by 
Karsikko is a piece for up to ten audience members at a time. An actual tour within the set, the audience is taken physically and emotionally deep into the world of the conscious and the subconscious, of instinct and control, of spirituality and carnality. The viewer gets to step inside an imaginative realm where visions from the subconscious have surfaced, and muffled secrets are given a voice. Both solemn and playful, Karsikko tugs at your curiosity like a sentence you didn’t quite catch in someone else’s conversation.
Karsikko is conceived by dancers Pirjo Yli-Maunula and Titta Court, who have composed a team consisting of first-rate Nordic professionals. In addition to dance, the world of Karsikko is constructed with innovative set design, music that draws most of its color palette from earth tones, organic video and almost sculpture-like costume design.
Duration: 60 min.
Choreography and dance: Pirjo Yli-Maunula, Titta Court. Composition: Terje Isungset. Sound design: Aake Otsala. Video: Jukka Huitila. Lighting: Ainu Palmu. Set design: Pirjo Valinen. Costume design: Heidi Kesti, Julia Adzuki. Set build: Heidi Kesti, Petri Haapakoski. Make up: Yanski Sova. Graphic design: Tomi Hurskainen. Promotional texts: JP Manninen. Photography: Jussi Tuokkola
Supported by: Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Oulu City, National Council for Dance
Authors:
Titta Court (choreographer, dancer)
Titta Court works as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. She has worked as a professional dance artist since year 1991 since graduation from Theatre Academy Dance Department, Helsinki. She has MA in Dance from year 1993. She has been choreographing own works since 1996. From year 1997 she has been living in north of Finland actively making dance visible as an art form in her area.
She has choreographed several solo works and from year 2006 visiting choreographers like Favela Vera Ortiz ( Helsinki ) and Lily Kiara (Amsterdam) have choreographed her solos. She works in collaboration with other artists. She has worked for instance with musicians Ulla Pirttijärvi (Utsjoki) and Pekka Ruth (Haparanda), with fine artists John Court (Tornio) and Kaija Kiuru (Rovaniemi) and with dance artists Reijo Kela (Espoo), Kirsi Heimonen ( Helsinki ), Leena Gustavson (Helsinki) and Gaby Agis (London).
Many of her own works are instantly composed in the moment of performing and they are very much inspired by the space and situation they are performed in. She has done many performances outside traditional performance spaces like on streets, parks, different public spaces, homes and old people’s houses.
Julia Adzuki (dress designer)
Julia Adzuki is and Australian born artist, living and working in Gnesta, Sweden. Working in the areas of costume design, installation and performance, her inspiration stems from a fascination with nature’s growth, transformation and decomposition processes.
Previous works include a range of commissions in ice and snow for Icehotel in Sweden, Greenland igloo village and Hovden snow festival, Norway. Among costume works her Red Root Shoes have featured in performances in Budapest, a video work on the melting arctic ice and have been danced in the Finnish mountains by Titta Court.
Current projects include SymbioLab – a mobile greenhouse that engages the public in ecological questions, scientific poetry and installation art. This project is currently touring schools and festivals in Sweden. Julia is also a project leader for Art Lab Gnesta – a new platform for realisation and exhibition of experimental, contemporary art in the Gnesta’s old brewery.
Terje Isungset (composer)
Terje Isungset is one of Europe’s most accomplished and innovative percussionists. With over two decades experience in jazz and Scandinavian music he is taking these types of music far beyond their traditional boundaries, becoming more like a cross between a sound artist and a shaman. Crafting his own instruments from Norwegian natural elements such as arctic birch, granite, slate, sheep bells and even ice, he is highly recommended to those sensible to the poetry and simplicity of sounds. “Timbres” and “colours” are central in Terje Isungsets music and compositions. In the press, his work has often been described as innovative, visual, energetic, and different from any previously known concepts. Isungset has also been commissioned to compose music for Jazz Festivals, Dance Performances, Theatre, Film, etc. (29 commissed concerts) His composition efforts have also brought eight critically acclaimed solo CDs: «REISE» (1997), «FLOATING RHYTHMS» (2000) “Iceman Is” (2002) “Middle of Mist” (2003) “Igloo” (2006), “Two Moons” (2007), Ice Concerts (2008) and “Hibernation” 2009.
Isungset is a performing musician with about 100 concerts per year. For the coming years, he is booked for collaboration projects with different international performers, as well as solo concerts and special projects.
In the book Percussion Profiles Isungset was given a thorough presentation. “Interviews-articles and discographies of 25 of the worlds most creative percussionists”. He has been given the Norwegian awards Jazz musician of the year and composer of the year. http://www.icemusic.no/
Aake Otsala (sound designer)
Aake Otsala is a musician, composer, and sound designer from Rovaniemi, Finland. Currently living in Helsinki, Finland, Otsala has worked with several renowned Finnish choreographers, including Alpo Aaltokoski, Arja Raatikainen and Ervi Siren. Otsala also has a lengthy career in Finnish pop music: his discography consists of some 30 albums, including all the music published by his band Absoluuttinen Nollapiste. Otsala released a solo album in 2010, titled “Songs From A Closed Room”.
