Elina Pirinen

Ghosts of Rosegarden is a unique hybrid of maternal, classical, and neo-primitivist forms, created by a female-specific big stage presence with expressive dance, a text orchestration recital, string, bassoon, and timpani composition played by a live orchestra, and a live camera transforming the big stage into a theater of physical cinema. 

In the hands of Pirinen, composer Ville Kabrell, dramaturge Heidi Väätänen, spatial and lighting designer Mateus Manninen and video artist Jakob Öhrman the vast work is an enchanting and hilarious autopsy this time using Stravinsky's iconic The Rite of Spring as its source. Stravinsky serves as a freely associative material, details, forms, depths, and absence. In addition to the use of The Rite of Spring, the content and execution of Ghosts of Rosegarden are strongly influenced by numerous works of classical music and their stage librettos and ballets, in which women/girls are sacrificed, murdered, enchanted into fairy-tale creatures, imprisoned, abducted, or otherwise meet a harsh and unfair end. 

In Ghosts of Rosegarden, no female is killed. Instead of the original narrative, these women and girls are reborn again and again in different forms - as dancing, music playing, reciting poetry, flesh and blood, alter egos, wild mothers of the past, present, and future, material for creativity, symbols of life, masters of ceremony, and new icons. 

The work will premiere in Dance House Helsinki's Erkko Hall in October 2026, co-produced by Zodiak- Center for New Dance, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava, Tallinn, Dansens Hus Stockholm and BIT Teatergarasjen. 

“Four good friends travel through time and space for an alchemical and sensuous celebration full of phantasms. Familiar yet unexpected faces appear along the way.”

REDDENING, by choreographer Elina Pirinen and visual artist Sinem Kayacan, is a genre-bender arthouse fantasy film, at the intersection of contemporary performance and experimental fiction.

The title REDDENING refers to the final stage of alchemy; Rubedo, in which the alchemical transformation takes place. REDDENING explores how a film, as a sensuous object, can pleasure; repulse, nurture, and overall transmute the body of the audience.

Duration: Short Film (15min.)
Genre description: Fiction/Fantasy/Experimental