Ray of light

Guest performance

31 July.

Anna Torkkel & working group

And I feel quicker than a ray of light
Then gone...
Madonna, Ray of Light (1998)

Ray of light is a solo dance performance by Anna Torkkel and the working group, which plays with wavering, fading out, and fantasy. The performance is a mirage where something begins and ends and begins again transformed. It exists for a moment just to disappear. The dance is framed by metamorphosis and vanishing, breaking away and circulating. After directing several group pieces, Anna Torkkel dances to the music in Ray of light according to her practice solo. The working group examines the tentative illogicality, experimentation, and amorphous nature of dancing to extend the same logic to encompass all the aspects of the performance. The makers are staying open to an outcome, which might not be structured and set, but as sparse and erratic as life.

For approximately an hour, dancing merges with the haptic and entrancing aesthetic, as well as with music made from found and self-made soundscapes. The dancing happens within poetic light and video design by Kristian Palmu and scenography by Palmu and Piia Rinne. The sensory and unconventional costume by Rinne creates an unnamed character, which forms from the essence of what dancing feels like. Johanna Porola' s genre-crossing sound design intertwines with dancing and supports the happening of it. Porola's design is based on a sketch prepared for the process by Heidi Wennerstrand and Kaino Wennerstrand , the Biitsi band.

As work-in-progress performance of Ray of light was seen as part of the site-specific group exhibition AVANTGARDEN initiated by Hertta Kiiski in Nuottaranta's Garden in Turku in May 2021.