ÖH part of ICE HOT, Nordic Dance Platform

Sonja Jokiniemi´s latest stage work ÖH ( Premier on November 2020 ) will be presented as part of ICE HOT, Nordic Dance Platform on February 10th 2022.

“ÖH is a multisensorial installation created from ordinary objects, large wooden structure, handmade rugs and textiles. The work binds together a sensorial logic as a choreographic proposition. Here subjects and objects are multiples,  intertwining between different meanings and associations. A site, where colours narrate and textures dialogue. Sensuality, hybrids and the uncanny  create an artistic world of discovery and divergence.

ÖH, arranges and deconstructs ordinary landscape into the poetics of everyday. An idea of piling up instead of dividing creates a world where many colours of human and objecthood are possible and explored. The work attempts towards liberation from binaries and construction of multi-temperamental togetherness, where abrasion points, reverie, dissecting and care all play a well grounded part in an idea of creation, that cannot be separated from destruction.

The performance invites the audience  into a web of weaving meaning and contact, tripping into the associative.”

Exhibition: Close Encounters in Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

Close Encounters is a meeting between contemporary art and choreography. The two have a long and fruitful relationship. Choreographers are increasingly invited into museum and gallery spaces, and the boundaries between performing and visual arts have never been more fluid. This edition of Close Encounters is a choreographic exhibition, and it looks into choreography as practice and as expression in relation to the conventions of the exhibition space.

The six works of the exhibition are all durational and accessible for the full extent of the opening hours. Visitors can move around and interact with the works – as much as they like, for as long as they like. The works present different approaches and perspectives on audience, body, movement, contemporary art and choreography, and contribute – each one and together – to unfold the format of the choreographic exhibition.

Dancers and their bodies play an essential role in Fält by Adèle Essle Zeiss, which is an installation of floating bodies, and in Already Unmade by Andros Zins-Browne where the dancer de-constructs his physical practice. Choreography and visual arts are combined in Cranky Chunks by Sonja Jokiniemi, and in Conspiracy Archives where Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir’s somatic dance and choreography comes to life through advanced technology. In STAGE by Christian Falsnaes visitors are encouraged to take the stage, and guided through headphones, to perform a choreography. In Black Yoga Screaming Chamber by Erna Ómarsdóttir & Valdimar Jóhannsson visitors are invited to scream their frustrations away in a padded black chamber.

This is the third edition of Close Encounters presented by Dansehallerne in collaboration with Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art.

12-15 November 2020 in Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Premiere: ÖH in Zodiak / Moving in November festival in Helsinki

In her new group performance ÖH Sonja Jokiniemi creates a multisensorial textile environment using handmade rugs as well as knotting and sewing techniques, in order to bind together a sensorial logic as a choreographic proposition. Here colours narrate and textures dialogue.

The work premieres in Zodiak - Center for New Dance as part of Moving in November festival in Helsinki. Performances 10.-24.11.2020.

Workshop: Weaving textures and feelings in Kunsthalle Helsinki

Sonja Jokiniemi’s workshop Weaving textures and feelings is a conversational piece that proposes a collective narration through the construction of a haptic object. Jokiniemi works with yarns and pieces of fabric and invites visitors to create a collective textile together with her. She asks how stories are told, and what or who can tell a story. She is interested in non-verbal narration strategies and returning to intimacy of storytelling midst manipulation through language.  How can textures be a way to communicate what words can’t grasp?

The idea with this workshop is to collect different stories and voices through threads and textile. This a participatory practice where encounters and collecting take place over the next year, building towards a public artwork. A kind of blanket that has travelled many places, been touched by many people and has traces and voices of many.

Jokiniemi has created this workshop format alongside the performance ÖH that premieres in the frame of Moving in November festival and Zodiak – Centre for New Dance.

Article: There will be blood. Sonja Jokiniemi in MDT.

"Jokiniemi's ambivalence to the objects around her is our own towards the ecosystem. We love and destroy nature, while still silent until it answers us in fires, melting ice and virus outbreaks. Jokiniemi touches on both intimate and big issues, both tenderly and violently. And us in the audience."

The Swedish Danskonst writes about Sonja Jokiniemi’s visit to MDT with her solo work Howl.

Read the full article in Swedish here.

Shifting corporealities: Texts on Sonja Jokiniemi’s works

Sonja Jokiniemi’s works are discussed by writers in these recent publications. In the book edited by Marina Gržinić and Aneta Stojnić, Shifting Corporealities in Contemporary Performance: Danger, Im/mobility and Politics (2018), Konstantina Georgelou weaves through Jokiniemi and Rodrigo Sobarzo’s work.

In the book Mental Illness in Popular Culture (2017), edited by Sharon Packer, researcher Leni van Goidsenhoven refers in her text “Autists” and merchandising “Autistic Art” to Jokiniemi’s 2015 work Hmm.

Review: An angel that gets stuck

“With this new performance, Jokiniemi continues to work steadily and consistently on the chosen path of her fascinating oeuvre. This performance stings and stimulates even more”

Elke Huybrechts writes about Howl in Belgian Etcetera magazine (in Dutch). Read the article here.