Ainu Palmu (light designer)
Ainu Palmu is a Helsinki based lighting designer who has mostly been workingwith contemporary dance and new circus. She is curious about how austerity and sensitivity are parallel in a performance and finds light the perfect media to exhibit that parallelity since light has no materia but is simultaneously a necessity.
Pirjo Valinen (set designer)
Pirjo Valinen has created costume designs, stage designs and posters for the Oulu City Theatre since 1975. Valinen has been working as a costume designer for theatre ever since 1977. Her works have been presented in a great number of exhibitions, in joint exhibitions and for her on her own. She has also been teaching, for example, at the University of Art and Design Helsinki and at the Universities of Oulu and Lapland.
Costume Designer Pirjo Valinen is known for her enthusiastic experimenting with new materials and work methods. Along the years, she has developed her own, distinctive style and character and her own, artistic views as a Finnish theatre costume designer. Her special interest point has been her courageous experimenting with various paper materials. Therefore, she has created a wide array of work methods aimed at handling paper and she has succesfully adapted the results of her experiments for theatre costumes, either as a part of the costume design or as a chosen costume material for an entire work.
Jukka Huitila (video)
Jukka Huitila is a visual artist graduated Master of Arts from the the Theatre Academy of Finland. He is one of the most luminous designer in the field of Finnish performing arts. His versatile career includes lighting, set and video design for interiors, exhibitions, live events and stage performances. He has collaborated in contemporary dance with a great number of the most recognized Finnish choreographers and this artwork has been seen in over twenty countries. Currently Huitila is interested in taking his art into more proprietary direction such as establishing status in the live art scene.
Yanski Sova is a make-up artist from Oulu, Finland, with a strong background and education in her craft. Since 1988, Sova has worked on commercials, show productions, film and photo shoots in numerous national projects, and has collaborated with redeemed photographers and performing artists. Sova has also been teaching her craft at educational institutions since 1993. Sova has previously collaborated with Yli-Maunula, for example in the following productions: Kaamos, Double Dutch, Elegia and Svartisen.
Heidi Kesti (wardrobe design, set building)
Heidi Kesti is a sculptor from Oulu, Finland. She has studied in the Liminka School of Art and in the Pori School of Art. She graduated from the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences’ Programme of Fine Arts. Kesti works with recycled materials, bronze, fabrics and ceramics. At the moment she is studying for an artisan’s degree in textile and clothing design at the Oulu Vocational College.
Tomi Hurskainen (graphic design)
Tomi Hurskainen is a graphic designer who has previously worked for the games studio LudoCraft. Hurskainen has also been involved in a wide array of projects as a freelancer, of which his most recent is ‘The Lost City Presents: Experience Park Turku 2011’. He has also been involved in designing and building several visual arts exhibitions that have elements from the gaming world. Now, Hurskainen is the graphic designer for Playsign.
JP Manninen (promotional texts)
JP Manninen is a Finnish journalist who lives and works in Oulu. Manninen has written about technology for the newspaper Kaleva for nearly a decade. In 2010, Manninen was based in San Francisco, CA, as a contributing writer for an American technology blog. In addition to technology, Manninen has written extensively on many subjects, including game reviews, lifestyle, entertainment, food and travel. Manninen has also written scripts for short movies and various promotional videos.
Pirjo Yli-Maunula (choreographer-dancer-producer)
Pirjo Yli-Maunula is a freelance dance artist from Oulu, Finland. She has been working as a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and producer since 1980. She has been involved in various dance festivals and organizations, including the management of Oulu Dance Studio (1982-98), has worked as Artistic Director of JoJo – Oulu Dance Center (1998-2002) and of the Full Moon Dance Festival (2003- 2006). She has appeared in contemporary dance works of several of the most recognised Finnish choreographers and has performed widely, both in Finland and abroad. In 2005 she was rewarded with the Oulu City Culture Award and in 2008, she was awarded by the Union of Finnish Dance Artists for her achievements in the field of dance (Tanssin Mainetekopalkinto). In 2009 she got a two-year grant from the Arts Council of Oulu province and in 2011 a one-year grant from Arts Council for dance in Finland. She is the first recipient of the title “Artist of the Year” as selected by the city of Oulu for 2011.
PERFORMANCE HISTORY:
Premiere: October 14, 2011, Culture Centre Valve, Oulu, Finland
Other performances: October 15-21, 2011, Culture Centre Valve, Oulu, Finland (19 performances)
COMING UP:
Culture Centre Valve, November 2013
