Would you dance with me for 1 minute please?
Video performance, 2006. The piece was created at Body Navigation event in St. Petersburg by using a day to shoot an action for a video. Hirvanen sat in a park with a note saying ’would you dance with me for 1 minute, please’ in Russian and English. The communication and dancing that took place in between the artists and people who approached her to dance with her were documented on a video. The piece aims to bring out a realization about the possibility of spontaneous communication through performance in every day life.
Duration 4 minutes.
presented at Body Navigation- festival, St. Petersburg, Barker- theater, Turku, Finland.
Camera by Leena Kela.
Swamp (2005)
In a performance video Swamp, a young woman is boxing air at a swamp. The action doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. The absurdity of continuous fighting, perhaps in life in general, finds a metaphor in the repetitive movements. In Finnish mythologies, swamp has a specific meaning of being a landscape of ’in between’, not water, not land. It has been understood as a marginal area and in language, it has been used to describe hardships of all kind. A young woman fights the swamp, not being passive in front of it.
Made and performed by Maija Hirvanen
shown at inc. Art Centre Ahjo, Joensuu, Barker Theatre, Turku, Loikka festival, Helsinki, The Finnish institute in Paris, Moderna Dans Teatern, Stockholm, Jointadventures festival, Munich
