Liikunnan ilot was a co-production with my university and a Helsinki based professional theater, Teatteri Takomo. The text is a play by Ella Kähärä. It was her artistic thesis work for the dramaturgy department of our school.
The main character is a young female in between different jobs and finishing her studies as a playwright. She is also between different kinds of romantic relationships with 2 of the characters she mainly meets at he gym. She also has an active sex life outside these relationships which she usually discusses with the bearded character at the gym. So the whole performance happens at the gym.
The gym is real. All the weights and the the machines are real and the performers really workout in the show. It was really interesting to work with the question of kind of a private physical space, the gym and the basically collective nature or essence of theater. In the gym u are not allowed to stare at people working out but when u take the gym in the theatre it is more than recommended.
So the show and the text together play around the questions of life. What is it to be productive, how should we be with our bodies and the bodies of other people? It is also on the question about the individual way of seeing and living the world today. How to make yourself and your body to be as able as possible when there are nothing else that u could rely to. No permanent jobs or no permanent relationships and so on.
The whole working group ended up acting on the stage aswell. I actually find it really important in my work to have a strong ensemble-kind-of feeling in the working group. I always try to find ways to engage the whole working group in the process of performing the show. So that the designers and the director (me) wont disappear after the premiere. I really think that theatre is not all about the stories we tell but about the time we spend and share together with the audience. So I really find it important to have the whole working group as an irreplaceable part in the process of performing the show.
Working group:
Text: Ella Kähärä / Director: Joel Härkönen / Set designer: Kaisa Rajahalme / Costume designer: Elina Ström / Light designer: Veli-Ville Sivén / Sound designer: Atte Kantonen / On stage: Suvi Blick, Ida Sofia Fleming, Joel Hirvonen, Linda Hämäläinen, Milla Kuikka, Sara Paasikoski, Tuomas Rinta-Panttila and the working group.