Choreography: Liisa Risu
Dance: Jonna Eiskonen, Satu Halttunen, Ninu Lindfors, Vera Nevanlinna, Terhi Vaimala
Sound design: Jussi Saivo
Costume design: Riitta Röpelinen
Production: Liisa Risu
55 min
7.12.2013 Kallio Sports Hall / Helsinki
The starting point of SOIVA has been to find analogies between sound and movement. As a result SOIVA mixes J.S.Bach´s music , contemporary dancing and sport venues in a surprising but in a purely beautiful way.
Bach’s WKL (1722, Book I) is a collection of preludes and fugues in 24 different keys. It is originally meant for solo key board but has been for long already also arranged for different instruments and orchestrations. This time for a dancing orchestra. In SOIVA a group of dancers is acting like it was a musical instrument.
Through simple rules and months of detailed work Bach’s musical architecture has been translated into movement and spatial relations – audible transposed into kinesthetic and visual. Choreography has been constructed from the musical score, not from the audible experience. SOIVA is also danced in silence.
The five female dancers of SOIVA are all very experienced and belong to the top of Finnish dance. Dancing in this work challenges their memory capacity but at the same time requires advanced skills and sensitivity in improvised dance. The subject and counter subjects of the fugues are fixed but other musical movements are based on sophisticated structural improvisation. The alternation between fixed articulation and improvisation creates a magical sense of aliveness and airiness to this very formal and detailed work.
SOIVA has been performed mainly in large sports halls but also in more intimate venues. The work adapts well to different scales and atmospheres because it is very straightforward. SOIVA is danced in silence and without any special theatre lights or design. The focus is purely on composition and dancing. Dancing in SOIVA is every time skillfully tuned according to the kinescoustic conditions of each venue.
The title Soiva means “something that sounds/makes sounds”
I started to hear movement. I no longer thought of Bach or the venue but started to see the notes on the musical score. The experience was earthmoving.
(excerpt from review)