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Recording: 2015-08-13 , Tanz im August 2015 | HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU3) (Video © Walter Bickmann)

Elina Pirinen

Personal Symphonic Moment

Tanz im August 2015 | HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU3)

Production Details / Press Releases

Elina Pirinen calls her “Personal Symphonic Moment” an ‘autopsy’ of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony: a simultaneously exact and distorted, creative and destructive, faithful and unfaithful approach to the symphonic work. Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 7 is heard in its full length: declared in 1942 to be a contribution to the fight against fascism, and equally intended to be understood in its musical structure as criticism of all tyranny, including Soviet dictatorship, it overwhelms listeners in its dramatic intensity. Side by side Pirinen and her group play corporally, textually and visually with the poltics, form and parameters of the music. Three dancers are moving with grotesque comedy through the inhospitable gloom of the stage creating an impetuous and bizarre expressionist dance. Three weird graces are creating primitive and intellectual symphonic elements of peace, exaggeration, comfort, arousal, imbecility, subservience, eroticism, shame, pity, danger and sentimentality, as stated in Pirinen’s concept. “Watch out for the high art and celebration of looserness!” one is inclined to call. In 2014 Elina Pirinen was awarded the Critics Spurs, the annual honorary prize of the Finnish Association of Critics, for “Personal Symphonic Moment” and other work. The Finnish choreographer’s work is being seen in Berlin for the first time.

Elina Pirinen is a choreographer, dancer, singer-songwriter-musician, artistic director and pedagogue currently living in Helsinki. In her stage work she often uses large classical music pieces as frames for different corporal performativity qualities. She often collaborates often with Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Kiasma Theatre and Performance Art Center in Helsinki. Pirinen studied dance and choreography in the Theatre Academy Helsinki, graduating with a Master of Dance with special studies in contemporary theatre in 2008. She has wide classical and pop music training with piano, voice and violin. Along with stage works she makes and performs experimental chamber pop music with her orchestra and helps animals in need. Elina Pirinen was recently awarded the Finnish Critics’ Associations annual honorary price Critics’ Spurs for the most outstanding artistic breakthrough in Finland for her artistic work and especially for her “strong and original” creation “Personal Symphonic Moment”.

Cast & Credits

Concept, choreography: Elina Pirinen
Dance: Kati Korosuo, Katja Sallinen, Elina Pirinen
Light: Heikki Paasonen according to a design by Tomi Humalisto
Texts: Heidi Väätänen
Music: Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 7 (recording of the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mariss Jansons from 1988)
Costumes: Elina Pirinen, Kaisa Rissanen, Mila Moisio
A production by Elina Pirinen with: Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Moving in November Festival, Zodiak-Residency in cooperation with: WorkspaceBrussels / SummerCoaching Residency, Kone Foundation, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux.
With the support of: Samuel Huberin Taidesäätiö, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kone Foundation
Presented in the context of [DNA] Departures and Arrivals with the support of the EU cultural program.

Tanz im August 2015
Künstlerische Leitung: Virve Sutinen
Produktionsleitung: Sven Neumann
Projektleitung & Künstlerische Mitarbeit: Andrea Niederbuchner
Tanz im August ist eine Veranstaltung des HAU Hebbel am Ufer, gefördert aus Mitteln des Hauptstadtkulturfonds und durch den Regierenden Bürgermeister von Berlin – Senatskanzlei – Kulturelle Angelegenheiten.
Mit Unterstützung der Aventis Foundation.

HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU3)

Tempelhofer Ufer 10
10963 Berlin

hebbel-am-ufer.de
Map

Tickets: +49 (0)30 259 004 27
tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de

Video Documentation

The video documentation is produced on behalf of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. The purpose of this contract is to document productions in the field of contemporary dance in Berlin. The master recordings are archived by the University Library of the Berlin University of Arts. Copies of the recordings on DVD are available for viewing exclusively in the reference collections of the following archives (at media desks in these institutions):

University Library of the Berlin University of Arts
Mediathek für Tanz und Theater des Internationalen Theaterinstituts / Mime Centrum Berlin
Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT)

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