s eyes followed: a 69 year old woman with cerebral palsy. She has such an amazing expressive charisma that she spellbound us all, where she mostly lied on stage on a sea of soft pillows, dressed all in white. Sometimes she participated directly in the dance, like as one of the dancers took her in his lap, laid her on her back and performed something that reminded one of an act of balance. The concentration of the couple was so strong that I held my breath. The joy was at its height as they all together danced a sequence from the ballet “Les Sylphides”, dressed in tulle that covered the wheel chairs they glide around the stage. Simultaneously gracious as marked by tragedy. Healthy people often think at disability as an incomplete state, like a half reality. Tomi Paasonen sees the reality of the one who was born into it as just as healthy. Himself he had an accident that interrupted his career as a dancer. He was a soloist with the Joffrey Ballet at the time. Before that he was with John Neumeier in Hamburg. His education he got with the Finnish National Ballet’s School. Now he lives in Berlin and where he has his own group PAA, which experiments with new forms of collaborations within the world of dance. This autumn he will direct a new interpretation of an unfinished opera “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Claude Debussy at the Kiasma Theatre. Through studying each dancer’s everyday life, their individual movement vocabulary and interaction with the rest of the world, he has tried to look at life from their perspective. Olotila tells many personal stories and destinies. The piece also consists of speech, poetry, a surgery protocol, texts worked out through improvisations developed during the rehearsal process and a charming golden retriever is also in the show. Even if this is about much more than understanding words, I cannot resist quoting some: Am I really so blindingly beautiful? / Am I perhaps as buoyant as your voice? / Or do I generate to you a similar pleasure as water on my skin while diving? / Or smells! Do flowers look as good as they smell? / (Sniffing) Well, in that case I might not be a spring rose / But if I could, would you lend me your eyes for a moment / For me to see how blinding I am. A collage of ideas, reflections but also pure crowd pleaser show numbers – the kind one has grown accustomed to – most of it fairly loosely built up, but which intensity is strengthened through projections. Like the woman in a wheel chair, gliding on top of a high rise building in a massive urban environment. The text tells of a woman who wanted to commit suicide by jumping down from a roof, and woke up crushed, living, but sitting in a wheel chair. It all seems like a nightmare one has difficulty to shake off: “At that point when I woke up in the hospital it was a powerful conscious decision that I want to live, I’m infinitely grateful for this life and even though I know it’s not always going to be easy, I do believe it can be a happy life.” This is a performance of strong impressions attentive stillness where silence feels unusually intruding. But the black humour and self-irony is never far away. Among the disabled, none of them have danced before. They all have wanted to put their existential experiences on stage in order to show that physical reality and its drastic limitations. A struggle not only to survive, but also to find joy in life, and to share it all with us. |
| Teatteri Lehti = Theatre Magazine by Päivi Nikkilä Dance from the bottom of the heart Olotila (State of Being) opens new doors to humanity This September we saw some amazing dancing at the Zodiak Center for New Dance at the Cable Factory. Rajat’on (=Limit’less) Dance Community had commissioned choreographer/director Tomi Paasonen to direct a piece combining disabled dancers with professionals. Paasonen, who has mostly worked abroad, is a former first class ballet dancer who had to give up his international career some years ago, due to a spine injury caused by an accident. Rajat’on has been active since 1994 and its activities include bringing differently moving people together and organizing workshops for disabled and non-disabled dance- and movement enthusiasts and professionals. The performance made one cry and laugh and think. It told us stories, feelings and experiences about living with disabilities. The subject was brought out as part of humanity, not as some odd horrible burden we non-disabled people have been saved from. The performance was conceived during a dense collaborative process with the entire group. The first two weeks of rehearsals was spent studying and searching for movement qualities and creating a language. The director visited the dancers’ homes and got familiar with their physical and mental capabilities. The only motto was that nobody was allowed to do anything they didn’t want to. Performing had to be fun and enjoyable, because life itself was already tough enough. According to Tomi Paasonen, his role was more of a facilitator, a translator rather than purely a choreographer. He listened a lot and gave everyone space to develop an individual movement vocabulary in synch with their skills and talents. The process was most important. The director wanted to concentrate on concrete, authentic issues and get away from pseudo artistic pitfalls. Also the bridging of