URB 18

Programme

Tatu Rönkkö: City by Night

Thu 7.6. 12:00–22:00, Oranssi, Suvilahti.
Free entry.

The starting point of the project has been Tatu Rönkkö’s interest towards surrounding sounds and their use in music. Rönkkö has previously used sounds from forest, various buildings and facilities such as kitchen as instruments in his music. Now he is fascinated by the sounds of the city by night. At night time when the city quiets and slows down, the details of the surrounding sounds come out in a new light. At night, silence is prevalent. Silence and stagnation fascinate in a concrete and metaphorical sense: today’s busy and consumer-centered rhythm of life in cities does not leave room to be still and observe things in peace. A prerequisite for Tatu Rönkkö’s work is an easy-going mentality and wondering.

He wanted to spend time in his hometown at night and experience how Helsinki’s rhythm slowed down. City By Night reflects Rönkkö’s relationship with sound, time and rhythm.

The work combines audio art and performance in the artist’s own way. City By Night is a ten-hour concert, through which a slow and stretched time mode is created, where minutes and hours do not matter. The audience is free to move in and out during the performance.

Tatu Rönkkö (s. 1983) is a Helsinki based, unique drummer-percussionist. He has worked actively in the field of experimental and improvised music and is a member of a Finnish-Danish band called Liima. Rönkkö emphasizes on improvisation and he has performed around the world with his solo concept I Play Your Kitchen.

City by Night is supported by Kone Foundation.

Screening: Vianey (2018)

Fri 8.6. 17:00, Duration: 55 min.
Kiasma Theatre
Tickets 5 €
Q&A after the screening!

Vianey is a intensely personal documentary portrait about the life and hardships of the New Jersey and Bronx based underground hip hop artist Vianey Otero, also known by the stage name So Icey Trap.

The film reveals the raw reality behind growing up on the streets, the lure of escorting, everyday life in jail, and being an up-and-coming female artist in the music industry.

Vianey tells her story with unapologetic strength and honesty. Visually, the film takes the viewer on a meditative journey through the important locations of Vianey’s life in Paterson, NJ and New York City.

European premiere. Language: English, no subtitles.

Marko Vuorinen is a Helsinki-based and internationally awarded documentarian, artist and writer. Vuorinen’s work concentrates on social issues, gender equality, and sexuality. Marko Vuorinen is primarily interested in the women’s perspective. He approaches filmmaking as a form of contemporary art. “Vianey” is Marko Vuorinen’s third feature-length documentary film. Marko’s first documentary feature “Tamara W.” was honored with several awards at U.S. film festivals. Marko is a member of the artist association for new and experimental forms of art MUU.

More information: www.markovuorinen.com

Event: Considerable Disturbance about Climate Change

Fri 8.6.–Sun 10.6., City centre.
Free entry.

A three-day event Considerable Disturbance about Climate Change challenges citizens to take over public space at the URB18 festival weekend. Performing artists along with citizens create political social choreographies dealing with the subject of climate change. In the discussions and lectures of the event we will hear opinions of climate change researchers and social activists.

Considerable Disturbance about Climate Change makes a cultural disturbance to the public space dominated by commercial logic. The public space lives in an alienated reality when talking about the global warming. The city space with its shops and advertisements has been sanctified for the market forces; permission for sticking around is redeemed by consuming. The consequences of consumption, such as the melting of the Artic sea ice, are not visible in the public space.

Considerable Disturbance About Climate Change asks: How to interfere the streetview that truncates the people as consumers? What would be enough considerable disruption for climate change? What are the means of cultural disturbance to deal with climate change? How can cultural disturbance be genuinely influential, modern-day activity? How to find the courage to break the social norms of public space?

Throughout the event, artists will open their toolkits to the citizens and call for artistic interventions on behalf of the climate. Considerable Disturbance About Climate Change takes over the public space in concrete ways, but also will challenge internal, bodily experience of the public spaces.

