PRINCIPIA
— PROJECT NAME
PRINCIPIA
— ROLE
Lighting designer
— DATE
Premiere 17.4.2022
— WORKING GROUP
Choreographic framework and direction:
Kati Raatikainen
Aerial acrobatics facilitation:
Jenny Mansikkasalo
Somatic facilitation:
Sally Davison
Performers:
Sally Davison, Georgie Goater, Kadar Khristan, Jenny Mansikkasalo, Noora Västinen
Sound design:
Roy Boswell
Lighting design:
Milla Martikainen
Costume design:
Piia Rinne
Scenographer:
Aino Koski
Producer:
Inari Pesonen
Production assistant:
Emmi Vainio
Production:
Kaaos Company, DanceAbility Finland ry
Supported by:
Koneen Säätiö, Taiteen edistämiskeskus
Principia is the first collaboration between the dancers of the inclusive Kaaos Company, choreographer Kati Raatikainen, contemporary
circus artist Jenny Mansikkasalo, sound designer Roy Boswell, scenographer Aino Koski, costume designer Piia Rinne and lighting designer Milla Martikainen.
The piece examines the basis of bodily existence and encounters. Performers Sally Davison, Georgie Goater,
Kadar Khristan, Jenny Mansikkasalo and Noora Västinen live in it in relation to time, space, gravity and each other hanging, dangling, rotating, falling, liberated and weirded, intertwining with each other
and transforming from one shape to another.
The performers move between the ground, air, and aerials exploring the sensorial experience of being human. The slowly opening landscape of
bodies, as well as movement, offers a continuum of evolution to appear to the viewer.
For the viewer the performance gives the opportunity to get in touch with personal bodily sensations safely, from a chosen distance. The audience will arrive at the show in two different groups according to
pre-announced arrival times.
The starting points for the lighting design was to create space where many different kind of things, beings and materials can create multiple relations to each others. The light creates rhythm and dramaturgy to the performance sometimes in sync with other elements, sometimes by living its own life. I tried to think light like a condition or an environment – like weather, that sometimes slides softly from an atmosphere to another and sometimes cuts through the space as a sudden glitch. A central element was also to create a relation between the changes, temporality and aesthetics between the natural light from outside and the artificial light. While planning Principia I thought about air, dusks, dawns, stars, northern lights, transparently constructed beauty, weird intertwinings, lumps, piles, galaxies and contrasts.