new technology and biology became a main theme. Making this work was like “a treasure seeking adventure and fumbling in a pitch dark forest.” The show was brilliant, self-ironic, at times endearingly clumsy but never cynical or pathetic. While watching one never had a feeling of work that is drenched in shock-value. Quite the contrary, the dancers threw themselves bravely into the material, at times even playing with tasks they couldn’t possibly accomplish. The first act was about birth, digestion of becoming paralyzed, rebirth, and wrestling with disability. In the second act the worst agony had been overcome and out poured scenes, one more touching and fragile than the other. And this is its secret: Olotila worked for us mostly physically non-disabled audience, as a mirror of our own inner world. It brought out sensitive and painful issues so directly and from the bottom of the heart, that as a spectator, one didn’t even have a chance to hide ones own fragility behind a façade. When a certain door is opened and issues are presented upright without unnecessary explanations or without the camouflage of a role, it can grab you very deeply. In this performance I was confronted with basic all encompassing issues of being a human, feelings of our own incapability, worthlessness and insignificance that are common to everyone, as well as joy, pride and even love. When discoveries, declarations and experiences about basic questions in life are exposed in an open and sturdy way, it strips you from all defenses. |
| Article of Tanssi Lehti (=Dance Magazine) by Jaana Parviainen. Olotila (=State of Being) was born on wheels and without A discussion with Tomi Paasonen about disability, technology and art making. The Olotila project started last spring when Tomi Paasonen was invited from USA to hold a dance workshop with disabled dancers in Helsinki. This planted the seeds for a full evening dance piece at the Zodiak Theatre this fall. Additionally to the “healthy” dancers the dance group consists of people with various disabilities. In Olotila we see dancers with MS, a woman with cerebral palsy, women with paralyzed lower extremities and a blind man. Some have had dance as a hobby for a long time, some others have just started, and some have trained wheelchair dancing, such as tango, at courses. Eeva Simons has danced 5 years in a wheelchair; Riitta Pasanen has been active as an actress. I follow a few hours of rehearsals for Olotila at the Zodiak. Bit by bit I realize that to move with a wheelchair requires a lot of practice. It’s a matter of skill and technique where the use of strength isn’t essential. To bring the chair into qualitative motion requires a lot of sensitive and subtle fine-tuning. Suddenly the wheelchair doesn’t come across as a tool anymore, but rather as a way of moving that gives birth to an entirely distinct quality of movement of its own. It starts to feel odd that we usually see the wheelchair as a tool when for many it is a state of being. For Tomi Paasonen the work with disabled people has opened up an entirely new world of movements. Paasonen says that only through a mutual exchange is it possible to enter this alien and strange element and learn its mechanisms and rules. One has to constantly be alert and listen to others: what do disabled people want to say and how do they want to say it? Paasonen has also visited the dancers at their homes. He is eager to get familiar with the obstacles, limitations and possibilities they encounter in their everyday lives. He also wants to bring out movements that they use on a daily basis. He is attempting to develop the movement language out of each dancers’ individual movement quality. Paasonen’s own dance background and technique is in classical ballet. He has danced in prestigious ballet and contemporary companies, such as The Joffrey Ballet and Hamburg Ballet, who require very specific esthetical and technical qualities. Despite of this, Paasonen enjoys working with different kinds of bodies. Everyone articulates with their own body regardless of their skills or virtuosity. The Wheelchair is like pointe-shoes Dancing with the wheelchair can be compared to dancing on pointe: both require the mastering of a technique. Although only one of them is a voluntary form of movement, both at first are mere obstacles until they start growing into the body that moves them and they become part of the body’s identity. So in this case it doesn’t matter whether it’s a wheelchair dancer or a ballet dancer. Both have to learn to articulate their own technique. Although it’s a cliché, I’ll say it anyway. Paasonen points out the importance of the process in making Olotila, not the end product. Everyday life can be so full of suffering which is why it is essential to enjoy the making of art. It should be like making love! Passionate! The end result itself isn’t as important while you’re in it. He believes that if the dancers themselves are having an experience, the audience will too. However in this kind of work, that isn’t essential. Thrust into the unknown and rebirth Paasonen does not get excited about my thought that following the disabled sports, one could concentrate on developing more strength and speed rather than work on fine tuning the quality. I present the idea as part of developing the quality of a disabled dance technique as other