Working group: Laura Marleena Halonen, Ronja Louhivuori, Anu Räsänen, Antti Autio and Samuli Norberg.

DOUBLE BILL: NOD & Sensum: Parallels

Fri 8.6. 19:00 & Sat 9.6. 16:00 Stoa
Tickets 15 / 12 €

NOD is the first co-operation project of Nordic artists plays with the relations between street dance culture, motional motives and dominant patterns of thinking. The performance reflects today’s cultural contradictions, such as gender equality in relation to the prevalent sexism, and when the demand for uniqueness and originality slides into the ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality. And what really is authentic groove and character anyway?

Working group: Viktor Fröjd, Christine Nypan, Marika Peura ja Anton Andersson.

Sensum is a Helsinki based collective of congenial dancers with strong devotion house dance style. The collective is interested in exploring the dance style and wants to take it to new arenas. Parallels explores how different viewpoints and aspects change our experiences in the moment.

Working group: Linda Ilves, Jenni Heikkinen, Heidi Hartzell, Tuure Kaukua and Ita Puusepp.

URB summerjob project 2011-2017 – a discussion and a publication

As a part of URB festival program in collaboration with Helsinki City, a summer job project for youngsters was arranged during years 2011-2017. In this discussion, some of the participants and artists that attended the project in the past years are gathering to share their experiences.

The discussion is moderated by Ahmed Al-Nawas. Also a publication is being released, including some texts from i.a. Elina Izarra, Sauli Sirviö and Tomi Visakko, who were instructors of the summer job project.

Nightshift theatre

Sat 9.6. 18:30, 19:00, 19:30 & 20:00, Private home.
Sun 10.6. 14:30, 15:00, 15:30 & 16:00, The meeting point is in the corner of Fredrikinkatu and Eteläinen Rautatiekatu.

Free entry, obligatory registration in advance. The performance is suitable for children and families!

Nightshift theatre is a series of miniature performances that directs our perspective towards unnoticed destinies and stories inside urban landscapes. By playing with scale and with the contrasts between micro and macro, the shows reflect on experiences of immigration, detachment and the challenge of adaptation. The performances are based on interviews of recent Russian emigrants who moved to Finland due to recent changes in their country. With the help of miniature figurines each scene dramatically transforms familiar and unglamorous spaces into vast stage-sets. Interactive format of the performance that can be viewed by no more than 10 people at a time makes it very intimate and relatable to all audiences, whether they’ve experienced migration or not.

In Helsinki the show will be performed for a small group of audience at a time in a location that will be announced later.

Yöväenteatteri / Nightshift theatre is part of the project ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? a new approach to neighbourliness and interchange’ by St Petersburg-based curatorial duo TOK. Presented in a format of a series of performances, talks, artistic interventions and small-scale exhibitions in different venues in Helsinki throughout 2018, the Russian Bar will revisit Russian-Finnish relations in the historical perspective and in the light of recent political events, especially focusing on a new wave of migration of artists, academics, researchers, journalists, and other creatives from Russia to Finland.

Livsmedlet theatre is a Swedish-Finnish visual theatre duo consisting of puppeteer, director and actor Ishmael Falke and dance artist, theatre maker and performer Sandrina Lindgren. Their works are derived from a mix of dance, physical theatre, contemporary puppetry and object theatre combined with surprising and sometimes unconventional choices of storytelling techniques, format and material.

The project is supported by the Kone Foundation.

Niemistö & Vartola: THE BAND

Tue 12.6. 14.00–15.30, 15.00–16.30, 19.00–20.30 & 20.00–21.30
Kaapelitehdas, C door.
Tickets 5 €
The performance is recommended for audiences over 13-years old.

Anyone can be part of THE BAND – including you!

THE BAND is a Supergroup that consists of stars, meaning members of real or imaginary bands and collectives.THE BAND is known for its uncompromising breachings of energy and genre lines. THE BAND always re-emerges for the purpose of rehearsing and it never performs publicly.

