Premiere 3.5.2024
A collaboration between Liisa Pentti +Co and the rendezvous, the performance zeroes in on the birth and feel of dance and the specificity of encounters between dance and music. It continues choreographer Liisa Pentti’s exploration of the relationship between dance, music and space, this time undertaken with the rendezvous.
READ MOREAvailable for touring
Das Musikalische Opfer - a choreography for seven dancers and four musicians - is an opening towards the possibilities of the big stage in choreographer Liisa Pent's work.
READ MOREAvailable for touring
Fraudulent Light – and the Epidemy of Oblivion is an experimental dance theatre piece. It is based on the idea of the present illuminated from all directions, as a pastless and ghostless space without protective darkness, as presented by art history professor Jonathan Crary in his book 24/7.
The artistic starting points of the piece are Pina Bausch's classic choreographies 1980 - ein Stück von Pina Bausch (1980) and Walzer (1982).
The artistic starting points of the piece are Pina Bausch's classic choreographies 1980 - ein Stück von Pina Bausch (1980) and Walzer (1982).
Available for touring
Four x duet + 1 is based on weekly dance classes for young people on the autism spectrum and the bodily practices formed during the classes. Through these practices the participants’ own movement language has been able to gain space and develop. The group has worked together since 2015.
Available for touring
The inspiration for the work Ref2020 has been Brian Eno’s 54-minute-long piece Reflection (2017). The work, created with six dancers, suggests a new kind of connection between contemporary dance and Eno’s music where the meditative music creates singing and historicity of movement.
Available for touring
Cloudbody – an ecology of dreams #2 is the second part of Liisa Pentti‘s solo work series, continuing the exploration initiated in The Body (2017) about meanings of the body, signifying and bodily metamorphoses. Cloudbody is a dialogue that happens in the space between the poetic body and the viewers as well as a corporeal practice. Through dance, sound and videos the work shows us images of identity transformations, layers and recollections, life after death.
Available for touring
What kind of memories arise in different phases of our lives? How do we merge with those memories and how do the memories become a part of our selfhood, a part that we carry with us that is unconscious and often mute. What kind of metamorphoses are created by stepping into the image of memory?
Cloudbody – an ecology of dreams #1 is a choreography for text, voice and image.
Cloudbody – an ecology of dreams #1 is a choreography for text, voice and image.
Premiere 19.3.2019
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Fragile Eyes, based on The Laugh of the Medusa (1975) by the French philosopher and author Hélène Cixous, combines dance, text and music.
In her book, Cixous speaks about writing in a language particular to women and encourages women to own their bodies and experiences – and the writing born through them. 40 years after its publication, Cixous’ thinking is no less topical, because women’s liberation is still not an absolute value.
In her book, Cixous speaks about writing in a language particular to women and encourages women to own their bodies and experiences – and the writing born through them. 40 years after its publication, Cixous’ thinking is no less topical, because women’s liberation is still not an absolute value.
Premiere 4.10.2018
Kiasma Theatre
Kiasma Theatre
The Space is a work for six dancers, two live musicians and several video projections. It is a work about spatial and bodily metamorphoses that create a multi-sensory dialogue between the space, the performers and the viewer. The performers use the whole of the auditorium, blurring the boundary between the audience and the stage and creating new ways of looking at the space. The work invades the Kiasma Theatre stage in a sensitive, soft, minimal and sometimes arrogant way. The gaze, movement and speech of the performers makes the space become visible and alive.
Premiere 21.11.2017
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
In December 1987, Liisa Pentti performed her first solo work in Finland as a young choreographer and as a member of Zodiak Presents collective. The piece was entitled Klaustro and it was performed on the stage of the KOM Theatre. Now, 30 years later, the performance is re-enacted in Zodiak Stage in collaboration with the young choreographer Veronika Lindberg.
The inspiration of the original performance was The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, the atmospheres of which provided the foundation for the movement material and the choreography.
The inspiration of the original performance was The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, the atmospheres of which provided the foundation for the movement material and the choreography.
Available for touring
The Body is a performance about beauty and its simultaneous impossibility; about the complexity of signifying and about human fragility. The unspoken dialogue between the performers does not present but rather makes visible the interaction between mind and body in time and space. What do we see when we look at the body? Are we able to look at it as separate from signifying? And is it at all necessary to do so?
Available for touring
Sight Seeing by choreographer Liisa Pentti and composer Paul Pignon is a performance combining dance, speech, music and interactive media. An online camera attached to the dancer projects real-time image on the screen bringing the dialogue between movement and stillness as part of the work. Every performance of Sight Seeing is different; the work always varies according to the space and the audience.
Premiere 19.10.2016
Kutomo
Kutomo
Jeux is among the least known ballets made by Vaslav Nijinsky. It had its premiere in Theatre de Champs Elysées in Paris in 1913 just two weeks before the Sacre du Printemps. All that remains are five press photos, a few sketches, reviews and the music of Claude Debussy which became an icon in the history of music as the first modernistic composition. The ballet has remained a secret. Based on these few documents, Liisa Pentti and her dancers re-imagine the mysterious ballet with its hidden language in true futuristic spirit.