contemporary dance techniques. Paasonen claims that this is certainly possible, but disabled athletes motives are principally to push the limits of their physical abilities as compensation. It is often important for people who have become disabled through disease or injury to challenge and expand their physical boundaries. It is a huge difference whether a person is born with a disability or whether it is as a result of a disease or accident, Paasonen says. The one who is born with it mostly relates to his/her body as a state of being that he/she doesn’t fight. This is their movement element, their way to live in, or inhabit their body. The “abled” often think of disability as a state of lacking, but Paasonen thinks that disability from birth is as whole and complete as the world of our non-handicapped. However the more the world works only on non-handicapped conditions, the more the disabled by birth experience them selves as outsiders in their own element. Becoming disabled through disease or accident can be a very violent and sudden thrust into a new and alien element, or it can be a gradual transition from being healthy to becoming disabled. No matter what the process is, it is always difficult to accept. Paasonen thinks that it requires a complete sense of rebirth, a letting go of the life as it was and the acceptance of it in order to transition into a new state of being. This process mostly takes years and it’s a lot of mental work to get used to the new element. If one isn’t reborn, the new state will constantly present itself as a state of incompletion in comparison to how things were. Paasonen’s own dance career ended abruptly as a result of an accident 3 years ago. Although it isn’t visible, he lives with constant pain. Me and the others The development of new technologies has also offered the disabled more possibilities in everyday functioning. Public institutions and private housing are being designed from the various aspects disability. It has been the goal of social politics to facilitate our world, through awareness and technology; so that disabled people could live as independently as possible. Although everyone certainly agrees that the direction is right, it has its flip side. Politics that highlight independence brings out the question whether we favor a society where everyone functions as independently from one another as possible. This society of monads where everyone just takes care of their own business reflects the American model of society. Paasonen does not see this as an issue in today’s social politics. A much bigger problem is that we regard the body as purely a physical entity, where as we are incapable to handle the psychological aspects of disability. In his piece he brings out dancer’s experiences as patients, as organic beings and as beings in bodies. I notice constantly that I speak of “them” and “us”, “us healthy or almost healthy” and “the disabled”. It bothers me, but is there any other way of speaking? What difference is there in the end if a person with paralyzed lower extremities uses a wheelchair to a “completely healthy” who spends most of his time on wheels: in the car, on a skate board, on the bike or roller-skates? In fact every one of us move s around most of the time not with our legs, but other means. Technology enters the body Technological tools and gadgets have entered the world and become a part of our bodies and its functions. We don’t only use these things, but our body forms itself to suit this world, they become an extension of us. The technology of moving and seeing is part of our everyday life. Technology also enters our bodies as artificial joints, implants, and pacemakers. In this context it feels odd to be talking of “the patients” and “the healthy”, the “disabled” and “the abled”. Each one of us depends on technology, we are tied to it and at its mercy and it forms us. Paasonen claims that technology is a part of evolution. This sentence hurts the ear of a humanist. It sounds like the victory parade of technology is an inevitable project that is part of the biological development of our species. In the same breath Paasonen says that although technology brings relief into many peoples lives, the bridge between technology and biology is a frightening one. Especially since it is so evident, yet unnoticeable. It would be difficult to fight against this force. It’s not only about modern technology entering our body, but also the manipulation of life, of the offspring of humans, animals and plants, gene technology that enables us to mold us and our nature. We ponder on what we would be like if we all could be like we wanted to be: beautiful, young, tall, slender, white skinned perfect people. But who would like to live in the world that we’d create? Are creating? The performance I see the last performance of Olotila. The audience is packed with people, some can’t get in. The questions of technique and technology were raised during the rehearsal period. Once again the performance itself surprises me and gives new visions and answers to technique. I’m amazed at how expressive the human body is, even though the performer wouldn’t have had an intense, long lasting education in physical expression. The body of Tuuli Helkky Helle expresses simultaneously the state of being of a fragile newborn baby as well as an old woman. How could anyone that has spent half a lifetime training in a dance studio, express the same as she? |
