Category: Performance
On 28 March, Ruslan Stepanov and Artjom Astrov’s play-performance “Performance @STL” on the position of victimhood at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava was an experience — everyone was on stage, even the audience, as at times the audience was more on the stage than the dancers-performers.
In the middle and edge of the space, there are boats that are covered in rugs that we step on. We position ourselves where we feel most comfortable. Sometimes we get out of the boats and sit on the floor, the empty space. Sometimes we step closer to the performers to get a better view. Sometimes we step back so we wouldn’t be in the way. The extent of being part of the performance depends on the audience’s level of curiosity, courage, and will to change their position. Interestingly, because the areas covered in rugs were literally higher and closer than the dancing space allocated to the dancers, then, of course, you had to change your position for a better view. Not everyone could see the performance entirely because some dance steps always remained behind an elevation or in the kitchen that was built under the elevation. This was a separate playground and reminiscent of a more realistic theatre.
Like in life, we need to change our position to gain more information about the situation we are at. To change our perspective in life we need to use empathy, which is the skill of putting yourself in another’s situation instead of physically moving from one place to another. This also requires courage, curiosity and the will to change your position. What takes place between the performers is a similar means of giving a voice to someone – to one, another, third, fourth. According to where they stand or who they become in that moment, the performers choose their words and their movements. Though most often the performers aim to be someone, who they already are by their first name. Kai, Annemai, Raido, Oliver, Artjom, Ruslan.
In the current political climate, the imagery of the uncensored kitchen especially stands out. And it feels like I have accidentally found myself in Sergei Dovlatov’s Soviet Russia or Estonia, where the intellectuals are safest in their kitchens and not in fancy restaurants or cafes or bars, where speaking freely can lead to jail. For some reason, Artjom Astrov reminds me of Isaac Babel and the tiny kitchen in the corner of the stage Aleksey German Jr.’s movie “Dovlatov” (2017). This movie with its endless and funny journeys ends up in censorship and in a situation, where people (long ago those people were women, but now journalists can end up in the same place) cannot speak or write anywhere else but the kitchen. That is, they literally change their physical position like we do when we watch the performance. Let’s hope we don’t end up in that situation. That we won’t find ourselves in the corner of a kitchen cursing the government and being afraid of someone overhearing the conversation outside of it. That is why you should be courageous and curious and take on someone else’s position, and just for a moment push them out of their position, to get a better understanding of what is happening around us.
Towards the end of the performance, the imagery of the kitchen is amplified by the conversation that engages the public. We find out that Kaja Kann, Mart Kangro and some others, who are directly connected to dance are also there. For example, I consider myself to be an honest by-stander and volunteer. I am unnoticeable. You cannot notice everyone involved in the performance. And yet you get a feeling of being outside of the game. Which game precisely, I don’t know. But I suppose that is the piece of the pie that is described in the programme leaflet: “Victim mentality as a means to assert oneself in this world. The group of performers with different life and stage experiences as well as nationalities is astonished and asks: when will the world hand me the piece of the pie that is rightfully mine?” As if by accident I have found myself in someone’s kitchen talking about their important matters. Without knowing what to say. And I am not even being involved in the conversation.
In some way the performance is an homage to Estonian dance. A reference to something that once was, but that continues and changes in the hands of Ruslan Stepanov. Similar to Henri Hütt’s and Mihkel Ilus’ performance “Caprices II”, which was a serenade to Kanuti Gild SAAL. Ruslan Stepanov takes a bow to Estonian dance and includes various dancers from different generations in his kitchen. And this is exactly what is needed — a feeling that once there was something and once something will come after. Not a white ship with promises of a better future, but the knowledge of changing positions. And attentiveness towards something that once was in order to get a better understanding of something that could come after.
Header photo: Lee Kelomees
On February 8, two performances in the Premiere program were unfolding at the stage of Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava: Sanghoon Lee’s ‘It Is Still Impossible To Exist At Two Places At Once’ and Grėtė Šmitaitė’s ‘What Do I Cry For?’.
Sanghoon Lee with his objects on the stage (kettles, vacuum cleaner, ladder) reminds me of Sigrid Savi’s Premiere 2018 production ‘Imagine There´s a Fish’. Sensing the space through objects becomes discovering humanness or our material culture. There is something cute in how we smoke or eat potato chips or walk around, face covered with Christmas tinsel, or stand beside a speaker that is swinging like a pendulum. We? Or they – Karolin Poska and Sanghoon Lee.
The lack of music and the use of objects to produce sound leads to discovering the ambiance. Smells, movements that are associated with odours; sounds that are associated with reflexes that are, in a way, specific to being sociable like smoking near something warm. At times, Sanghoon Lee ironically resembles the rules in a quiet, somewhat remote way. The rules of a smoking room or potato chips come to mind, i.e. that neither smoke nor processed food is not beneficial. The question remains, of course, whether everything that a person consumes must always be beneficial. Funny, absurd rules from people to people. Karolin Poska helps Sanghoon Lee to implement the parallelism of breaking the rules.
Since all these violations of rules have been carried out politely and joyfully then you feel like giggling. It’s a bit like watching a little next-door boy stealing apples for the first time. He’s a very cute boy. Acting real sweet. So what, that he is stealing apples from the next-door auntie. But he doesn’t hurt anyone! It’s cute how he steals. Like the smoking of Poska and Lee. It’s cute. Together they look a bit like Moomins. Beautiful and funny.
But the mood is changing during the performance of Grėtė Šmitaitė. It’s inconvenient. It’s weird. I’m not even sure what Šmitaitė is doing. From behind the dancer-choreographer looks like a boy in a feather jacket who is dancing in club Hollywood, has accidentally lost his trousers and is now cheeping like a tiny black chick in the middle of cobblestones, looking for his mother hen or a girl who is the reason why he is dancing there in the first place. But who is not there, is a mother hen or that girl. Black swan in the modern take of ‘Swan Lake’, I state a few moments later, especially when I hear the Lithuanian disco music.
