WHS - Ville Walo & Kalle Hakkarainen

Finland

KESKUSTELUJA (Discussions)

TEATRO MARIA MATOS

7, 8 May at 9.30pm

Collective creation Performers: Ville Walo and Kalle Hakkarainen Music: Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen/Kluster Costumes and set: Anne Jämsä Lighting design: Marianne Nyberg Light operator: Ainu Palmu Sound design: Heikki Isso-Ahola Sound operator: Joonas Pehrsson Video: Kalle Hakkarainen Silent movie: “Aelita”, dir. Yakov Protazanov, Soviet Union, 1924 Production: WHS, Kiasma Théâtre, Cirko-Centre for New Circus, Association for New Juggling and Centre des Arts du Cirque de Basse-Normandie Diffusion: Ay-Roop Technique: Objects, circus, vídeo, magic and dance For audiences over: M/12 Time: Aprox. 65 min. Language: Without words

A New Circus performance about communication and the lack of it. Visual appeal of live image, surrealistic situations and plastic movement of juggling. The modern and highly interesting Finnish new circus group of juggler Ville Walo and magician Kalle Hakkarainen brings already their third premiere together, under the title Keskusteluja (in English, discussions). The performance is focused on the theme of communication in relation to juggling, magic and video. In the performance circus and video projections also communicate with the fresh music of varying tones composed for the performance by Kimmo Pohjonen / Samuli Kosminen Kluster.

The performance’s strong visual quality reflects the course of time. Through the means of moveable projection surfaces, the choreography of the circus arts grows into choreography of the whole stage. Images from an old silent movie are combined with modern video sequences. Time and reality levels interlace and mix. Identity and communication stretch over almost a whole decade, as the performers pinned in present-day encounter the visual world that has been chosen and modified from a 1920s movie.

The characters of the play are drowning and tangled in messages and signs. The visual and the bodily are given the task in “Keskusteluja” to tell about the troubles of interpersonal communication: about the eternal dilemma that we always say to each other either too much, too little, or just simply the wrong words.

WHS - Ville Walo & Kalle Hakkarainen has grown known for the juggling style of Walo, that balances on the boundary surfaces between juggling, puppet theatre and dance, and the scale of expression of Hakkarainen, that reaches from film to object manipulation and magic. The company has toured with their previous performances all over the world.

Ville Walo is a pioneer, innovator and reformer of contemporary juggling, whose work explores new juggling techniques and physical and spatial movement in juggling. Walo has expanded the expression range of juggling towards visual theatre and object theatre. Walo is the artistic director of Festival of New Juggling as well as Cirko Festival of New Circus in Helsinki. Besides WHS and his solo work, he has been working together with Jérôme Thomas Company. The Arts Council of Finland gave Walo a 5-year artist grant starting from 2006.

Kalle Hakkarainen is a magician and a video artist from Helsinki. In his work he examines the new kinds of expression possibilities provided by video image and its capacities related to time and space. As a magician Hakkarainen has specialised in developing new tricks and new kinds of magic. His inventions have been published in the most important professional magic publications such as the MAGIC-Magazine. In 2000 he won third prize in the world magic championship of magic (FISM) on the Inventions category. In addition to his work as a magician Hakkarainen has worked as a director, editor and animator in TV shows, commercials and short films.

Surrealism and experimentalism are the essential keywords to describe the mentality of this piece of art.
Turun Sanomat