| Tampere Aamulehti 13.8.2001 by Anne Välinoro Legs jammed, so what Zodiak’s and Rajat’on Group’s “Olotila” free prisoners of the body into flight This year’s Tampere Theatre Festival’s most touching and strongest message was its last performance. Tomi Paasonen’s “Olotila” simply expresses what last year’s hyped Scottish D.A.R.E. tried with video projections and overbearing explanations. In “Olotila” the border between the physically impaired and functioning bodies appears so elegant, so beautiful that I cannot recall ever having seen such an emotionally provocative study. Together with two professional dancers we encounter one cp-disabled, one blind and four other men and women whose lives have been altered through terminal illnesses or accidents. Tuuli Helkky Helle with cerebral palsy can hardly move her fingers, but she is the most radiant primadonna of the performance. She is born into a disabled baby whose speech until this day is incomprehensible and in the lead of The Sylphieds her irresistible charm shines through her tutu that covers her and her electrical wheel chair from head to toe. A Dandelion is a beautiful flower Throughout the performance we hear her thoughts and poems. The spectator is sent home with a poem full of shimmering hope and faith where disability is compared with weeds and sunny Dandelions that our efficient society would like to rip out with roots. Paasonen has together with the dancers created an episodic structure that in shorts scenes tells us the story of man from birth to somewhere beyond where gravity no longer exists and the body doesn’t dictate identity. A loving couple conceives a disabled child. Life continues in the prison of the body. It’s a struggle against decaying muscles, clogged circulation, lazy or overly alert nervous systems but also against commercialized views of the human body created by norms of society. Contract, beautify, flatten, shouts the world! They ridicule feet, as important as they are. The skillful dancers Günther Grollitsch and Riikka Kekäläinen involve their partners in all things imaginable. They jump into the laps of wheelchair dancers, lead their four-wheeled partners all over the place, swing them into tangos like dolls, take these bodies despite their limitations as continuations of their own. The performance overwhelms us with joy of movement, but also with a healthy amount of self-irony and humor. I cannot recall any other piece that would have opened the real value of the human life and validity of existence in such a direct way. |
| Malmö Magazinet 30.4.2002 by Jan Johansson The Liberating Power of Dance Dance can be a liberation from the body’s prison for each and everyone, but even on a higher level for someone with a disability. Within dance we can transcend boundaries which shift on an individual basis. The Finnish choreographer Tomi Paasonen has captured this in his award winning dance creation “Olotila - State of Being” which was performed as part of Dance Days 02 in Malmö, organized by The Dance Station. The piece was conceived two years ago and is a result of a unique collaboration between professional dancers and the Rajat’on (=Limit’less) Group that specializes in creating activities among people who move differently. On stage we encounter dancers with different forms of disabilities. In Paasonen’s inventive, humorous and sensitive choreography, their lives, stories and struggle for a worthy and rich life take shape. “Olotila” forms itself into a sort of cabaret with a rhapsody of wildly different expressions. There are poetic texts, sketches, solos, pas de deux and group formations. The technical aspects play an important and independent role; throughout the journey an array of more or less fantastic mechanical apparatus enter the scene. At times the music consist of evergreens and popular tunes. The piece begins at the beginning of creation where the two professional dancers, a man and a woman wake to life and execute an intense pas de deux. It is the essence of the modern dance we recognize. Then a child is born, a child that isn’t like the others. It has its limitations in movement and speech, but also its unique attributes. Borders are transcended So the rest of this full evening piece forms into an expression of the liberating power of dance in relation to disability. Every individual is unique with his special abilities, dreams and experiences. The limitations are to prove how they can be transcended and norms can be turned upside down. Hence for example a solo from the classical repertoire can be executed with just a few toe movements or as a lush wheel chair dance. And even someone with a lack of normal leg movements can do a step dance à la Fred Astaire. Darker tones There are also darker and heavier tunes, including texts of suicide, loss, love and thoughts of worthiness of life. The performers really open up since the choreographer molds the material out of each ones possibilities. The scenes vary greatly and the stage set and lighting is hypnotic. Hence it is no wonder that Olotila has been played over and over again for two years, shown in festivals and received awards. A powerful, memorable guest performance in this year's Dance Days in Malmö. |
| HOME STAGE VIDEO FOTO PRESS RESUME CONTACT |
