Uuno Turhabuto

Few thoughts about the performance:

In the series of my Buto dance performances L´amour Prima is the third part. It follows the characteristics of the previous parts fluently by focusing on buto improvisation and the use of alternative spaces of performing.

 

The special nature of the third part is that the practicing and performing take place at the same time, go hand in hand, and that it developes and transforms during every performance. Step by step the material coming out from this process forms a wider entity. When it comes to defining the style of the performance, it can be concidered as a synthesis of dance, visual arts, theatre and music.

 

The execution of this performance is designed by the following artists: choreographer and dancer Pasi Mäkelä, sound designer and scenographer Jussi Saivo, lighting designer Tomi Suovankoski and percussionist Janne Tuomi.

 

“Butoh is a human posture at the edge of crisis”

 

Hijikata Tatsumi

 

The main character of the performance and at the same time my alter ego is Uuno Turhabuto. He was born during my searchings for the core of being Finnish. Uuno is the result of the process where I´ve been trying to find the seed of this certain Finnish essence, the seed that grows in the dark.

 

Uuno´s appearance is like a combination of a drunken tramp with a hint of ballerina included. He shows up unexpected from unpredictable places. Where is he coming from and where is he going to? Are these the undertakings of an alcoholic, alchemist or a wise man? The essential things in his life seem to be eating packed lunch , grinning without teeth, sitting around idly, banging his suspenders and biking.

 

The dancing of Uuno Turhabuto is here and from here. And what is not here is nowhere.

 

L´amour Prima is a three year long living and ever changing process. During these years it will be performed and practiced in festivals, art galleries, theatres, in the streets, woods and at the sea shore, concert halls and workshops, invited or uninvited, in the winter and summer, spring and fall, in home country and abroad.

Helsinki 25.7.2006

 

Pasi Mäkelä