An artist’s reflection on VAP at CODA
Text by Soili Huhtakallio
“Not everything can be rolled onto artists’ shoulders,” was one of my favourite comments at the seminar on Sustainable Practices in International Touring at the Nordic Dance Expo. As a young choreographer from Finland, who has turned her manifesting crystals toward international possibilities in the era of the climate crisis, I felt seen and supported by this comment. I take it to mean that both the inviting parties and the funding instruments should advance their efforts of the green transition — rather than leaving it to the artists to pick up the bill. I agree. It is difficult enough to break through the bottleneck and get the opportunity and possibility to present your work abroad, let alone cover the costs for the extra travel days and stays on the way, which come as a natural side effect of travelling on land, for example.
During my days in Oslo, I met wonderful people and experienced marvellous works of art. The festival and NDE programmes connected folk dance traditions with choreography inspired by TikTok videos, and I felt equally moved by all of it. As the big circular scene of Trailer Park made me weep as it did at Tanzmesse last summer, I thought to myself — what a privilege to be here and to get to see this work again. For me, this piece knits together the long continuum of big stage dance traditions with current TikTok aesthetics in a precision that only carefully crafted choreography can deliver. The circular scene especially makes me think of my young family members and how the older generations' wish to live forever with the help of the exhaustion of our planet translates into the hopeless horizon that the digital natives are looking at. My heart cries out for them, us.
As an Irish dance enthusiast that I am, I was happy to learn about the connections between Norwegian folk dance and Irish dance from Silje Onstad Hålien. As I long for connections to the embodied lineage to my forbearers before the enforcement of Christianity, I also felt shivers when Marius Næss talked about the Karhutanssi tradition of the Käävi people. Karhutanssi, as a word, is essentially Finnish, meaning “a bear dance”. To be clear, to my knowledge, I don’t have any relation to Käävi, but just the fact that there are these older traditions held alive made me feel hopeful for my own future discoveries of pre-Christian roots. True inspiration was also offered by Liv Aura from Jillat Sami dance centre. We need people like her, with true determination and devotion to sharing, caring and imagining. I was really happy to learn of so many artists and cultural entities carrying the light of these communities and all this knowledge.
What else? After learning about new “extensions” to touring riders: safety, accessibility and green riders, I will add and rethink my touring projects riders in the case that my manifestations for internationalisation of my work bear fruit. When I signed up for this event, I was actually asked if there was anything to mention in addition to food allergies. If it were already common practice to provide accessibility riders, I might have added that I’m not able to function well in loud spaces for extended periods of time (unless it’s a rave with proper hearing protection). I think updating our riders offers us, as a field, a wonderful practical way of rethinking about the things we consider essential in organising performances and touring.
When it comes to the organisation of the Visiting Artist programme itself, the thing that brought me here in the first place, I think it was a bit curious that we didn’t get the contact lists for the participants that the other participants apparently have gotten. Since it’s quite a big investment to bring us along, I think we ought to be provided a little bit more access to the data circling around the event - ia. “the list.” But other than that, the NDE was organised beautifully! We got food and coffee to keep us going, and we were always led from one place to the other when the schedule was tight. As these things can easily feel overwhelming from a freelance artist’s point of view in events like this, I truly appreciated all the little things that went on to make the experience smooth for all of us. Thank you for having me. I hope to connect again in the future with all of the lovely people I got to meet during these sunny days in Oslo. Let’s carry the lights of art, dance and community high.