Like Ginger and Fred

Jenni Kivelä is one of the most popular figures on the contemporary choreography scene in Finland. Her works are smart and charming, funny and surprising. She is especially impressive when combining childish naivité with conceptual wit. In her new choreography “Ylva-Lii And Other Stories,“which was performed in the studio of Zodiak at the Cable Factory, she works with text as she has done previously, but this time the text is overshadowed by rapid dancing.

Kivelä‘s regular dancers, the slender and light Katri Soini and easy and masculine Joona Halonen, seem to fly as they dance together like Fred and Ginger in their romantic musical films. A second couple, Anne Hiekkaranta and Eero Vesterinen, also graduates of the Theatre Academy, also dance with humour and energy.
“Tableaux For Lonely Travellers“ is the subtitle, describing situations of everyday struggle among hapless tou­rists. A quartet of typical middle class travellers, they seem to consider themselves very civilised when admiring the pyramids, but soon demonstrate signs of irrational and disoriented behaviour.
When they have excess baggage, they “lighten up“ by discarding sun glas­ses, newspaper and moustache. Tormented by ...