The Days in BC / Canada as part of the Nordic Bridges 2022, June 2022

Maria Nurmela and Ville Oinonen and choreographer Theo Clinkard's international contemporary dance performance The Days to Canada 9.6.-27.6.2022

Maria Nurmela (Tku) and Ville Oinonen (Tre) and English choreographer Theo Clinkard's audience participation contemporary dance duo The Days travelled to British Columbia, Canada, as part of the Nordic Bridges programme organised by the Nordic Ministries of Culture in 2022. The Days was the only Finnish dance project selected for the programme.

Nordic Bridges is the largest ever joint Nordic cultural initiative abroad. The Days' Canadian tour was hosted by the BC Movement Arts Society and the Dance Centre Vancouver and focused on the historically significant area of Vancouver and Vancouver Island, including Sointula, from a Finnish perspective. Located north of Vancouver Island, Sointula is a community established by Finnish immigrants to the island in the early 1900s on Malcolm Island. The architecture built by the immigrants and their descendants still remain in Sointula. In Sointula, The Days was performed in the Finnish Organisational hall. After Sointula, The Days will travel to Canada's Indigenous settlements of Alert Bay/'Namgis Nation and Port McNeill, where the performances will again took place in local community halls.

The concept behind The Days project is to involve locals over 65 years of age. The team worked closely with local communities to organise contemporary dance workshops, especially for people over 65 who are passionate about dance. Two of the participants were invited to perform on stage with Nurmela and Oinonen in the work itself.

"It is exceptional that a project created by freelancers and outside of existing production houses continues to live on for so long and internationally after its premiere in Pori in 2018, reaching audiences so widely around the world. But, The Days deals with universal themes that are recognisable and touching regardless of cultural background. It is accessible and appeals to a wide range of audiences and audiences, regardless of their previous experience of contemporary dance. The workshops, especially for local seniors, are also valuable cultural work in these exceptional times." The Days team says.

The tours are supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. The Western Regional Centre for Dance is the working group's partner and background organisation.

The Days was initiated in 2017 by Finnish dance artists Maria Nurmela and Ville Oinonen, who invited English choreographer Theo Clinkard to create a contemporary dance duo for them. The work premiered in December 2018 at the Pori Dance Festival and has since toured successfully in Finland at international festivals.

In April 2022, The Days was on an extensive tour of the UK, where the work was performed at large established venues such as The Place, The Lowry and Nottingham Lakeside, as well as in village halls in rural Ashburton and Calstock. Read about the artists' journey on the Western Regional Dance Centre blog.

Canadian performance dates and venues

17-18 June 2022 Sointula, British Columbia

19.6.2022 Alert Bay, British Columbia

21.6.2022 Port McNeil, British Columbia

24-25.6.2022 The Dance Center, Vancouver

The Days toured a vastly in the UK, April-May 2022

The Days, a collaboration and contemporary dance performance initiated by Finnish dancers Maria Nurmela and Ville Oinonen and UK choreographer The Clinkard , toured in the UK 2022.

The Days project was initiated by the dance artists Maria Nurmela and Ville Oinonen when in 2017 they invited the English choreographer and designer Theo Clinkard to Finland to create a contemporary dance piece that they could perform together. The main goal of the international project was to produce a high-quality, lightweight contemporary dance work that could be performed in Finland and abroad, as well as a diverse range of audience work and workshops. The project also aimed to increase the visibility and accessibility of contemporary dance in the region and to increase cooperation between different cultural actors at home and abroad. The working group also hoped to explore opportunities for domestic and international touring through their project, as they believed this would greatly increase the opportunities for independent dance artists to work in an increasingly internationalised arts scene and simply increase their employment.

The Days, a freelance work produced outside of prefabricated production structures, premiered in December 2018 in Pori at the Tanssikuu festival and has since toured Finland and international festivals with exceptional success.

This spring, The Days Project was touring extensively in the UK in April and The Days Project also organised contemporary dance workshops with local communities, especially for people over 65 who are passionate about dance. Two participants from the workshops a were then invited to share the stage with Nurmela and Oinonen and perform in the piece.

The Days was performed nine times in the UK between 19 April and 10 May 2022 in prestigious theatres and smaller venues in The Lowry Salford, Lakeside Arts Nottingham, The Place London, Bath Spa Univeristy, Ashburton Arts Centre and Calstock Village Hall.

Follow the tour in Instagram

Dancers Ville Oinonen and Maria Nurmela: “We could perform this piece for the rest of our lives!”

An interview by Eeva Lehtonen in the webpage of Finnish Institute London:

https://www.fininst.uk/events/dancers-ville-oinonen-and-maria-nurmela-we-could-perform-this-piece-for-the-rest-of-our-lives/

Dancers Ville Oinonen and Maria Nurmela: “We could perform this piece for the rest of our lives!”

The Days is a dance performance based on Theo Clinkard’s concept and performed by Ville Oinonen and Maria Nurmela. Here Ville and Maria discuss some of the main themes of the piece and the sometimes challenging journey that led into its creation.

The Days rests fully on your shoulders. How did you end up working together?

Ville: Before this project we knew each other from dance circles but we had never worked together. We then ended up working with the same choreographer but in different projects. It allowed us to start thinking if it would be possible to do something together, and what it could be.

Maria: We both have worked as professional dancers for a long time, but despite this, the desire to learn new things never fades. However, at this stage the things you want to learn become quite specific. That’s why also the people you want to work with need to be quite special. This dimension was present in our collaboration and also led us to want to work with Theo.

Theo Clinkard is an internationally renowned choreographer that hadn’t created duet pieces before The Days. How did he get involved in the project?