Inevitably, I start to compare the dance of sadness with Stella Kruusamägi’s ‘Holy Rage’ that I saw at Püha Vaimu SAAL of Kanuti Gildi SAAL. Kruusamägi radiates sharp precise rage. Sadness is more complicated. It is not so easily danceable. Šmitaitė’s sadness does not get under my skin, it gets stuck in the feathers falling on the floor, in a smile that is not confident but is confident at the same time. It’s like the question itself: “What do I cry for?”. There’s something absurd in this question. A person finds oneself crying and does not know why they are crying. Šmitaitė has an uncanny impact. This creates a different kind of rage than Stella Kruusamägi’s holy rage. Grėtė Šmitaitė does not directly move her audience in a way Stella Kruusamägi did with her performance. She is approaching the sadness indirectly.
Sadness does not have to be a tragic feeling that forces one against the ground. It may be related to melancholy, an encounter with one’s boundedness, limitations. And then — at the end of the day, the black chick will understand that one can smile, calmly, expectantly, as Grėtė Šmitaitė does. Carefully. It is a bit like a smile of Sanghoon Lee and Karolin Poska. There’s some irony squeezed in there.
Neither one of the performances struck me. But I would be really struck if someone who is fascinated by the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia saw the last scene of Sanghoon Lee’s show, even if by accident, and would be offended because — who wears the pants here? A woman or a man? This unfortunate person would also be struck by the androgyny of Grėtė Šmitaitė. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t see that kind of people at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava and among the audience, because they wouldn’t stand the haziness, half-tones. Half-sadness. Although it exists in the world around us. And that’s why it is sometimes worth to think about what we really are or why we are crying.
For further information about the upcoming performances, click here: http://kultuur.info/event/premiere19-what-do-i-cry-for-and-it-is-still-impossible-to-exist-at-two-places-at-once/
NU Performance Festival 2018: Jerk, the radioplay
Direction: Gisèle Vienne
Text: Dennis Cooper
Original and live music: Peter Rehberg
Recorded voices: Jonathan Capdevielle, Dennis Cooper
NU Performance Festival 2018 gives you an opportunity to reconstruct a crime spree by an American serial killer Dean Corll who was assisted by two teenagers – Wayne Henley and David Brooks. There are actually two versions of this Gisèle Vienne’s directed play Jerk – the first version is played out as a puppet show and the second one as a radioplay. In Tallinn, you can experience the latter. You enter the studio, sit down in front of the loudspeakers, soon it goes dark and the journey begins …
It’s a first-person narrative describing the crimes which became known as the Houston Mass Murders as they were experienced by one of the teenage assistants of Corll – David Brooks, or a “drug-addicted, psychotic teen murderer in the early ’70s” as he appoints himself. He is now serving his life sentence in prison where he started to learn the art of puppets and the whole radioplay is presented as his performance to the professor William Griffith of the University of Texas and his undergraduate class in ‘Freudian Psychology Refracted Through Postmodern Example’.
The story begins with an existential problem raised by Dean Corll. He has come to the point where he realized that there’s tons of stuff going on inside the boys’ heads while they’ve been killed but he doesn’t know anything about them – except they’re cute – and it makes him feel like the dead boys don’t belong to him anymore. Dean’s teenage follower Wayne comes up with an idea that it doesn’t matter who the hell they are – killing is all about power and you can make up whoever you want and imagine that person in the dead body. So from now on, Dean gives the killed boys the whole new identities – now there will be Luke Halpin, the actor who played the older of the two sons on the TV show Flipper and Jay North from Dennis the Menace among his victims. As Wayne explains to David afterward – these imaginary characters are only what you see onscreen, they have no interior life unlike real human beings (who are impossible to understand!), so if you imagine that your victim is, for example, Luke Halpin or Jay North or, why not, Jimmy Page, you know exactly who you’ve killed and it makes the death more meaningful and complete.
The characters of the play are created, written and played out incredibly well and believable. The dialogues written by an American writer Dennis Cooper are sharp, witty, and, from time to time, darkly and painfully funny. The boys invited to Dean’s place are mostly depressed teenagers who are talked into death by manipulations and convincing of Dean. So while they end up in the basement of Dean’s apartment they have already decided that “murder is a cool concept” and “death just sounds like a great place”. A psychotic and somewhat unreliable narrator David adds an extra layer. He manages to balance subtly between admitting that he has been part of these grim crimes and, at the same time, being a plain eye-witness who is trying to distance himself from all that is happening. He sometimes acts as an almost lifeless object in a room where the crimes take place, hiding behind the Super 8 camera, being just a terrified observer, although now and then he is even standing on his tiptoes to get unusual angles, and thus contributing something special to Dean’s perverse film collection. We cannot be one hundred percent sure if angst and disgust in his voice are his genuine emotions or is it part of his attempt to present himself as a better human being than his depraved companions.
The music that is accompanying the whole radioplay is created by an author and performer of electronic audio works, Austrian based Peter Rehberg. Sometimes the sounds function as labyrinthic paths that make ways through your brain channels, illustrating perfectly the narrator’s phrase “They all get incredibly stoned”, and sometimes they are just mere hints of sounds that you may not even notice at first, but they still manage to set up the atmosphere and tonality of each scene. Music mostly stays in the background, but it builds up at some moments and culminates with a noisy and hellish chaos – just like the whole story.
As part of the NU Performance Festival, Jerk, the radioplay can be experienced once again today, on October 24, 2018, at the 1st Studio of Estonian Public Broadcasting (Kreutzwaldi 14).
