Dance Review | The enchanting movement transforms the dancers’ bodies into musical instruments

Silence. Premiere on the small stage of the Helsinki City Theater on October 9, 2024. Choreography by Jarkko Mandelin and dancers.

I order a low noise is heard and a cold light falls from above. Dancers in tailcoats fill the stage made of tatami mats. At its ends, there are gray sets, maybe concrete blocks or the benches of the modern Musiikkitalo. There are piles of paper on the floor, perhaps sheet music.

The atmosphere is lively when the 12 dancers take their places with determination. Then they start calling.

At first the soft sound of the violin seems to dominate the whole group. The dancers move slowly in the same way and in common directions, but they do not make contact with each other.

The piece reveals its juju, when particularly wonderfully danced Suvi Nieminen detaches from the movement of the group. The moment of separation is dramatic.

Did something happen in the music that took him out of tune? Or Did it go the other way: did Nieminen deviate from the formula, as a result of which a breaking sound appeared in the background of the strings?

Who’s calling and what?

Silence that choreographer Jarkko Mandelini enchanting business language for the second time on the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre.

Piloting his own group Kinetic Orchestra, Mandelin combines contemporary dance, acrobatics and martial arts in his works.

What is familiar from classical ballet is an effortlessly finished execution, which is, however, broken by disturbances and rhythm changes that hint at chaos.

The manual tells you that In Silence we see an orchestra playing a movement. I think it’s different, more interesting. The dancers manage to trick my brain into believing that their movements produce music.

When the dancer moves his hand, a sound creeps into the room. This is Silence a quiet but subversive core: it turns cause and effect relationships upside down and defies the direction of time.

Silence is a work about the group and the relationships between its voices.

How to create harmony or chaos together? Is a common note or tone found by emphasizing the characteristics of different voices or by bringing them closer to each other? How does one instrument, the body, best support the other?

In short duets, the dancers connect with each other with movement materials of different tones.

For example Jyrki Kasperin and Justus Pienmunnen different body languages ​​nicely bring out each other’s characteristics. Janne Hastin music that combines string themes and atonal parts skilfully pokes at the union of sound and movement.

From my position, from the level of the stage, the common choreographic patterns of the entire group cannot be seen in all respects.

“

“For a moment I felt that the bodies were playing music and not just moving to its rhythm.”

Reprimand includes praise. The ambiguity of the dynamics bothers me, because at times I really experience the performance as if the bodies are playing the music and not just moving to the beat. That’s why I’m starting to look for the equivalent of the ambiguity in the voice as well.

Silence you can look at it with aesthetic admiration or end up thinking about the end of time.

The comedy of the work is wise and with few gestures. The dancers’ upper bodies tick from side to side frantically, as if to suggest that if we put enough haste into the world, the clock will eventually have to stop.

During the short intervals of the five movements of the dance symphony, the performers retreat to the end of the stage. Stacks of paper turn out to be sweat towels – after all, instead of notes, bodies are being played.

The discordant chaos at the end is reminiscent of an orchestra tuning up before the big moment. In Silence that moment is silence. The bodies continue to move, but there is no more sound. What happens if we lose the common tone and direction?

Produced by Helsinki Dance Company, Kinetic Orchestra and Tanssiteatteri Minim Silence is abstract, beautiful and approachable. I think it will appeal to a wide variety of viewers. Mandelini’s previous one seen at the City Theatre Gravity (2021) was very popular. Gravity can be seen in December in Stoa.

Concept and staging by Jarkko Mandelin, sound design and composition by Janne Hast, costume design by Elina Kolehmainen, lighting design by Aku Lahti, disguise design by Aino Hyttinen. Performers Luca Bologna, Jacob Börlin, Sanni Giordani, Manuela Hierl, Mia Jaatinen, Minna Kaaronen, Jyrki Kasper, Kalle Lähde, Suvi Nieminen, Justus Pienmunne, Hugo Sellam, Oskari Turpeinen. Production Helsinki Dance Company, Kinetic Orchestra and Tanssiteatteri Minimi.