Typically a Supergroup is short-lived and a temporary event in the universe. The visiting stars of the Supergroup perform as players, movers, entertainers, provocateurs, sceptics, witnesses, fans, singers, critics, environmentéurs, identikits, perpetual motionists, newborns, caretakers, non-players, rhymers, voicers, wavemakers, gesticulators, resonators, and airists or in other self chosen forms.

The rehearsal space of THE BAND is a utopian space that filters the beauty and the crises of the human age. The rehearsal is a ritual that moves along the fourth dimension between collectivity, intimacy, birth, the human and non-human.

The temporary bands inside the performance consist of the artists and the audience members who enter the space. Participation to the events during the performance is voluntary.

SMS – Soft Message Service

Wed 13.6. 19:00 & Thu 14.6. 19:00
Kiasma Theatre
Tickets 15 / 12 €

SMS – Soft Message Service is a performance about human communication and interaction in the era of New Media. Digital technology and means of communication are developing faster than our social culture. Digital media enables a person to detach oneself from physical, national and cultural boundaries. The experience of significance is built in a different way in new operating systems rather than in a physical contact. The number of possibilities are unlimited!

However, we do not want to let the technological development to determine the values of our social culture. In order to preserve the connection to the living body, we need to create rules to this new culture of communication as a community.

SMS is a moment between the audience and two performers, where the members of the audience can send messages to the performers. During the performance, the contact is examined through various messages leading to an encounter.

The audience and the performers together are taking living body back into digital communication. The performance creates a space where the sender and receiver of the message meets, creating an empathic culture for digital communication.

SMS –Soft Message Service is the last part of Voyeur –trilogy.

SMS – Soft Message Service is a production by Live Art Society.

Workshops

Digital Message Life -workshop

Soft Message Service Wed 16.5. 16:00-19:00 & Thu 17.5. 16:00-19:00
Anonymous Haven Sat 26.5. 11:00-15:00

We invite you to a two-part workshop about the wonders of the Digital Message Life. The first part is called Soft Message Service and the second part Anonymous Haven.

In the first part of the workshop the participant will learn necessary skills to master the Digital Message Life. In the second part of the workshop the participant is given an opportunity to try out a totally anonymous and bodily communication style in virtual reality.

The workshop is part of the performance SMS –Soft Message Service, which will premiered at Wed 13.6. at Kiasma Theatre.

Soft Message Service workshop

The participant and the guides will discover the basic guidelines of the Digital Message Life. Through four tasks and a group discussion, the participants will search for a more softer relationship in the emotionally harsh Digital Message Life.

Anonymous Haven workshop

In the Anonymous Haven -workshop, the participant is offered an opportunity to try out ways of communication that do not yet exist. Two participants enter into two separate rooms and log in to one shared virtual reality. In this virtual landscape the participants can find themselves and their common way of communication without the normative structure of spoken and physical language. The workshop is based on a vr work Alone Together by Kalle Rasinkangas. Book your slot from here

The workshops are in English and/or Finnish.

Sound workshop by Tatu Rönkkö

Sun 27.5. 12.00-15:00, Annantalo.
Free entry.

At the workshop, the participants are listening to the sounds of the city by walking around the city center and stopping every now and then. It also includes informal exercises related to listening and monitoring of the environment that are useful to anyone who is interested in voice, music and presence.

Additionally, Tatu Rönkkö will show how he uses environmental sounds in his music by playing a small improvised concert with a sampler and his self-constructed electro-acoustic percussion instruments.

The workshop is suitable for persons aged 14-114.

Tatu Rönkkö (s. 1983) is a Helsinki based, unique drummer-percusionist. He plays jazz and also is a member of a Finnish-Danish band called Liima. Rönkkö emphasizes on improvisation and he has performed around the world with his solo concept I Play Your Kitchen.