Directors and performers: Raho Aadla, Age Linkmann, Arolin Raudva, Maarja Tõnisson
Since the beginning of June, there have been rumors around town that Humdrumhum 2 is something very powerful. There is no clear answer to the question of what exactly happens there, everyone is just conjuring a blissful smile on their face and sighs: “You have to see it for yourself!” Fortunately, a couple of additional shows are announced in August.
The piece is played at the old Põhjala factory in Kopli. After going through the Soviet era gates and waiting in the stairwell with peeled paint on the walls, we enter a spacious room where a band plays in one corner and where objects which probably will be used in the play are scattered around. Soon, wonderful things will be happening in this worn out industrial building. I’m in Wonderland where nothing is what it looks like, and everything is possible. The kitchen table grows into a princess and releases the dark forces of the goblin-rag. The bubbling and crackling golden cloth becomes a huge tent, where the sparkling fly-eyed creatures contact us. Doors fall over and form a long table and blankets become the corridor walls. An innocent red curtain stretches out to become a menacing Wicked Queen and a little Alice is hatching from the quilted March Hare at the top of the dangerously shaky animal pyramid. And then we are guided through the Magical Forest (and suspiciously trembling scaffolds) back to the Post-Soviet era industrial landscapes, quilted animals and Alice waving goodbye for us joyfully.
One and a half hours in Wonderland have passed.
I am enchanted. Enthralling music, smart decorations, the troupe and the audience grow into one – it was a powerful energy injection. The most fascinating thing for me in the production was the fusion of four people into one organism – to sway and jump on a high-level suspension, or to spill over the horizontal row of doors/tables as a sighing and humming human ball. You have to see it for yourself!
Impressions from the premiere of Estonian Games. Tönk (graduate students of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and ensemble Trad.Attack! on the 10th of June in Tartu at the Raadi airplane hangar)
The surroundings of the Soviet era Raadi airplane hangar are teeming with cars, there is a queue in front of the entrance. I don’t buy a playbill on purpose. I’ve seen Peeter Jalakas’s plays before and suppose I understand. Estonian games is a very specific topic for Estonians. Only the question of who or what is tönk is bothering me a bit. I hope, maybe it turns out during the performance.
Hustling and bustling youngsters
A bunch of youngsters rushes on a stage where there are only a white cube and a long bench, playing some kind of game with cocks and chickens. I can’t help but wonder how physically fit are the graduates of the EAMT, their movements on the stage are quite complicated and with a great show of energy. Black and white video appear on the screen cube, in which elderly people in folk costumes are diligently playing some ancient folk games in front of the camera. When the film is over, the bustle goes on again – they are already erecting the tent-like objects of the industrial container bags, they are already putting on some eye-catching colourful costumes that remind a folk costume a bit. Simultaneously with the dressing and building, the playful activity is also developing feistily, the young people are storming back and forth on stage, there’s so much dynamic and exciting going on that it’s hard to keep track of everything (unfortunately, in the rear seats, there is also limited visibility). It feels like a hockey game: you are trying hard to follow the path of a puck, but while you stare at the left corner, there are already two goals scored at the right side. Missed it again!
From hockey to Star Wars. Cirque du Soleil!
The designs and costumes are eye-catching, they seem like something from Star Wars – shiny plastic clothes, furry macho-beasts, at the end of the show a tube firing laser beams appears on the stage. (Wow!) Space usage is also fantastic, almost everything (including the stage for the band) is in constant motion, a large part of the activity takes place on ropes under the ceiling and across the room. And there’s plenty of space! Acrobatics is poetic and engaging. It’s like our own local Cirque du Soleil, spiced with (depressive?) humour, ancient spells and counting rhymes, a little clumsy and very playful!
Forest and supernatural beings
The mood is additionally nuanced with black and white video at the back of the stage, which was filmed a couple of months ago, decided by the small buds on the trees in the forest. Of course, the forest, how could it be otherwise – forest is perhaps the most important source of identity for our people right now. The performance is full of clues to the ancient creation myths, the other side and supernatural which is characteristic to Peeter Jalakas. There is also no lack of humour aimed at the public figures (hmm, who is this old woman on the roller skates, a loaf of bread on the hands?) and poetry spiced with irony.
Music and movement on stage melt smoothly into one whole and create a whole new quality, although at times the bustle on the stage seems somewhat disturbing, drawing attention away from music. The band has been pushed to one side of the stage for the most time. Would this performance be such an experience even without the music of Trad.Attack!? Hardly so.
The show is over. The audience stands up and applauds fervently. I hurry to buy a playbill. Before that, I ask one foreigner what they think about the performance and how much did they understand. The answer is that there’s nothing to undertand, everything is obvious: the schoolchildren went to the forest for camping on the Midsummer Day, began to play games and used lots of drugs there.
At home, I read from the playbill booklet that tönk is an ancient monstrous being with tail and horns, usually made during big holidays. There is also an interesting reading about Johan Huizinga’s game theory and homo ludens, the stories of ancient people and the introduction of the team. The booklet could also include at least some descriptions of traditional games. A long summer is ahead, it would be nice to play a little.
On March 13 I saw “Rebel Body Orchestra” (performed by Sveta Grigorjeva, Lill Volmer, Billeneeve and Florian Wahl) at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava. Rebellion? Bodies? Orchestra? All together and all apart – fitting for a creation that asks it’s audience to think and come to their own conclusions.
Do we rebel? Who does, and why? In his essay, Robert Kitt describes modern day society with the following sentence: “What separates us from an ancient tribal society is the fact that our actions are no longer dictated by tradition(s) and taboo(s), but by our Facebook friends’ posts and fake news.”
How does one even rebel in such a world? Say we suddenly decide to hate the gays, while still actively socializing with liberals or vice versa – we aim to be tolerant, but have a wide circle of conservative friends: the endgame could be having no one to communicate with. It certainly is fascinating, yet quite ironic. In today’s world, can you rebel against anything without becoming an anarchist? A reactionary? A propagandist?
