Sonja Jokiniemi - Howl ( working title )

Howl

Choreographer Sonja Jokiniemi's new work Howl is a performance project and an exhibition. Bodies of painting, sculpture and live performance mesh with each other and gear towards extended beings through human and non-human interdependencies and hybrid bodies. The work consists of multiple short pieces as moving paintings referring to drawing works by Jokiniemi. Duet format explored together with dance artist Maija Karhunen is a kind of re-worlding of language through an unfolding of multisensorial bodies.

Choreography & visual works: Sonja Jokiniemi
Performance: Maija Karhunen and Sonja Jokiniemi
Lighting and spatial design: Heikki Paasonen
Sound design: Natalia Dominguez Rangel
Dramaturgical dialogue: Elina Minn
Production manager: Riikka Thitz
Co-production: Art Centre Buda (BE), Kiasma Theatre (BE), STUK - A House for Dance, Image and Sound (BE)

Sonja Jokiniemi (°1983) is a choreographer, performer and self-taught visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She works in intersection of visual art, performance and social field making transdisciplinary work with research interests in choreographies between things and humans and neurodiverse language and thinking structures. Different materialities take part as co-composers and performers on stage works. Recently she expanded her practice from stage to gallery and exhibition formats. Her participatory projects within the social sector and studies in Expressive arts therapy intertwine with her interest on stage that claims space for intimacy and broadening ideas of norms.

Jokiniemi graduated from DAS Theatre (previously DasArts) MA Degree programme in Performing Arts in Amsterdam 2013. Prior to this she has completed BA degree on Contemporary Dance at Laban Centre in London 2006 and taken part at Daghdha Mentoring programme in Limerick, Ireland.

Sonja Jokiniemi's work has been supported by STUK - House for Dance, Image & Sound, Zodiak - Centre for New Dance, Dampfzentrale Bern, Kiasma Theatre, Workspace Brussels, Moving in November festival, Veem House for Performance, and Regional Dance Centre of Eastern Finland. Jokiniemi has been awarded two grants by Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike): a one-year artist grant for 2017 and a three-year artist grant for 2018-20. Between 2018-2020 Jokiniemi will be working in collaboration with STUK under a Life long burning network.

Maija Karhunen (°1987) studied dance, choreography and performance in institutions in Berlin, Amsterdam and Finland. Currently she works as a performer in works of Planningtorock, Sonja Jokiniemi, Teemu Mäki and Marc Philipp Gabriel. Maija's interests lie in the all-encompassing performativity of the human, questions of power, the intimate and the personal. Maija studied communication, aesthetics and theatre science in the University of Helsinki and works also in the field of (dance) writing and critique.