A joint-bill evening of international solos curated by dance artist Samuli Emery, this touring show is produced in collaboration with the regional dance centers of Eastern Finland and Central Finland.
The program will be released soon.
In the event photo Dominyka Markeviciute. Picture taken by Elena Krukonyte.
Samuli Emery’s Concert of Odes is a solo piece that reimagines ancient Greek odes for today’s stage with humor and devotion. Warmhearted, intimate – and also dubbed ”thoroughly postmodern” – the performance consists of tiny dance tributes to a plethora of things, figures, and familiar phenomena.
Concert of Odes revolves around the paradox of a solo performer’s egoism: How to own the stage while inviting the whole world along? And how to be empathetic up there, all by yourself? How to present your dance as a gift to other people?
Solo performers do their best to give up every bit of self-centeredness during the moments when they dedicate themselves, alongside their audiences, to myriad things like everyday mysteries, environmental crises, lost clothes, and memories that make you cry, laugh, and feel connected to others.
Emery’s piece is in essence a sharp-witted movement concert which aims to highlight things that are worth the attention. In all its conflictedness it yearns to create new, surprising, and dynamic connections between dance and the world.
The work’s inspirations include Yoshi Oida’s book The Invisible Actor and Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion’s Body Not Fit For Purpose.
In The Solo Series, Emery breaks his solo into parts, presenting it in three short acts during the evening.
ill-wisher, well-wisher is a solo choreography that digs into the imagery of evil through fairy-tale antagonists. It embodies and reinterprets the stereotypical conditions in which someone is seen as an enemy. The piece is inspired by Disney villains, especially as queer studies lecture topics.
She Dreamt of Being Washed Away To The Coast is a contemporary take on the Baltic mythology. The performance contextualises Lithuanian folklore against the backdrop of the universal human experience. It looks at the tension between two worlds: the material one, based on logic, and the one created by imagination and faith.
The starting point of the performance is the interpretation of Lithuanian legend about the impossibility of love between the sea goddess named Jūratė and a fisherman named Kastytis. But instead focusing on the tragic of love, the performance deals with the transformation of a single individual, inspired by the figure of Jūrate, who is experiencing loneliness and a conflict bodily limitations and the fluidity of imagination.
She Dreamt of Being Washed Away To The Coast is a transformative journey of movement from a single point to a broader space without a defined beginning or an end. Throughout the duration of the work, the dance gradually becomes more complex while the dancer moves in circular motions experiencing the confrontation between her own
body and the rules dictated by the space. Complex, meditative and fluid like water, the movements create an allusion a deity chained at the bottom of the sea, trying to find balance between her axis and liberation.
Choreography and concept: Lukas Karvelis
Dancer: Dominyka Markevičiūtė
Music: Dominykas Digimas
Costume design: Morta Nakaitė
Lights design: Povilas Laurinaitis
Mentor: Bush Hartsorn
Communication: Agnė Vidugirytė
Produced by: Be_Kompanijos
Co-produced by: CDCN, Atelier de Paris
Supported by: Lithuanian Culture Institute / New Baltic Dance Festival / LT Contemporary Dance Association
Samuli Emery is a Finnish-British queer multifaceted physical performer, choreographer, artistic director, pedagogue and MC. After graduating Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) in 2019 they’ve worked internationally in the professional productions of artists such as Meg Stuart, Jerome Bel, Imre & Marne Van Opstal, Ivo Dimchev, Christoph Winkler, River Lin, Ceren Oran, Jill Crovisier, Sonya Lindfors and WAUHAUS Collective. Samuli has received numerous awards and stipends for their accomplishments as a performer and dance maker in Finland, Germany, Poland, Estonia and Italy. Alongside performing, creating and teaching internationally Samuli serves as the artistic director of Kuopio Dance Festival, the biggest and longest-running dance festival in the Nordics.
Tuure Kaukua (1996) is a choreographer, dancer and performer based in Helsinki. Kaukua is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Choreography at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, having previously graduated from the same institution with a Bachelor’s Degree in Dance. Kaukuas works have been staged and performed at venues including Frankfurt LAB, Zodiak – Centre for New Dance, the Ateneum and Stoa. Kaukua has appeared in works by Mikko Niemistö, Elina Pirinen, Janina Rajakangas, Maya Oliva and Maria Saivosalmi, amongst others.
Lukas Karvelis (1997) is a Lithuanian freelance dance artist currently based in Amsterdam. Upon graduating from Codarts in 2019 on a Jiri Kylian Foundation scholarship, he began collaborated with Royal Danish theatre, Münich Kammerspiele, Göteborgs Operans Danskompani, Dansatelier’s crew and Korzo Theater. His own choreographic work has received multiple residencies at Atelier de Paris/CDCN, the Arts Printing House, Cetro Coreografico Gomera and Teatri Di Vita. Karvelis was nominated for the Piket Kunst Award in 2020 and received young artist award from Lithuanian ministry of culture in 2023.
