Blondes: Dossier
Laura - The Light of All (before Michaela - The Queen of Fucking Everything), Paula Tuovinen, Hot Tubes: Blondes (Blondit)
Photo: Katri Naukkarinen
Blondes was selected for the Aerowaves twenty 21.
Blondes is a version of Paula Tuovinen's 2000 solo piece Blonde reworked for Laura - The Light of All and Go Go Dance Group Hot Tubes. It is a recycled version of the original choreography that assumes its own shapes, and flows without any restrictions.
Paula Tuovinen's original performance explored the notions attached to the white female: woman as nature, woman as a child or a child-like creature, the white woman as a person of colour and the white woman as a joke. In the new version Laura and the Hot Tubes blow up the notions and expressions of blondeness and give the centre stage to the inner bimbo in us all.
Paula Tuovinen granted Laura artistic freedom to work the motion material and the overall performance as her inner bimbo guides her, yet the effort still focuses on group work. Laura is inspired especially by the aspect of the bimbo as something liberating and emancipatory.
Credits:
Choreography: Laura Pietiläinen, Paula Tuovinen
Performers: Laura - The Light of All, Joonas Lampi, Paula Tuovinen, Elina Hauta-aho, Linda Priha, Elisa Tuovila
Stylist: Joonas Lampi Lighting & spatial design: Mikko Hynninen
Video design: Juhani Haukka
Music: Lotta Wennäkoski
Residency: The Saari residence
Production: Zodiak – Center for New Dance, Laura Pietiläinen, Paula Tuovinen
Duration 40-45 min
Photo: Katri Naukkarinen (Zodiak, 2018)
Videolinks:
Short grip of Blondes: Link to the video
The whole show: Link to the video password: zguestz
Press reviews and audience feedback
” Laura Pietiläinen is a pretty wonderful artist. There is disarming sincerity in her works and revealing her own pain points. The new Blondes work may have begun as a reuse of the materials in the old work, but the end result is something completely new, multi-layered, surprising and touching art living in this time. ” ( Piia Ahonen, Zodiak, December 2018)
“ However, 18 years is not a very long time. In order to see the differences and to recognize similarities in the 2000 atmosphere, sensitivity and brains are needed, as well as the courage to throw into the insights and hints. Fortunately, these features have never been missing from Laura Pietiläinen's works. The style of Pietiläinen, which is mirroring the environment without a skin and still powerful auteur handwriting, is perhaps the most influential in Blondes. The autobiographical portions are bare, but the fantasy of group work is equally revealing. Blondes is not any general version of Tuovinen´s solo work but perhaps a piece which is sharing even more painful personal experiences than the original work. ” (Maria Säkö, Helsingin Sanomat press review 6.12.2018)
Bios
Laura Pietiläinen is a freelance choreographer, dancer and singer. She graduated as a Master of danceart in choreography program at the Theater Academy Helsinki in 2008. Since then she has performed her own art in Finland and abroad. She has been recognized in the field of contemporary danceart as a special talent, an exceptionally independent voice and a visionary.
During 2008-2020 Pietiläinen has created a staggering 80 works. In the previous few years, her dreams and activities have focused a lot on the field of music, fashion and visual arts, to which she wants to bring her original and deeply energies channeling dance.
In 2016 was born the power character of Laura's soul Michaela - The Queen of Fucking Everything through which she started to do her art. In 2020 the name changed to Laura - The Light of All, because Laura is now ready to shine her full existence. Connected to the light of her soul, Laura have a touch with liberating, transforming, deeply moving, and powerful energies of the universe, and she channels her dance and choreography under the guidance of these energies.
Paula Tuovinen has worked extensively in the Finnish dance art field as a dancer, choreographer and teacher since the early 1980s. Tuovinen is currently the Director of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. Before that, she has worked as a Vice Rector of the University of the Arts Helsinki and Rector of Theatre Academy Helsinki.
She has worked with numerous Finnish choreographers such as Sanna Kekäläinen, Tommi Huovinen, Markku Nenonen, Arja Raatikainen, Ari Tenhula and Petri Kekoni. She has taught for years in private dance schools and in the Theater Academy Helsinki.
As a choreographer, her internationally renowned work is Blonde from 2000, which she has performed in addition to the Nordic countries in Belgium, France, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Serbia-Montenegro. The latest solo piece from 2006 is REvenge. Tuovinen has been in management positions for the past 15 years, but still works as an artist from time to time.
Tuovinen has worked with filmmakers, environmental artists and various visualists. She has also collaborated with several Finnish composers, including: Jukka Koskinen, Lotta Wennäkoski, Harri Kerko and Kaija Saariaho. Tuovinen has MA in cultural anthropology.
Laura Pietiläinen and Paula Tuovinen are members of Go Go Dance Group Hot Tubes, a collective of approximately ten dancers that perform freely in various configurations. In Blondes are performing Joonas Lampi, Elina Hauta-aho, Linda Priha and Elisa Tuovila. In their earlier productions JUST Queens (2013) and Divine (2015), Hot Tubes explored femininity and gender in general from various perspectives: the personal, the risky, the weird and the familiar.
Contact
Laura Pietiläinen
laura.thelightofall@gmail.com
+358443385361