For me, Sveta Grigorjeva wholeheartedly – both in poetry and onstage – embodies a rebellious person. But in 2018, when the lion’s share don’t rebel, but rather stand up for the rights they’ve been granted, it seems the only thing that could rebel is, indeed, the body.
Characteristic of performance art, the show starts off slow. Sveta tells the public her creation doesn’t claim to be truthful. The only thing she emphasizes is that when we hear “off with their heads!”, heads must, in fact, roll. At first, we miss the point. The action is delayed.
From silence, the first legendary liberté, égalité, fraternité reformer is born. We’ve all seen that one painting – Eugéne Delacroix’ “Liberty leading the people”- and Liberty is exactly who Lill Vomer depicts. She’s the goddess of the French, the mother of modern day rebellion; someone who’s virtuosity still makes us proud of our democratic values today. Whenever we lay eyes on Delacroix’ painting or that barechested young lady, Lill Volmer, humanism lights up with glory.
Orchestra? It should give dance its rhythm and shape, kick it off with its sound and dynamic demand. And that is precisely what musical designer Alvin Raad does.
A musical designer sets the stage in motion according to his/her own algorhythm. That is what outlines potential story arcs both onstage and in our heads. When discussing the performance, Lill Volmer and Jürgen Rooste promise to take apart the Snow White fairytale and put it back together again. That reconstruction is based on the algorhythm that is played to the four dancers.
We never know which block our performance will start with today, tomorrow, or the day after. Nevertheless, we live in a world with no tradition(s) or taboo(s), only tribes where we either belong or not. We live in a world where a story can be de- and reconstructed as one or another tribe pleases; as one or another friend group finds humorous or exciting.
In the spirit of Sveta, a friend group might also think: “Off with their heads!”
A phrase with enough bite to take us back to the late 18th century, back to Marie Antoinette’s guillotine, which, in this case, can be symbolized by a punching bag or the German version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. And suddenly, in the midst of Florian Wahl wailing into the microphone, that “off with their heads!” feeling strikes and someone finally meets their end. Rebellion is frightening. Rebellion does not always lead people on, it can hurt. It can even kill.
In the end, it all depends on which block you start with. I see the roots of humanism, someone else might see a punching bag, another a Googling youth – all dependant on which tribe they belong to. Exciting all the same!
Story translated by Emili Maiste
Photo by Jekaterina Abramova
The holiday season is approaching fast and that means the culture.ee’s this week’s recommendations are quite christmassy. There are theatre, runic songs, fair atmosphere, Valga, Rapla, tennis hall and observatory, wintery folk dance, a play of the ice flowers, a bunch of literary stuff from the library and warm wishes from Pokumaa. May your week be filled with joy and pleasant experiences!
Time of warm wishes in Pokuland
8 Dec – 17 Dec
Pokuland (Pokumaa)
In December, when there’s Christmas rush everywhere, it’s peaceful and forest-scented time of warm wishes in Pokumaa, just like the Poku calendar says. What would be a Christmas world without sweet activities and cozy moments or without a lovely show for the whole family? This way, Pokumaa will help you enter the beautiful and peaceful Christmas time, where warm wishes are found and delivered on time.
Rapla Christmas World
10 Dec – 21 Dec
Culture Club BAAS
Rapla Christmas World takes visitors to a traditional and cozy world full of the smell of a Christmas tree, magic and Christmas feeling!
Book week of the Christmas month
12 Dec – 16 Dec
National Library of Estonia
Come and choose a great book to spend time with during the dark time or refresh your spirit at the literary events! Here you will find a lot of valuable gifts to fill the Santa’s bag.
Improtest: Ted Parker
13 Dec
Kanuti Gildi SAAL
„Improtest” is a concert series that brings improvisational music from local and foreign authors to a local audience. This time, the performer is Theodore Parker – a musician exploring the use of guitar, electronics, and acoustics in improvised music creation.
Runic Song Room „Jõuaks, jõuaks jõulud tulla”
14 Dec
Valga Museum
Songs about the enjoyment of singing, the beginning of the works of the winter season, holidays, advent time, celebrating Christmas and saying goodbye to Christmas.
Christmas mood concert by Kristina Vähi and Riina Pikani
15 Dec
Tartu Observatory in Tõravere
On December 15, 2017, at 3 p.m., the Christmas mood concert will be held at Tartu Observatory in Tõravere. A soulful soprano Kristina Vähi and dynamic and expressive pianist Riina Pikani will perform. The classical music gems by Schumann, Tubin, Ojakäär and other composers will be presented.
5th Kolga Christmas fair
15 Dec – 17 Dec
Kolga Tennis Hall
The three-day Kolga Christmas fair will be held for the fifth time. The fair offers dance, theatre, music and enjoyment for both adults and children.
Wintry Tartu Folk Dance Day 2017
16 Dec
Tartu Town Hall Square
Dancers from Tartu and Tartu County perform Estonian folk dances and simple group dances on Town Hall Square of Tartu. Indrek Kalda, a violinist, will add to the magic and a folk dance specialist, a teacher and lecturer Vaike Rajaste will tie the event together. The whole celebration is directed by Kati Grauberg-Longhurst. Come and see and perhaps even participate in some of the most loved Estonian folk dances!
Hand-printed Christmas cards – cut once, print a hundred times!
16 Dec
Kumu Art Museum
Come and make your own Christmas cards at Kumu Education Centre under the guidance of Kaija Kesa! Card printing is suitable for both adults and schoolchildren and provides a good experience in graphics and the ancient art of print.
Christmas concert „The Play of an Ice Flower”
17 Dec
Rakvere Holy Trinity Church
Concert of Chamber Choir Solare and Choir Studio So-La-Re. The choirs are conducted by Elo Üleoja, Ly Hiire and Keio Soomelt. Piano accompaniment by Piret Villem.
