ENCOUNTERS IN PYHÄJÄRVI – ABSOLUT IN A BODY
FULL MOON DANCE FESTIVAL 22–26.7.2008

Pyhäjärvi’s location in the middle of the countryside, far from any big towns, creates a unique environment for the Full Moon Dance Festival and for the audience and artists to meet between performances, events and courses. Art should get close to its audience and be a collective, shared experience; art is something wild that needs to be let loose among people to let them encounter it. The spectator, the experiencer, has the freedom to decide about the encounter; how and where to meet it, watching from near or far, but still sharing the encounter and the experience. Without this connection the creation of art would have no sense or reason.

This year’s Full Moon Dance Festival focuses on creating connections and offering different kinds of encounters between the experience and creation of art. The festival features an abundance of dance and body maintenance courses, of which e.g. Ervi Siren’s courses and Susanna Nurminen’s Klein technique courses can be recommended to everybody who is interested in their physical and mental well-being. The Full Moon Dance Festival also includes the upcoming generation of young choreographers, who will work with open rehearsals in the heart of the village among the people. They have delved into the history of Pyhäjärvi and used it to create small-scale works of their own contemporary visions. The festival programme also includes a number of interesting works by Finnish dance artists such as Jyrki Karttunen and his imaginary friends, the young choreographer Heli Meklin, who created this year’s commissioned work for the festival, and Eeva Muilu, who will create the dance work There is something somewhere with senior citizens. The work includes a workshop for those of more advanced years in Pyhäjärvi, and participants can also take part in the performance if they so wish.

The festival’s main work is Tsuumi’s rowdy and boisterous work The Seven Brothers, which will be performed twice on Friday in the Inmet Arena. The stage will hold nearly 30 performers and musicians from different artistic generations, interpreting this classic Finnish work through movement, music and words. This is a must for the whole family. International dance artists will travel to the Full Moon Dance Festival from several different continents. Hiroaki Umeda, from Japan, is this summer’s artist-in-residence, and as such he will be working at Pyhäjärvi for two weeks with three talented female Finnish dancers. He will also bring his much-toured and highly internationally acclaimed solo works Duo and Accumulated Layout. Iceland’s Erna Omarsdottir, an important figure on the European contemporary dance scene, both as a dancer and a choreographer, will bring her most recent work The Talking Tree to the festival, which will also host an international first premiere for the first time in the shape of Sincerely Yours by Francesco Scavatta, an Italian who currently lives in Norway. The festival’s international guests also include Nam Jeong Ho from South Korea and her improvisational solo with a Finnish musician.

 The undisputable highlight of this summer’s calendar will be the Canadian modern dance icon Louise Lecavalier, who will perform three separate works at the Full Moon Dance Festival and give a workshop for professionals. Lecavalier’s strong interpretation and the way that she puts everything she has into her dance can be seen in these works, which have been choreographed by Crystal Pite, Tedd Robinson and Benoît Lachambre. I would still especially like to highlight Foodtheatre Entrée, a delicious encounter between food, theatre and dance hosted by Liisa Ruuskanen. She offers a complete three-course dinner, which is served during the performance.

 This small-scale provincial town makes a wonderful setting for the Full Moon Dance Festival: it provides an intimate atmosphere, light summer nights and gives people a real opportunity to genuinely encounter dance art and each other in a relaxed and pleasant festival atmosphere - the miracle of Pyhäjärvi. Everyone is welcome to share in the experience of the Full Moon Dance Festival!

 

Harri Kuorelahti
Aristic director