DANCE is an abstract dance piece that reaches for freedom and euphoria through repetitive choreography. The through-composed and through-choreographed performance for six female dancers forms a breathing flow of dance, music and light.

The dancers appearing in the performance are Hanna Ahti, Anna Mustonen, Maija Mustonen, Saara Norvio, Anna Torkkel and Soile Voima – all of them artists with a distinctive and powerful choreographic mind. DANCE gives the dancers an opportunity to be free from the production of new material, allowing them to focus completely on dancing.

The process behind the work started with the study of 1960s and 1970s American minimalism and especially the works of choreographer Lucinda Childs. Famous for repetitive, rhythmically precise motion, Childs worked with artists such as composer Philip Glass, turning simple materials into hypnotic and complex textures.

Since those days, the relationship between choreography, dance and music has become both richer and more complicated. DANCE assumes position as part of a new tradition that comes after this questioning.

Named after a performance by Childs, DANCE focuses on abstract movement that is permeated by our time. It assumes a role as part of the context of new choreography with the aim of opening new room for motion, the forms of space and rhythm. DANCE is simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, allowing the history of dance to be present.

“After graduating as a choreographer, I have worked with new dance that combines methods from performing arts and performance. For me, DANCE is a way to return to motion-based, spatial composition and material that knows no rules except its own. Repetitive, fluid dance is a way to reach for a state of flow, and in the motions and thinking of Lucinda Childs I found ways to create such dance. The experience of freedom came about in precision." ­– Anna Maria Häkkinen