Cotard delusion is a mental disorder in which the affected person is convinced that they are dead, that they do not exist or that they have no limbs or internal organs. Simply put, it can be described as a shortage between the parts of the brain that allow us to recognize faces, to distinguish ourselves from the outside world, and to create associations between emotions and familiar faces. So it may happen that while looking at the mirror, the visible face and the Self are not associated, the consciousness exists, but it has nothing to do with the person looking back from the mirror. Such a loss of the sense of Self leads to a paradoxical dangling between being dead and being immortal, mere consciousness without a body.
The French neurologist Jules Cotard, after whom the syndrome got it’s name, had a patient whom he called Mademoiselle X in his notes. The patient claimed to have no brain, no nerves, no chest, no stomach and no intestines. Talking about paradoxes – at the same time, she also considered herself to be eternal and immortal. Due to her missing intestines, she found no meaning in eating and therefore died of starvation. The illusion of immortality and thus starving is considered one of the most common causes of death in case of the people suffering from Cotard syndrome. That same Mademoiselle X is the source of inspiration for Maria Metsalu’s production’s central character, the semi-fictional Mademoiselle X, whose automated actions can be seen at Kanuti Gildi SAAL a few more times.
And there’s quite a lot to see. Scene after scene, again and again, repeating images, automated activities are opening up in front of the audience. It’s interesting how the artist doses everything. For how long one has to stay in the pool, to crawl, to lie on the floor to produce an effective excess … how many times one has to repeat everything to create this weird, rhythmic fluid, almost inanimate state?
Interestingly enough, Mademoiselle X’s room, the atmosphere, the intense presence of technological lifelessness, the sound design that ranges from wild to melancholic, and consistent mechanicality are capable of creating a certain feeling of observing some uncanny state of mind or even the feeling of entering into such a state of mind, so that it’s possible to see everything from the perspective of a consciousness of the half-dead. Entering into such a state is aided by the fact that the audience is not allowed to go and sit on the soft chairs during the first half of the show but they are directed to the edge of the stage, where everything is within the reach, but at the same time it’s quite uncomfortable. However, it must be admitted that this discomfort is worth it, because the last 20 minutes of the performance, which can be enjoyed already on the chair, are very effective because of the above. Looking at the stage from a further perspective now creates a peculiar feeling of distancing, a shift. Exiting from the consciousness of Mademoiselle X.
Concept and performance: Maria Metsalu
Stage: Nikola Knežević, carpet together with Merike Estna
Sound: Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea
Drawings: Annina Machaz
Technical solutions: SPARK Makerlab
This week’s recommendation concentrates on events and festivals that have all ready happened at least once and will keep happening, because they are just very-very good!
MoeKunstiKino – Fashion Design Cinema 2017
05 Oct – 11 Oct
Cinema Sõprus
The Tallinn fashion film festival ‘MoeKunstiKino’ offers films that open the doors of glamorous and slightly mysterious fashion field and allow to peek into the backyards of this exciting world.
Golden Mask in Estonia 2017
05 Oct – 17 Oct
All over Estonia
The festival “Golden Mask in Estonia” is the most important cultural event of the year, interest towards which unites Estonian and Russian audience. The festival presents the nominees and winners of the recent seasons of the Russian theatre festival Golden Mask.
Viljandi Guitar Festival
10 Oct – 15 Oct
Viljandi
Viljandi Guitar Festival was created to promote improvisational and trans-style guitar playing and diversifying Estonian and Viljandi’s cultural landscape. At the festival, guests can listen to guitarists representing different music styles and acquaint themselves with different techniques of improvisation and playing, and types of guitar.
6th International A-Festival
12 Oct – 15 Oct
Tartu Student House
The festival, which is taking place for the 6th time, greets performances from Germany, Russia, Latvia, Belgium and Estonia. The audience will be able to experience physical theatre (Obsession of Stella Polaris, Tartu Student Theatre and Fairytale St. Peterburg movement theatre D.O.M) absurd comedy by Eugene Ionesco (The Bald Soprano, Polygon Theatreschool), Shakespeare’s tragicomic travel through the storm (The Tempest Studio-lab Milky Way/ Oryol Cultural Institute) and much-much more!
ENSO: presented by AUDI: The Maestro concert series
13 Oct
Estonia Concert Hall
This is an oldie but goodie in the sense that the name of the series has already occurred, but there is lots of new this season. The Maestro concert series is a true parade of stars. Conducting for the first time in Estonia are Thomas Zehetmair, the internationally recognized Austrian violinist and conductor, as well as Robert Trevino, a younger generation American conductor who has quickly gained international recognition and will start his second season as the principal conductor of the Basque National Orchestra. And these great names are certainly not the only ones, so stay tuned.
Uncanny – supernatural, uncomfortably strange, extraordinary
He could spot mushrooms with uncanny accuracy
(English-Estonian dictionary)
The moral/social/primary responsibility of a theatre critic (beginner or not) includes giving a (short) description, an overview of the performance/production seen. Maybe that is meaningful (attempting to seek the objectivity, providing background information to the reader, preserving theatrical history for subsequent generations), but this is a separate topic.
In trying to change this tendency a little bit, I put this obligatory section at the end of my writing/reflection/review. Perhaps it also makes my writing (considering the context) somewhat uncanny.
The government was in a loop about the bombing
In a theatrical situation, in the theater, our assumption is theatricality of the situation, grotesque, weirdness, some kind of overacting (to bring out the ‘life of human spirit’). Ridiculing and laughing till the tears come. Shifting the actual events out from the proportions, overexposing. We look at the depiction of this utopian world, we laugh at it and leave to the ‘normal’ world.
The problem arises, however, if we can find a similar logic and especially similar situations in real life. ‘Trump’s rhetoric, Putin’s Russia, growing nationalism and populism in Europe, a declining democracy and speculations around the climate changes’ are examples which make us feel uncanny, if we look at them, if we read about them. And precisely because such situations should remain in a theater, in a theatricality. The walls of the theater should protect us from the realization of situations seen in a theater. But what if we now see these theatrical situations in the real world? Outside the theater? Where to escape now? The world is no longer composed of various ‘social treaties’, and you cannot step out from one society, if you don’t like the terms of the agreement, and find a more appropriate location (like Voltaire wrote). Where to hide from this global populism, hypocrisy, and loss of empathy?
‘Uncanny You’ brings the similar situations to the stage, exaggerating them to grotesque/ridiculous extremes, making fun of the essence/functioning of the (information) society, but it does not create this strange, frightening or weird feeling of uncanniness. Because it’s all reality already. The White House press conference or the media’s mechanisms, the apparent illogicality of populism, but its effectiveness at the same time terrifies me. And the growing popularity of such situations, mechanisms, and the increasing naiveness of people are surprising and weird. Everything is basically the same as before, but there is still something different.
The dance scene in the middle of the performance, in which two dancers formulated a very strange fluidity in their aimlessness was the only element in the show that had an uncanny effect. The dancers were indifferent, but the choreography was exact and definite. There was this certain non-motivational (deep) fluid that I could have been watching even longer.
Although I’m not gonna bring out the various components of the production (sound, light, design, etc.), since all of them are intended to merge into a single whole (and therefore, ideally, the viewer should not notice the separate ‘elements’, of course, unless specifically emphasized), I still have to mention that (audio)visual side was very interesting/exciting, the different room solutions were charming in their simplicity, being complete at the same time. Considering the background of one of the authors and directors, Ann Mirjam Vaikla (studied stenography at the Norwegian Theatre Academy), there is nothing surprising here.
Humour. I have to mention that this piece has been (half) made in the USA. And, ironically, the humour/jokes/parody on the stage was most closely associated with US late-night shows and talk shows, which similarly hyperbolically play out idiotic situations of real life/ordinary life. This humour/aesthetics goes even further. As a good example, you can watch the recent Emmy Awards Ceremony, where portraying one of the characters known from the above-described TV-show’s was raised to a new level, into a particular meta-comedy that, at least for a moment, uncannily confused the viewers.
However, during the whole production, I didn’t overcome the feeling that I should laugh, but there’s nothing to laugh about. And not because the joke was constructed somehow badly, but because of a certain distance/lack of context. The joke was not addressed. Stylistically approximately similar type of humour was in Paul Zaloom’s ‘The Adventures of White-Man’ that was played at the NuQ Treff Festival this summer. Similar grotesque, theatricality, overacting, exaggeration.
Humour is inevitably dependent on the surrounding context and depends on the type of human being, which is why often foreigners may not understand the sketches of the ‘Tujurikkuja’ or ‘Kreisiraadio’ that are in cult status in Estonia. One might say that ‘Uncanny You’ is an example of how art (especially theater) is related to its cultural context, the current (political) situation, and the type of person in the audience. In case of humour (and, in general, theater as a temporal art), the opposition “works – does-not-work” or so-called principle of difference of performances must be considered. One day the things fall together so that nobody laughs at the audience, sometimes the laughter won’t stop. The audience did not laugh the day I was watching the show.
Generally speaking, the entire theater experience was somewhat distant. As already mentioned, the work was not addressed to me. The word uncanny might really be used to describe it, but I’m not sure whether it’s possible in the same context/meaning as the authors meant.
And now the mandatory description/introduction/overview.
The main character of the production was Mother Bomb, the personification of the largest explosive in the world, set off in the spring. By the appearance (and also thematically) Mother Bomb reminded Dr. Strangelove from Stanley Kubrick’s famous film ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. The character creation was similar to the Jim Ashilevi’s ‘Godzilla’ which premiered a couple of years ago in the radio theater Raadioteater which also explored the inner life of one single negative character (Godzilla) and opened up its sad fate. The production consists of various scenes that spin around the explosion of Mother Bomb, its consequences, assumptions, as well as reflections. Consecutive news stories confirm the ruthlessness of media mechanisms and how the news is constructed. The creation of fake news was demonstrated by repeating the same sentence over and over again, which eventually distorted it to the unknown. Finally, a pathetic (heartwarming?) letter to Mother Bomb was read out. The production creates a strange atmosphere, trying to create a variety of situations that would be uncanny, perhaps strange, weird and unusual. This is something quite different from what can be seen now in the Estonian theater landscape. So if you have time and opportunity, you can set your direction to Kanuti Gildi SAAL.
Photo by Ingel Vaikla.
This week we will connect you with comedy, folk-culture, pop-culture, documentary films, art and the Estonian language! Have a wonderful week!
The Fifth Annual Tilt International Improv Festival presents: The Moment (FIN/USA) – “Here, Now” / Rocky Amaretto (NLD) – “Everybody has one”
23 Sep
St Catherine’s Church
Improv differs from classical theatre in that the entire performance is invented on the spot, inspired from suggestions given by the audience. Every performance is unique and will never be seen again, because it’s not possible to improvise the same story twice. Tilt brings you the best improv actors and teachers from Estonia and all over the world! Tilt: Theatre like never before (And also never again.)
Japanese Pop Culture Festival “AniMatsuri”
23 Sep – 24 Sep
Tartu
This festival is dedicated to Japanese animation and pop culture and takes place in Tartu for the 11th time already. It’s a two-day festival aimed primarily at youngsters, bringing enthusiasts together from Estonia as well as abroad.
XIII Estonian Islands’ Folk Days “Instrument and playing”
22 Sep – 24 Sep
Vormsi
The Estonian islands come together and already on Friday evening, the concert of the talharpa band Puuluup will be held in Vormsi’s only tavern. On Saturday there is a parade, a church is being examined, and it’s possible to get a little more information about the Vormsi’s ancient instrument talharpa. After a collective lunch, you can do exciting things in several workshops. Most of the activities are for both children and adults.
15th Matsalu Nature Film Festival (MAFF)
20 Sep – 24 Sep
Lihula Community Centre/Tallinn Zoo Nature Education Centre/Ilon Wonder Land
The MAFF is an annual nature film event. It has been named after the nearby Matsalu National Park, which is one of largest bird sanctuaries in Europe. The festival promotes nature-oriented and sustainable ways of life and respect for the nature-connected traditions of indigenous people. The MAFF showcases a variety of new international films about nature, wildlife, expeditions, environment, sustainability, biodiversity, conservation – films that depict nature in its diversity and films about the coexistence of man and nature.
Kumu Documentary: “Listen to me Marlon”
20 Sep
Kumu auditorium
With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive, including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary.
Estonian language cafe for (foreign) students
21 Sep
The O. Luts Tartu Town Library
At the language cafe “Know the city of Tartu” you can practice Estonian and make new acquaintances. Everyone who wants to manage with the Estonian language in everyday communication is welcome!
Holger Loodus’s solo exhibition “Journey to the End of the World”
08 Sep – 09 Oct
Tallinn Art Hall Gallery
Holger Loodus’s exhibition Journey to the End of the World at the Art Hall Gallery revolves around three events that initially seem unrelated: the trip of Matthew Henson, a black explorer, to the North Pole with Robert Peary in 1909; the simultaneous arrival of artist Joseph Beuys’s shamanistic myth creation and social activism on the 20th-century art scene more than half a century later; and the anonymous flows of refugees, which during a short but intensive period, moved through the Arctic region from Russia to Norway two years ago. These events are connected by the North Pole, the beginning and end of journeys; and the various means, which that have changed over time, for arriving there
We went to the Cirque de Solei production called “Varekai” and though the pictures are colorful and may give a little glimpse of what was going on, the actual show really did make even a more proficient heart jump from fear.. or joy at times. A spectacle it was!
This week we recommend a whole lot of interesting things. There is, for example a literature festival, that you can enjoy even if you do not speak Estonian, and the Tallinn Photomonth that doesn’t require for you to be from Tallinn or enjoy traditional kinds of photography.
Arvo Pärt Days 2017: Tintinnabuli
10 Sep /11 Sep
Tartu St Paul’s Church/Tallinn St John’s Church
The British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars first became famous as performers of Renaissance music, praised for their unique and pure sound quality. They recorded the disc Tintinnabuli (Gimell) for Arvo Pärt’s 80th anniversary, accoladed by many and rated among the top ten Arvo Pärt’s musical recordings by the well-known music magazine Gramophone. The concerts in Tallinn and Tartu are the joyous occasions for the Nargenfestival audience to listen to Arvo Pärt’s musical works from the disc.
Literary Street Festival
09 Sep
A. H. Tammsaare museum
Almost all literary institutions come to visit the Literary Street Festival. In their open tents, there are programs, specially created for the festival. Among others there are Viivi Luik, Tõnu Õnnepalu, Kristiina Ehin, Karl Martin Sinijärv, Indrek Koff, Doris Kareva and others. You can participate in the quiz, take part of new book presentations, listen to cultural and literary discussions. There are also literary walks, book sales and intriguing exhibitions. Exciting activities for children all day long.
Tartu Street Food Festival
09 Sep
The Widget Factory
Telliskivi Creative City, Tallinn Street Food Festival, and the Widget Factory present: Tartu Street Food Festival. The biggest and most popular street food event in Estonia brings the widest selection of street food to Tartu: there are cafes of the Widget Factory, food trucks, pop-up restaurants, and alternative chefs.
Kuressaare Street Picnic
09 Sep
Kuressaare
It only happens once a year that Lossi Street in Kuressaare is full of picnic tables. The crowd is enjoying their food and drinks and dancing to the music. The cafes on the street are ready to help and serve you if you do not have your own picnic equipment.
Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare
05 Sep – 10 Sep
Kanuti Gildi SAAL
One by one, over 6 days, Forced Entertainment performers condense every Shakespeare play ever written into a series of 36 intimate and lovingly made miniatures, played out on a one-metre table-top using a collection of un-extraordinary everyday objects. Forced Entertainment have long had an obsession with virtual or described performance, exploring in different ways over the years the possibilities of conjuring extraordinary scenes, images and narratives using language alone. In a brand new direction for the company, Complete Works explores the dynamic force of narrative in a simple and idiosyncratic summary of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, histories and late plays, creating worlds as vivid as they are strange.
English Comedy Night – Brendon Burns & Craig Quartermaine
06 Sep /07 Sep
Athena Center/Von Krahl Theatre
September’s stand up show is one of the top events at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “RACE OFF” with Australian comedians Brendon Burns and Craig Quartermaine. Brendon is no stranger to Estonia, he has been here three times before and was actually on an episode of Kodumäng with us where he managed to piss off Indrek Vaheoja and won a toaster for his efforts. Brendon is fast and intense, he has been performing around the globe for 27 years and has won best comedian at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Also, Brendon is white. Craig is an Australian Raw Comedy finalist and journalist and was once a chef’s apprentice. Since entering Raw Comedy in 2016 (the major newcomer award in Australia) this “charming ball of rage” has gone from strength to strength. Also, Craig is an Aboriginal Australian.
