Linkki verkkojulkaisuun (pdf) - Teatterikorkeakoulu

ABSTRACT
From The Problems of The Aging Dancer To A Dialogical Examination.
A Choreographer’s Point of View.
Contains: Are You Still Dancing? (part II) and A Journey Through
Choreographic Processes (part III)
I was inspired to embark on the artistic investigation described in this report
by the ongoing debate on the aging dancer in contemporary dance in Finland.
The study concentrated primarily on career transition but made me contemplate
how dancers might continue their careers in dancing. I considered this problem
mainly from the choreographer’s perspective and thought that it had to do with
the approaches used in the choreographic process. I noticed that dance too
often succumbed to practices influenced by a mechanistic conception of
humankind. Accordingly, this meant that dancers and their bodies were
regarded as instruments and as raw material for creating a choreography. The
dancer then became an object to be manipulated by the choreographer, and the
choreography became a product.
In the first artistic processes dealt with in this investigation, namely A
Woman’s Elbow (1994) [Naisen kyynär], The Dice Throwing Women (1995) [Noppaa
heittävät naiset] and Birdie (1996) [Lintunen], the methods of alignment, release
and improvisation were the primary means of creating dance material. Through
them the dancers were allowed to influence the way the choreography began to
unfold. The most important conclusion I reached in reflecting on these artistic
processes was two-fold. I acquired a heightened awareness that I cannot, as a
choreographer, grasp every aspect of the dancers’ experiences of dancing. I also
realised that at any given moment the processes of dancing have a lot to do with
the state of the body. Thus in my view age was only one aspect of the differences
encountered when dealing with the body and dancing. These considerations
posed new questions. My primary aim was to devise new means of understanding
the process of dance creation by analysing dancers’ experiences as closely as
possible. I thought that a dialogical and a reflective attitude to the creation of
dance would, together with the methods of rehearsing, which themselves
included dialogical features, result in deep, honest dance that speaks to the
audience in an authentic way. The common element entailed in both the
reflective and the practical methods was a serious mode of listening and
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