Dance talk notes: the Joyce

In the 2002 issue of the annual magazine called Finnish Dance in Focus (designed with an eye toward bringing Finnish dance to the rest of the world), editor-in-chief Minna Tawast raised the question: does a dance work have a nationality? This question, posed in the year of the eightieth anniversary of the Finnish National Ballet, is not one to be taken lightly. Dancers, scholars, and audience members would endlessly debate the same question if posed about dance here in the United States. (Would our national dance be tap? a Balanchine ballet? a modern dance work by Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, or Merce Cunningham? square dance? hip hop?) Through interviews and conversations and observations with artists and dance writers, Tawast lists identifying traits of Finnish-ness to a set of characteristics for dance.

These characteristics can be found in the overall aesthetics and the dance artist’s relationship to space and the body. Also the humour is often distinctive. These elements include factors familiar to mythical Finnishness: the dry humor, physical isolation, quietness and a passionate relationship with light after the long dark winter. Another choreographic feature noted was a strong relationship with nature, as “urbanisation has only occurred recently, and almost all Finns have, up until the last decade, had relatives in the countryside or forest areas.” Finland’s relative geographic isolation – so close to Russia and not terribly close to anything else – perhaps made it possible to develop a choreographic and stylistic dance form in a relatively pure way, free from outside influences.

For a long time, theatrical dance was considered a sin by the predominantly Christian Finland. Of the little written records that document Finnish dance from pre-19th century, most of it was folk dance, associated with fertility and agriculture and typically separated by gender. By the late 19th century, dancers who had trained in Russia and Europe were quite welcome and in 1908, Isadora Duncan made a huge splash in Helsinki. The national opera company established regular ballet classes by the 1920s, establishing what is now the Finnish National Ballet.

Tero Saarinen came to forefront of Finnish dance first as a dancer, performing as a soloist with the National Ballet. However, the geographic isolation led Saarinen to search for something beyond the national idea of dance. After seven years with the well-established national ballet company, he left in 1992 and headed to Japan and Nepal. In an interview with Ballett-Tanz International in 2005, Saarinen remarked: “People told me it was a courageous move, since dancers outside the National Ballet are not well provided for, but I did not see it as courageous, I simply had to do it because I felt limited as a male dancer. There was a limited concept of manhood and suitable roles and I wanted to soak up other influences and experience different dance realities. I had an urge to go abroad and widen my horizons.”

In Japan, Saarinen studied butoh, a form of dance that emerged after World War II. Sometimes referred to the dance of darkness, butoh combines elements of traditional Japanese theatre, with mime and Ausdruckstanz. After dancing the repertoire of a male lead in a ballet company, the glacial pacing, contorted limbs, and sense of ritual stunned and nourished Saarinen. In addition to his training in Japan, Saarinen also studied traditional Nepalese dance in Katmandu. Of that experience, Saarinen says: “That really taught me I have fingers and toes. Fingers and toes sometimes seem dead in ballet.”

One of the most important lessons that Saarinen took away from his experience with butoh is a sense of respect for his own history. He quotes his teacher, Kazuo Ohno, one of the foremost butoh practitioners as saying, “I am dancing on top of my ancestors.”

This respect for tradition and personal history manifests not just in Saarinen’s dancing, but also in his choreography. After his expeditions into other dance traditions, Saarinen returned to Finland and founded Tero Saarinen Company in 1996. Based in Helsinki and originally called Company Toothpick, Saarinen founded it as a place to regularly stage his own choreography. He also has works in the repertories of internationally acclaimed companies such as Nederlands Dans Theatre and Göteberg Ballet.

While feeling utterly contemporary in their full throttle physicality, Saarinen’s works echo the past. Threading through Saarinen’s works are echoes of a shared danced and musical history. The signature solo HUNT (2002) takes on Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps. Saarinen himself absorbs the music, twisting, staggering, and made buoyant by the rhythms. In contrast to the individual exploration of HUNT, Scheme of Things (2009) delves into the patterns of human interactions and relationships.

No matter where his choreographic inquiry takes him, Saarinen finds collaborators to contribute to his vision – costume designers and composers, multimedia artists and perhaps most importantly, lighting designers. Saarinen told Jack Anderson of The New York Times: “Light’s important in Finland – how we use it, how we react to it. Because of our geographical location, we spend half the year almost entirely under artificial light. Then we have almost 24 hours of real light daily. That must affect our mentality somehow.”

Off kilter and out of balance, grounded and then suspended, simultaneously awkward and graceful, the dancers of Tero Saarinen come out of physical and geographic isolation to forge a collective. A collective that makes room for us all, as witnesses and as participants, as individuals.