Imagine yourself in a summery farmyard. The sun, the heat, the bees buzzing under the thatched roof. A village swing creaks in the distance. Multilingual instructions are attached to the swing, but the tourists don’t really know how to use it, they bend their knees awkwardly and laugh. New image: an empty, ghostly echoing factory building. You know that the room was once filled with deafening noise and that many people have left their health here, but that many have also perceived it as a source of pride. The air is strangely heavy, though the wind rattles the broken windows; somewhere a door slams. Third image: a white theater hall, empty, without decorations. The floor is a little cold. The premiere is still a long time away, but that’s also why more e-mails need to be exchanged with the team; the best time for the next meeting happens to fall on a Saturday.
In the performance “Artefactourism: rumours and ruins” Valeria Januškevitš, Sigrid Savi, Kadri Sirel and Keity Pook are interested in the capacity of memory to create identities and communities, and the power, ambiguity and deceitfulness of this mechanism. In what ways are people caught up in the mechanisms of memory, how are they pushed out, which loose ends remain diverged?
The production carries the echoes of three different residencies. The Estonian Open Air Museum, the Kreenholm Manufactory and Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (Independent Dance Stage) are symbols that highlight the community’s way of living, working and dreaming in different eras, introducing the question of work that needs to be put into remembering.
Choreographers travel as tourists along the patchy memories, dancing on the ruins and building bridges between the past, present and future.
Choreographers and performers: Valeria Januškevitš, Keity Pook, Sigrid Savi and Kadri Sirel
Dramaturge: Kerli Ever
Sound designer: Sander Saarmets
Set design: Laura Põld
Light design: Karolin Tamm
Supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
We thank the Estonian Open Air Museum and the Kreenholm Manufacturing Company.
Premiere: November 8th, 2022 at Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava
