Production info Arabic traditional music and Finnish contemporary dance meet in an escaping dialogue “There is...
Production info
Images of modern man – when even the life itself can be branded.
The idea for this creation comes from the ever accelerating flood of images transmitted by television, the press and other media. Also, from the image of modern man as a stylised and designed product, which is presented to us by various reality and lifestyle programmes.
The performance parallels the flood of images and the state of lucid dreaming. The calculated images penetrate our subconscious mind. The dreamlike state and the realm of images merge or separate, as they do in reality when, for example, surrounding sounds penetrate into dream and become part of it.
Choreography: Alpo Aaltokoski
Dancers: Jonna Eiskonen, Heidi Naakka, Valtteri Raekallio
Visualisation: Jukka Huitila
Music and Sound Design: Timo Muurinen
Costume Design: Marja Uusitalo
With support of: the Culture 2000 Programme of the European Union, Finlands-Instituttet i Kobenhavn, GRAN – teater for dans and City of Helsinki Cultural Office
Trans Danse Europe network set up its first travelling dance festival throughout Europe in 2000. Since then the network has broadened, and now counts 8 member structures. A new three-year project is now established and is supported by the European Commission, within the framework of the Culture 2000 Programme. Trans Danse network has chosen Nomadi artists Alpo Aaltokoski and Arja Raatikainen to participate the project, and they both will create a new work for this purpose. (2005)
Press reviews
Pirjo Nenola, Iisalmen Sanomat 30.7.2005
Artist Professor Alpo Aaltokoski lives up to expectations: his choreographies, regardless of the theme, inspire and bring a good mood. […] Even though Aaltokoski’s movement vocabulary is recognizable, he can renew it and bring new elements to familiar contexts. […] The scene at the end of Lucid Dreaming, where the dancers, in a way, get caught inside flashing TV-screens, brought a smile through the tears.
Jarmo Rintala, Tiedonantaja 12.8.2005
The evening was rounded off with Lucid Dreaming, an up-tempo piece with an everyday feel about it, which deviated somewhat from the typical Aaltokoski style. […] Aaltokoski’s many-sided choreographies show that he is not set in his ways.
Jukka O. Miettinen, Helsingin Sanomat 1.5.2005
Aaltokoski’s group piece Lucid Dreaming is all about glittering surface, but it is explored with humour and insight. […] The costumes by Marja Uusitalo are a piquant comment on the world of fashion. […] The pace quickens to a frenzy. The humorous tone turns into grotesque.
Donald Hutera, Dance Europe, March 2005
This is the most extrovert and pointedly satirical of the handful of works by Alpo Aaltokoski that I’ve seen. It looks sensational. […] Angular and gestural, quirky, and curving, the dance itself combines fizzy pop disorientation with a peculiar cool. It’s an approximation of the state where one is both in a dream and aware of it. Aaltokoski’s gimlet-eyed tickler can also be taken as a comment on the perplexingly fast, celebrity-chasing culture familiar to so many of us. Little wonder that the dancers should look either blank or dizzied negotiating movement that is animated, automated, and marked by a twitchy extremity. The 21st century players they portray are on a track over which each has little or no control. Any awakening they experience is short-lived.
John Christiansen, Jyllands-Post Århus 31.1.2005
It was never stationary, on the other hand it was fascinating, even exciting, and quite humouristic.
Performance history
Premiere: January 28, 2005 Gran-teater for Dans, Aarhus, Denmark (1)
Other performances:
January 29, 2005 Gran-teater for Dans, Aarhus, Denmark (1)
April 29, 2005 Stoa the Cultural Centre of Eastern Helsinki, Finland (1)
May 6, 2005 International Contemporary Dance Festival “New Baltic Dance’05”, Vilnius, Lithuania (1)
May 29, 2005 Reykjavik Art Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland (1)
June 12, 2005 Tanec Praha 2005, Theatre Ponec, Prague, Czech Republic (1)
July 28, 2005 Full Moon Dance Festival, Leisure Hall, Pyhäjärvi, Finland (1)
August 7, 2005 Lugar à Dança, Coimbra, Portugal (1)
August 24, 2005 Bellone-Brigittines Festival, la chapelle des Brigittines, Brussels, Belgium (1)
September 10-11, 2005 JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre, Nuku Theatre, Oulu, Finland (2)
February 2-3, 2006 Alexander Theater, Helsinki, Finland (2)
April 19, 2006 Sala Wielka, Centrum Kultury Zamek, Poznan, Poland (1)