Finnish dance dynamo Tero Saarinen morphs masculinity on-stage

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      Thanks to its bright midnight-sun lighting, sleek set design, and angular orchestral soundtrack by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the dance work Morphed has a definite Nordic feel.

      Just how Finland has influenced the work of choreographer Tero Saarinen is an apt subject these days: the northern European country is celebrating its centennial this year.

      Still, what makes Morphed so fascinating is that it also carries with it so much of what the dance artist has discovered outside of his home country. His quest for inspiration once took the former classical-ballet star as far afield as Nepal and Japan—but he admits the remote country lovingly called Suomi by its inhabitants still holds its power.

      “Those ingredients we are growing up with, all those flavours mould us,” the articulate choreographer tells the Straight from Williamstown, New York, amid a North American tour that DanceHouse soon brings here. “Even if I don’t think I present ‘Finnish contemporary dance’, I’m carrying that mental landscape. Finland is a particular kind of country because of all the isolation and those geographical clichés, the long dark period and then this overexposure of light. That does affect us. And also, it’s a big country, but we are only 5.5 million people, and everybody has space around them.”

      Saarinen grew up in a small west-coast city called Pori, immersed in gymnastics, hockey, and soccer. “My parents were sports freaks,” he says, “so my body was ready for the extremities in the ballet world and all those rules that style incorporates.” Though he didn’t start studying classical ballet until he was 18, he was soon a star at the Finnish National Ballet, featuring as a soloist from 1988 to 1992.

      But in the latter year, he left the company, feeling limited by men’s roles in that classical world and looking for new inspiration. “I felt I wanted to explore something else and also challenge the dancing man in me. And I turned to look at older traditions,” he explains. “It was interesting because Finland had a young dance history and I was intrigued by older dance cultures.”

      Saarinen’s quest took him to study Nepalese traditional dance in Kathmandu, and then kabuki theatre, aikido, and—especially—butoh in Japan (where he studied under the master Kazuo Ohno).

      When he came back to his home country, he started unpacking all this research, establishing Tero Saarinen Company in 1996. When Vancouver audiences see its Morphed, a work for seven male dancers, they’ll notice the fluidly eclectic mix of influences he still draws upon—the grotesque contortions of butoh, the grace of ballet, and the athleticism of martial arts. But they’ll see a lot more too, helped in part by the deliberate diversity of the dancers he’s chosen to perform—ones with backgrounds as far-flung as breakdance and ballet, and ranging in age, skin colour, and body type.

      In Morphed, Saarinen explores masculinity in the most authentic way possible. He calls it “finding other frequencies of manhood”.

      “We were talking about ‘How could we be better human beings, with more sensitivities and sensuality?’ ” Saarinen explains. “I think we have too many angry men around the world. We need to re-evaluate ourselves and offer something new.”

      The sensitivity here comes with a bit of early aggression and struggle—sort of like rough guys who eventually find their fragility.

      The ideas and movement, as always with Saarinen, are as important as the design and the sound. As he puts it: “The stage is always a three-dimensional canvas for me.” The most dazzling elements here are the thick swinging ropes that his collaborator, set designer Mikki Kunttu, has used to line the perimeter of the performance area.

      “When combined with light, it has a severity—almost looking like the bars of a prison for the guys, or it can look like hay or a forest,” Saarinen says.

      In that ever-morphing imagery, you will probably see a bit of Saa­rinen’s homeland—be it the thick stands of trees or the rippling sea he grew up by. But what’s important is that Saarinen—perhaps, he admits, because he comes from such an isolated, sparsely populated place—looks ever outward. Dance, for this Finn, is an urgent global act.

      “We as dancemakers and choreographers have an important role in society, at a time when people are getting further and further away from their corporeal selves,” he says. “We are fooled to think we are connected by the digital world, when we are more disconnected than ever before—even from
      ourselves.”

      DanceHouse presents Tero Saarinen Company’s Morphed at the Vancouver Playhouse next Friday and Saturday (October 27 and 28).

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