by 
- Susurro team choreography & arrangements & visual design.
- Pirjo Valinen costume designer
- Pirjo Yli-Maunula dancer, musician
- Jukka Huitila lighting designer
- Aake Otsala composer
- Production: Flow Productions
- Graphic design: Tomi Hurskainen
- Poster and flyer photos: Jussi Tuokkola
- Stage photos: Pekka Mäkinen
- Texts: JP Manninen
- Costume maker: Pirjo Valinen & Marika Heikkinen
- Make up design: Virpi Väsänen
- Supported by: Finnish Cultural Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland
- Premiere: Oulu, Culture Centre Valve, March 15, 2013, at Oulu Music Festival
- Duration: 30 minutes
- [vimeo video_id=”65130595″ width=”400″ height=”300″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”]
“The piece is an interdisciplinary symphony of creation which breaks entirely new ground for performing arts.”
The quiet rustling of paper is Susurro’s Big Bang; paper constitutes its universe, forever expanding and accelerating.
The material has shaped the piece in a very particular way. One of the starting points for Susurro was to create the entire sound design for the piece using the nuances inherent in an organic material, in this instance, paper. Instead of using digitally manipulated or otherwise processed sound, the sound of Susurro is created entirely by a costume designed and constructed out of paper by Pirjo Valinen, as well as other elements on stage.
Paper is also what sets the foundation for the visuals of Susurro and the expression for dancer Pirjo Yli-Maunula. Paper is elemental to Susurro, it creates Susurro’s natural phenomena, its laws of physics, its very fabric of being. This is why in Susurro it is impossible to differentiate between costume and instrument, composition and choreography, or musician and dancer.
Susurro is a creation myth. It is a ritual. It is complete: all there is, is right there in front of you.
Aake Otsala (composer)
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”.
Pirjo Valinen (dress 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 (light designer)
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.
Pirjo Yli-Maunula (choreographer-dancer-musician-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). She is the first recipient of the title “Artist of the Year” as selected by the city of Oulu for 2011.
Performance history:
Gallery version:
September 27, 2012 Turku, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum, opening ceremonies of Wha´? Textile Triennale
February 1, 2013 Oulu City Art Museum, opening ceremonies of Wha´? Textile Triennale
April 14, 2013 Oulu City Art Museum
Stage version:
March 15, 2013 Oulu Music Festival (premiere)
March 16-21,2013 Culture Centre Valve, Oulu, Finland (5)
June 5, 2013 Silence-festival, Kittilä, Finland
September 11, 2013 WSD2013-event, Cardiff, Wales, Great Britain (2)
July 22, 2014 Full Moon Dance festival (1)
May 8, 2015 Sotku, Kuopio (1)