Maria: Our main goal was to work with an interesting choreographer. Especially with one whose work hadn’t been seen in Finland and whose vision is something else than what we are used to seeing there. Many professional dancers are familiar with the scenario where most work opportunities stem from choreographers. We thought we would like to turn this way of working on its head and decided to contact him.
Ville: Theo plunged into the project very quickly. When we met him for the first time we only had some feeble ideas about the project. It was brave of Theo to say yes because at that point we didn’t even have funding and we were still trying to collaborate internationally. I guess the project was a bit daring and risky at first!

Being present and finding connections are crucial themes in The Days. How did you end up addressing such topics?

Ville: We didn’t approach the piece through themes, but rather through physical movement. One choreographic experiment started to evolve and Theo began to wonder if this movement could work as the core of the piece. After we found our physical vision, different thematic ideas started to emerge and find their shape.
Maria: Being present in a specific moment and finding connections were also relevant themes when it comes to the way the three of us started to work together. We come from different countries and met more or less by chance. Yet, something meaningful can come into existence if we manage to be present in the moment with each other. I also think that these themes are relevant in the time we are living in. We are often not present in each others company, because we have all sorts of gadgets and devices disrupting the genuine interaction between each other. Through these gadgets we all try to be connected to everyone and everything, but at the end of the day, we are actually not present in any of the interaction we take part in. The simple connection that is at the heart of this dance piece can then turn out to be much more profound experience than what is expected.

Local elderly people form a part of all your performances. What does this add to the piece? 

Maria: When we were in the middle of creating The Days, we talked a lot about the arc of human life, age, relationships and partnerships. Slowly the idea of incorporating two elderly people into the performances emerged and evolved into a key part of the piece. It is very meaningful to get to share The Days with those that have seen more of life than we have. It’s impossible to get tired of having new people take part in the shows, we could perform this piece for the rest of our lives! Each visitor leaves their mark on us.
Ville: Having elderly people take part in the performances without paying any attention to their dance background is also a statement saying that dance and dancing belongs to everybody. Everyone is able to do it and everyone is capable of performing on stage. What is interesting is the individual and their presence, not a challenging choreographic movement.

What kind of reactions has The Days created in its audience?

Maria: We perform so physically close to the audience that it’s hard to feel disconnected from the dance. I believe that this makes the audience’s reaction to the performance stronger because everybody can feel the energy in the space. The Days has made people cry and become visibly moved.
Ville: Each performance has its own nuances depending on the day and situation. Despite this, all performances have a similar emotional charge that invites the audience to marvel at the act of being present in a moment. The arc of the piece, dramaturgy and music direct the audience’s reactions to a specific direction. The most important thing is that each audience member watches the performance with their own energy and through their history.

What plans do you have for the future?

Ville: We want to keep performing The Days. It is such a fascinating piece to perform! The way we get to build connections is magical every time we are on stage. It’s impossible to get sick of! When it comes to performing in different countries, it is really interesting to explore what cultural encounters can add to the piece.
Maria: Creating The Days has been a long project. Somehow it feels like we have now just reached the beginning. After Glasgow, we have more performances lined up in different countries. We will be going to Siberia for example. It will be interesting to see if we end up going even further than that!

The Days at The Finnish Institute’s event Finnish Exposure in Glasgow on February 2nd, 1pm.
CCA Glasgow, 350 Sauchiehall Street, G2 3JD Glasgow

Text: Eeva Lehtonen Photo: Karoliina Korvuo

Theo Clinkard on ‘The Days’

I consider the context of performance to be a space that holds potential for an alternative mode of being together; a focused space for empathic exchange that I think needs defending now more than ever before. 

In the process of crafting this duet, I’ve been thinking about how I can more deeply trust the audience’s attention. I sought to create a temporal experience that requires us, as observers, to bring a depth of presence and a lucidity of focus that is rarely needed when the sheer amount of content we receive in the world is rapidly edited or elicits engagement though jeopardy and expectation.

This duet continues my interest in our disposition to construct meaning when witnessing performance. How do the formal elements; our proximity to action, the sound, the design, the duration as well as the movement itself trigger the interpretation of our own ‘story’ as we watch. It’s a celebration of the poetic space that can be crafted from these raw materials; a non-determinist approach to the potential generation of feeling or, as I like to call it, ‘accidental narrative’. For me this unfolding narrative space remains firmly in the ‘eye of the beholder’ as an appreciation of subjectivity. 

‘The Days’ uses a single movement task that alternates between the two protagonists for the duration of the work. The ‘what’ of the dance is established and repeated throughout, in order to foreground the subtle shifts in ‘how’ its is being done. As the dancers embody textural, tonal and qualitative properties in their exchanges, a range of meanings emerges and the movement simply becomes a vehicle for a shifting landscape of interpreted feelings.

Elastic, resistant, fluid, careful, resilient, limp, stubborn, playful, brittle, pliable, brutal, supportive, nonchalant, sensual; the wide range of behaviour that can be explored with this simple task is as limitless as the body is dexterous.

These culmination of these intimate exchanges serves to illustrate a domestic space within the theatre and the duration of the dance a metaphor for a life shared.

As the performers negotiate degrees of permission and consent through the unfolding series of physical ‘situations’ they find themselves in, I attempt to capture the complexity of coexistence and prompt the audience to recognise in their dancing, the multiple, complex and layered states of being together.

This work is brought to life by the nuanced, sensitive maturity and sheer skill of the two exceptional dancers, Maria and Ville. I am deeply thankful to them for this commission and the wonderful journey this work has taken us on.