Marika Peura

Imperial Stage (working title) captures and hijacks the performative ‘pleasantness’ of Whiteness. The dance piece grapples with what seems hard to grasp: the normativity of Whiteness as it manifests in the performers’ bodies, socialized as Finnish – Marika Peura’s (Filipino-Finnish) and Caroline Suinner’s (Nigerian-Finnish). The performance looks into the dynamics of the body living in the imperial core (North/West). The body does not merely reproduce oppression from the outside; oppression passes through it – through its daily life, its pleasures, its history. It cannot remain untouched, because the system that grants it privilege also shapes the ways it moves, thinks, and feels. From these frictions emerges a rich performative terrain that brings to the forefront the question of Whiteness which possesses the agency and monopoly to define what is violence.

Imperial Stage is the second part of a series of works that examines the dynamics of power relations between Brownness, Whiteness; as its central perspective a body in which the structures of white supremacy are present both as an agent of power and as its target — “oppressor and oppressed simultaneously.” The first part of the series, solo work Amalgam Melee, premiered at Zodiak Stage in September 2024.

Imperial Stage will premiere in December 2026 at Zodiak Stage.

Amalgam Melee delves into the emotional and expressive body; artist’s inner contradictions in relation to cultural heritage, brownness, whiteness, hierarchies of power and violence.

Amalgam Melee, the new stage work by choreographer Marika Peura and the working group, sets off from the artist’s inner contradictions in relation to cultural heritage, brownness, whiteness, hierarchies of power and violence in the context of Finnish society. How these frictions wield with a double-edge effect; exploring the body where the mechanisms of white supremacy are present both as the one exercising power and the one subjected to it.

"Amalgam melee" refers to a chaotic or disorderly situation where various elements or entities have merged into a single, mixed-up mass in a disorganized manner. "Amalgam" implies a mixture or combination, while "melee" suggests a confused or disorderly situation involving struggle or conflict. The work delves into the emotional and expressive body; within the conflicts of this ‘third space’, as the means and potential to reach a political sense of self. 

Premiere: September 5, 2024 on Zodiak Stage