Photo exhibition: Louisa Marie Summer “Border Walks”
05 Sep – 28 Sep
Pärnu Central Library
In autumn 2016 Louisa Marie Summer from Germany, visited Estonia to explore the idea of local borders, both in Tallinn and Narva. Through her photographs, the artist captures, in her own artistic perspective, these traces that remain in urban daily life. At the core of the European project has always been an effort to reduce the significance of borders – international boundaries as well as educational, economic and social borders.
Tallinn Photomonth ’17
01 Sep – 29 Oct
Tallinn Art Hall
International contemporary art biennial Tallinn Photomonth ’17 introduces its programme by international and Estonian artists at various art venues in Tallinn and Narva. Tallinn Photomonth opened on 1 September with the group exhibition Image Drain curated by Anthea Buys at Tallinn Art Hall and the Museum of Photography.
They are officially here, the last days of summer. The air might be getting chillier, but the events get more serious and interesting by the day. This week there are a lot of art themes involved and we must say that the company is quite international.
Uus Maailm District Street Festival 2017
2 Sep – 3 Sep
Uus Maailm District
The days, weeks, months and seasons have passed almost unnoticeably and the 11th Uus Maailm District Street Festival is already peeking around the corner. So, it’s a good idea to mark down the first weekend of September on the calendar. As it has become a tradition, good music can be heard on the stage, the streets are full of life, street sport, traders and home cafes.
Tallinn Photomonth ’17
1 Sep – 29 Oct
Tallinn Art Hall
International contemporary art biennial Tallinn Photomonth ’17 introduces its programme by international and Estonian artists at various art venues in Tallinn and Narva. Tallinn Photomonth opens on 1 September with the group exhibition Image Drain curated by Anthea Buys at Tallinn Art Hall and the Museum of Photography.
Paul Pretzer’s graphic exhibition
29 Aug – 17 Sep
Estonian Printing Museum
On August 29 at 7:00 p.m., a graphic art exhibition by Paul Pretzer, a painter from Berlin, will be opened at the Estonian Print and Paper Museum. The artist is staying in Tartu as a guest artist, participating in Tartu artist-in-residence program. The exhibition displays the graphics that have been made during his residency as well as the earlier creation. At the same time, you can browse through the catalog where you can get an overview of Paul’s entire work.
Viljandi Art Festival “QQ”
18 Aug – 17 Sep
Viljandi
QQ / Viljandi Art Festival will be held for the first time and its goal is to create an international activity platform and meeting place bridging and involving different fields of art. Within one month, a small town – Viljandi – becomes a canvas and exhibition site for international artists – cultural events and interactive activities take place every day: joint youth art performances, street art sessions, sound performances, installations in an urban space, art circus, light installation and light sculptures, environmental art, café exhibitions, open-house art exhibitions and gallery exhibitions; and also: outdoor cinema, poetry slam, dance performances, concerts, guided walks in town.
Exhibition “The Study of Sight”
29 Jul – 3 Sep
Tallinn Art Hall Gallery
Annika Haas, Elo Liiv and Jekaterina Kultajeva will be exhibiting their photo, video, sound and sculpture installations at the Art Hall Gallery. The works depict the blind people of Estonia and raise the theme of “social blindness” more broadly.
Dance performance “Tempo”
25 Aug – 28 Aug
Next to the Noblessner Valukoda
“Tempo” is a dance performance that combines movement, music and video. The theme of the production is the time: tempo, rhythms, moving forward, growth, acceleration, arriving, being. The tempo in and around us, in nature and in the city, a human being in the middle of one’s everyday activities, at special moments, moving in time, falling behind, searching for one’s own pace, the pace of others, losing it and finding it again. Time is always the same and always so different.
Links to the World: Martha Rosler
4 Aug – 10 Sep
Tartu Art Museum
Tartu Art Museum introduces international video art. Tartu Art Museum opens the second exhibition in the series “Links to the World” introducing international video art in the museum’s project space. This time the series showcases Martha Rosler’s work “If it’s too bad to be true, it could be Disinformation” (1985).
Fourth summer season of Voronja gallery: Peter Belyi “Open Borders”
18 Jun – 16 Sep
Voronja Gallery
The exhibition is compiled by St. Petersburg-based artist and curator Peter Belyi, who has involved artists in the exhibition who work on creating connections between the organic and inorganic worlds and use nature or natural processes for creating art.
MDLSX is a production about Silvia Calderoni’s journey, directed by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò. This is an autobiographical work that talks about the self-discoveries, personal development and blooming.
The show was explosive and visually astounding. There was a huge amount of energy in the hall, and Silvia Calderoni engaged the audiences amazingly. Calderoni seemed unearthly on several levels while she was playing cleverly and precisely with the viewer’s emotions that ranged from pain to sincere joy. Through the visual media accompanied by songs, Silvia Calderoni told her story of how she has become the person he currently is. The text was largely based on her own experience and was well put together. There were also several intertextual connections to history and literature. The musical selection was also very fitting and improved the whole narrative.
There is a whole bunch of different sides gathered together in Silvia Calderoni. While being herself, she staged several phases of her life and combined them with a variety of emotions. She incorporated so much that she created contradictions and contrasts. At the same time, beauty and pain, masculinity and femininity, as well as many unexplained but highly perceptible factors flourished in her.
This is a very important production and it is pleasing that the queer cultural space is also introduced to people in art. The production tells about finding gender as a social concept (it’s a pity that there are no separate words in the Estonian for “gender” and “sex”). The social concept should not limit people. Silvia Calderon broke the boundaries of gender defined in the dictionary – she reached to the humanity. The show created freedom – I imagine that only a free person can create such art. At the same time, the focus was not only on the queer topics but also on all the problems that are common to the human nature.
All the emotions collided at the very end when Silvia Calderoni played The Smiths during the applause, while standing in her full authenticity in front of the audience. There were chills, tears, and indescribable emotions. It was a powerful and profound experience. Silvia Calderoni’s shirt My girlfriend is a Marxist was also super cool!