My name is Tomi Paasonen. I was born in Finland but I have lived an international life since my teenage years in the 80's, dancing in Hamburg, San Francisco and Chicago before starting my first company KUNST-STOFF in San Francisco in 1997.
In 2002 I moved to Berlin and worked internationally as an independent choreographer all over the world until taking the position as Artistic Director at ITAK [Regional Dance Centre in Eastern Finland] in 2014.
We produce about 7-10 productions a year by local choreographers, so it is my awesome responsibility to decide upon grants and to mentor the productions. I curate several venues throughout Eastern Finland and two festivals. Paikallisliike is a platform for dance artists from Eastern Finland takes place in Kuopio in June during the international festival while the town is buzzing with international guests.
Our other festival is called Lonely in the Rain and takes place at the end of November in Joensuu, a city not far from the Russian border. For 3 years now it has become a meeting point between local and international artists and aims to foster international connections between eastern Finland and the rest of the world. In 2014 our guests came mainly from Berlin with performances by Frank Willens, Ivo Serra, Jeremy Wade and Ivo Dimchev. In return we are developing a yearly residency program in Berlin. In 2015 we forged relationships with new contemporary dance from Russia.
Despite a lack of support, education and infrastructure, it is amazing to discover those brave pioneers doing honest passionate and individualistic work dealing with the various realities of Russia. As a result our first coproduction between two young choreographers from Kuopio and Yekaterinburg is starting this summer and premieres at our festival next November.
Last year our program focused on contemporary dance from Austria. We also expanded the festival into Outokumpu, a tiny mining town close Joensuu. What makes it interesting is its very good educational programs for contemporary dance, the gaming industry and theater technicians. But even more so, because of the stunning spaces of the disbanded mine.
My long history as an independent choreographer and producer of my own work, gives me the advantage of understanding this work inside out from the point of view of the artist. I know their worries, challenges and needs from both an artistic sensibility, the intricacies of production and making it in the world as I have lived through all these issues myself. I know how complex and hard it is to survive, the importance of support, and the vulnerability of feedback. It gives me great joy to try to do the best I can in providing and guiding them towards deeper self-realization.
In my own work there has always been a link to life and the world we live in. I have been less inclined to make insular work preoccupied with the issues of the art itself. I see creativity as an organic way of processing our experiences and expressing the flux between how we see the world and how we see ourselves. A lot of my works are steeped in autobiographical materials of the performers and dancers I choose. I am more macro than micro. My restless mind always pushes for new boundaries, challenges the status quo, seeks to experiment, exploring the unknown, which has led me from a career in classical ballet to exploring immersive interactive installations and community art. I have also always been interested in expanding the art of dance outside the professional realm, working with all kinds of bodies ranging from the disabled, minorities, prisoners, transsexuals, body builders, singers, actors and people off the street.
This was my second visit to Dance Massive and I truly love this city – its atmosphere, friendly people, the delicious food and of course the climate. The festival does a great job, not only presenting work but facilitating various formats to get to know the artists and work that wasn’t selected into the official program. After two visits, I can say that I have a comprehensive understanding of the field in Australia.
Are you working on any current Australia-Finland dance projects?
A few years ago Dance Information Centre in Finland launched the initiative to develop artistic relationships between Finland and Australia. This brought me to Dance Massive in 2015 along with a large Finnish delegation, all eager to develop our own respective exchange programs.
As a result of Dance Massive 2015 we launched a 3 year cultural exchange project called “Savonia - Tasmania - from the end of the world to the middle of nowhere”. Connecting these two polar-opposite small city contexts is far fetched to say the least, but also interesting just because of the sheer madness of the idea. We are pairing up artists from both places for respective artistic research residencies to create new works together.
Our first artist exchange between Kelly Drummond and Sannamaria Kuula produced the wonderful piece “Circulus”, which premiered at the last Lonely in the Rain festival.
Currently one of our young choreographers Anna-Maria Väisänen has just completed her residency in Sydney and Hobart and will embark on a project with dancer – choreographer Bec Jones of TasDance. Both artists have a passion in working with people with Down syndrome and will realize a collaboration in this realm.
I would not generalize this too much as there are already huge differences in how various dance artists within both countries approach dance. There are so many ways to dance and so many ways to think about choreography. I am happy to say that there seems to be fewer trends in general these days. I think it is always quite boring when people try to fit into a collective perception of what contemporary dance is. Both countries have a very large spectrum and variety of individual voices and varied practices and hence a huge array of outcomes. This is a good thing.
Structurally what Australia has, is quite a few youth companies, which is a great way to launch young people into awareness of their bodies and dealing with identity through movement, dance and physical expression. This is something we don’t really have in Finland on that level. Also I think initiatives of dealing with identity politics in the field of dance has progressed further in Australia than in Finland. But the recent trend in Finland to direct more resources towards art that happens in collaboration with the social sector will gradually expand dance into people’s everyday lives with more productions with various demographics coming out of it. This is one of the many things we are working hard on through the activities of ITAK.
It’s hard to say as I really get it from everywhere. This is how I have lived my entire life and I cannot imagine any other way of existing except to process the experience of being alive in this crazy world we live in through artistic expression.
Keep on dancing, keep on creating. Keep on transforming hearts and minds and your communities through art and its making. Keep on being yourselves. Keep on learning about global trends and working tools in order to make art with local and personal relevance.
Interview conducted by Karen Khoo
Updated 8/17/2017