Premiere 15.4.2016
Mad House Helsinki
Mad House Helsinki
La Folia @2016 is a reconstruction of Liisa Pentti’s choreography La Folia Melancolia from 1993. La Folia Melancolia was based on the memoirs of Albert Speer, Adolph Hitler’s minister of defense, and the human spirit of survival.
Now, 20 years later, Liisa Pentti revisits the themes of power and violence, memories and survival. La Folia @2016 is a reconstruction of the original choreography, but in a new form. This reconstruction not only tackles themes that are current once again, but also poses the question of the possibility or necessity of reconstruction in dance – the contemporaneity of dance and the scope of choreography.
Now, 20 years later, Liisa Pentti revisits the themes of power and violence, memories and survival. La Folia @2016 is a reconstruction of the original choreography, but in a new form. This reconstruction not only tackles themes that are current once again, but also poses the question of the possibility or necessity of reconstruction in dance – the contemporaneity of dance and the scope of choreography.
Premiere 26.11.2015
Helsinki Music Center
Helsinki Music Center
Liisa Pentti +Co and Sibelius Academy’s NYKY Ensemble performed The Sinking of the Titanic, a cult work from the 1970s, in collaboration with Gavin Bryars and Philip Jeck.
The foundation of this collaborative work is based on the sinking of the Titanic, the ongoing battle for the reconciliation of nature and technology, and Bryars’s idea of time continuing eternally in underwater conditions.
The foundation of this collaborative work is based on the sinking of the Titanic, the ongoing battle for the reconciliation of nature and technology, and Bryars’s idea of time continuing eternally in underwater conditions.
Premiere 29.4.2015
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
WDMSNLCA? is a small-scale salon performance. The luxurious pillows of its sofas reflect the essence and position of contemporary art in a culture where art and commerce are locked in a constant embrace. The performance soothes and caresses the senses using movement, singing and chattering, while also giving surprising insights to those who usually feel intimidated by contemporary art. And the best thing is: they are guaranteed to feel even more intimidated after experiencing this.
Premiere 21.8.2015
Diana Stage
Diana Stage
The feminist theatre group Blaue Frau collaborates with the diva of contemporary dance, Liisa Pentti, in this story of reincarnation. Some plants need more light than others, but all need at least a little is a tale of modern day perfectionism and how it can smother us. The performance transforms the stage into a space where life has disappeared, creating a void in which something new can begin and thrive.
Premiere 24.10.2014
Kiasma / Poikkeustila event
Kiasma / Poikkeustila event
The Ship is a performance concept based on the composition The Sinking of the Titanic by English composer Gavin Bryars. He gathered inspiration for the piece from both the idea of memory and the eternal continuation of time and sound in underwater conditions.
The Ship is a performative landscape generated from these ideas. The theme is approached mainly through popular imagery based on James Cameron’s film.
The Ship is a performative landscape generated from these ideas. The theme is approached mainly through popular imagery based on James Cameron’s film.
Premiere 23.5.2014
Cultural Centre Stoa
Cultural Centre Stoa
Liisas Danst Rosas is a frivolous homage by two female choreographers to their own bodies, and to the wild wisdom and embedded memories that those bodies carry. Two choreographers with extensive careers – Liisa Pentti and Liisa Risu – revisit their dancing pasts in the 1980s: what were their influences back then, and how do they appear now, 30 years later?
Premiere 18.10.2013
Media Centre Lume
Media Centre Lume
Spaceparticles #10 is the last performance in the Spaceparticles-trilogy (2012-13) by Liisa Pentti & Co. It is based on Terry Riley’s legendary minimalistic composition In C from 1964. In this final part the dancing merges with live music played by the NYKY Ensemble of the Sibelius Academy.
In Spaceparticles #10 the dancers fuse with the music: each dancer becomes an instrument playing Riley’s composition in their own personal way.
In Spaceparticles #10 the dancers fuse with the music: each dancer becomes an instrument playing Riley’s composition in their own personal way.
Kantesitys
28.5.2013
Galleria Augusta
Galleria Augusta
Spaceparticles #5 is the second part in the Spaceparticles-trilogy by Liisa Pentti +Co. In the choreography, the dancers explore the relationships between dance, music and visuality in a gallery space.
In this trilogy the dance group challenges the notion of choreography three times, thus creating a living, spatial-kinesthetic experience of the parallel worlds of dance and music.
In this trilogy the dance group challenges the notion of choreography three times, thus creating a living, spatial-kinesthetic experience of the parallel worlds of dance and music.
Premiere 6.10.2012
Kiasma Theatre
Kiasma Theatre
Where is the dance after is has been danced? Where is the dead dancer’s dance? After its execution the dance is scattered into the air but lives on in our bodies and memories at least as long as we live. Martha Graham’s dance, the Graham Technique, became gradually stiffer after her death. Merce Cunnighams studio was closed down and his company stopped after two years of touring following Merce’s death.
