Description
In this performance, a dancer, a musician, and a poet weave together a multidisciplinary tapestry. They release words into the wind, take steps with their eyes closed, dance for hares, and gaze at the evening clouds. They count grains of sand on the shore, stars in the sky, and wistful thoughts. The work explores the resonances that words create in dance, soundscapes, and music. Do they clash, debate, comment, spark, or find a fleeting harmony? The performance lingers in the moment, recalls the past, and senses the future. It steps from moss to concrete and returns to the reed shore.
The performance My Dreams Are Not Afraid of the Dark is part of the Poems in Motion concept and series. Poems in Motion is a continuous artistic concept initiated in 2018 by dance artist Hanna Korhonen. Within this concept, contemporary dance and soundscapes are created in dialogue with contemporary poetry and prose. Korhonen continues to work on the concept annually when possible, creating new moving poems together with different communities and artists. In autumn 2023, Korhonen worked with a regional artist grant from the Pirkanmaa Dance Centre. The lighting design for the work is by Elina Nopanen.
Hanna Korhonen is a dancer-choreographer and versatile arts professional with a Master of Arts in Dance from the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. She has worked as a professional dance artist for 24 years and performed in more than 70 professional productions, both freelance and with Dance Theatre Tsuumi. From 2013 to 2016, she worked as a regional artist in audience engagement at the Arts Promotion Centre Finland in Ostrobothnia. Between 2021 and 2022, Korhonen served as the artistic and production director of Dance Theatre Tsuumi. She has also applied her artistic expertise in various contexts, including cultural wellbeing projects with people in mental health and substance recovery and in youth outreach work. Currently, Korhonen works in the cultural and arts sector in roles ranging from artistic content production to expert and development tasks.
Niina Hannula is a musician, composer, lyricist, arranger, conductor, and educator. She works widely across the field of music as a composer, musician, singer, lyricist, arranger, and teacher. Hannula has composed and written lyrics for numerous theatre and dance productions, crossing musical genre boundaries. Her solo album Sääpäiväkirja was released on 1 June 2023.
Pekka Kytömäki is a Tampere-based poet and translator. He has published five poetry collections, the first of which, Ei talvikunnossapitoa (Sanasato 2015), won the Tampere City Literature Prize. His latest collection is Historian pienmiehiä (Aviador 2023). Kytömäki enjoys spending time on his sofa, in libraries, berry forests, and skate ramps.
Concept, choreography, and dance: Hanna Korhonen
Poems: Pekka Kytömäki
Music and sound design: Niina Hannula
Performers: Hanna Korhonen, Niina Hannula, Pekka Kytömäki
Lighting: Elina Nopanen
Duration: 40 minutes
In collaboration with the Pirkanmaa Dance Centre and Valkea Kääpiö ry.
The performance takes place on Saturday 16 March at around 19:20 on the Julia stage of Vaasa City Theatre as part of the Pohjanmaa tanssii event. Before My Dreams Are Not Afraid of the Dark, the Vaasa-based group Runonkulkijat will perform kenkä piirtää ruusunkukkaa, liljankukkaa in the theatre restaurant.