I’ll Become a Tree is a happening based on the solo The Weight of My Heart by dancer and choreographer Liisa Pentti.
I’ll Become a Tree is a happening based on the solo The Weight of My Heart by dancer and choreographer Liisa Pentti.
Premiere 5.6.2012
Liisa Pentti +Co’s studio
Liisa Pentti +Co’s studio
Spaceparticles #6 is a concert for four dancers, based on Terry Riley‘s semialeatoric work In C (1964). The open-form composition provided the inspiration for choreographer Liisa Pentti. The dancers create an experiential event of sound, movement and visuality.
Premiere 9.11.2011
Liisa Pentti +Co’s studio
Liisa Pentti +Co’s studio
A fantasy-filled piece by Liisa Pentti about love, life and death where she enters into a direct and uncompromizing dialogue with her audience. Through a minimalistic form, The Weight of My Heart recalls ordinary events in her life and of those near and far who have passed away. She creates a floating landscape of personal stories transforming into larger-than- life fiction.
Premiere 7.4.2010
Zodiak– Center for New Dance
Zodiak– Center for New Dance
Stage Animals #2: Sissi, Anno 2013 is a play between tensions of the performer and the audience, between the public diva figure and the intimate human being, between the ridiculous and the melancholy, hiding and daring, between living and fading out. In this performance the boundaries of the performer disappear, just to reveal something obvious: The vulnerable origin of the diva.
Premiere 2009
Mad House Helsinki
Mad House Helsinki
Men of Honour is dance piece about “Tough Guys” as portrayed in old mafia movies. Men of Honour challenges, in the spirit of the Sopranos, the romantic worldview of violence, vengeance and death in an intelligent and exhilarating way.
Men of Honour was first premiered in 2002 in Helsinki, Zodiak – Center for New Dance, and this remade Men of Honour – Retro 2 had its premiere in 2009.
Men of Honour was first premiered in 2002 in Helsinki, Zodiak – Center for New Dance, and this remade Men of Honour – Retro 2 had its premiere in 2009.
Available for touring
Mabel or The Queen of Bones is a solo by Liisa Pentti. It is a tribute to femininity and female performers, whose charisma and sensuality bring the stage to life. Mabel or The Queen of Bones is a dance about a woman who knows no regret or remorse. The stage figure is an inventor, a diva, a shaman, a dark mixture of different archetypes. For these types, the stage and performing are essential in life, although they also create natural drama outside the stage.
Premiere 22.8.2007
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Choreographer Liisa Pentti explores the theme and experience of unfamiliarity in her group work Die Unheimliche Freundin. ‘Unheimlich’ (uncanny) is the strange, unknown and undefined part inside us that words cannot fully describe.
Liisa Pentti’s choreography consists of short intertwining scenes with unordinary movement material. The work has been inspired by Freud’s 1919 essay Das Unheimliche and by American artist Robert Longo’s The Freud Drawings from 2000–2002.
Liisa Pentti’s choreography consists of short intertwining scenes with unordinary movement material. The work has been inspired by Freud’s 1919 essay Das Unheimliche and by American artist Robert Longo’s The Freud Drawings from 2000–2002.
Premiere 18.5.2006
BodyWord Festival, St. Petersburg
BodyWord Festival, St. Petersburg
A dance work in unconventional surroundings, giving space for movement to exist in its own right.
After working intensively in the conventional theatre spaces with light and scenography, Liisa Pentti wanted to make a piece where the dancers would be experienced by the audience in a more simple and direct manner.
After working intensively in the conventional theatre spaces with light and scenography, Liisa Pentti wanted to make a piece where the dancers would be experienced by the audience in a more simple and direct manner.
Premiere 2.11.2005
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
Zodiak – Center for New Dance
In this work choreographer Liisa Pentti explores the dialogue between abstract concepts, such as letters, numbers and geometrical shapes, and our experiential, material reality. The starting point is the conflict between conceptual and emotional dance. The numeral 0 represents ideas and dreams, whereas the numeral 1 represents actual, existing matter.
Premiere 28.7.2004
Fullmoon Dance Festival, Pyhäjärvi
Fullmoon Dance Festival, Pyhäjärvi
The starting point for choreographer Liisa Pentti’s work Wallpainted Abstractions has been the elemental difference between Islamic and Western visual art.
Another source of inspiration is Sufi mysticism. It defines words as a veil separating us from reality. Yet words also enable logical thought. This paradox between the experiential and logical dimensions of our consciousness is a recurring theme in the works of Liisa Pentti.
Another source of inspiration is Sufi mysticism. It defines words as a veil separating us from reality. Yet words also enable logical thought. This paradox between the experiential and logical dimensions of our consciousness is a recurring theme in the works of Liisa Pentti.
Premiere 28.1.2004
Kiasma Theatre
Kiasma Theatre
Masha Amplituda
is a humorous and melancholic piece about a man and a woman, the reflections and shadows they seek in each other. The work is inspired by the last letter of a Russian poet Osip Mandelstam to his wife from the prison camp in Siberia 1938.
