i have put out feelers

You are catching the mess and wiping up spills in the lounge. You say you are tired, your brain is slow today, some days are like this. Forgetful, you desert the choreographies of cis-heteropatriarchy. At the same time you know that forgetting might be a way of constructing an alternative reality, of losing touch with the world. At least you are not alone, this we know for a fact.

i have put out feelers is based on my interest in performativities of permeability, receptivity, forgetfulness and the hosting of doubt in one’s body. For me, those are outlets for the multiplicity of experienced realities which each of us holds together in one body and time. The dance in this piece is an affectionate relationality, emerging in between different, sometimes seemingly incompatible bodies, sounds, tasks, temporalities, objects and paces at hand.

(feeler, noun, usually plural: one of the two long parts on the head of an insect and some other creatures with which it touches things in order to discover what is around it)

Credits

Concept by Vilma Mankonen
Performed and developed with Oona Pennanen, Sofia Keto-Tokoi and Vilma Mankonen
Set and costume design by Martin Sieweke
Sound design by Sofia Keto-Tokoi
Lights by Olle Axén
Video by Oona Pennanen
Image by Ekin Tunçeli
Supervision by Karina Sarkissova

Special Thanks to Martin Sieweke, Oona Pennanen, Sofia Keto-Tokoi, Karina Sarkissova, Jennifer Lacey, Marie Fahlin, Karin Hauptmann, Alice Chauchat, Ingela Stefaniak Öhman, Fredrik Heimdahl, Jakob Klang, Mali Dönmez, Olle, MDT, Konsthall C and Centrifug, Amina Avdic, Ekin Tunçeli, Linda Wardal, Hannah Krebs, Laura, Helka, Juha, Outokumpu and the dear Machor colleagues for loving support throughout these unordinary times. 

Biography

Vilma Mankonen is a dance artist who is endlessly fascinated by how different environments, spaces and faces organize and move bodies. In their reading, dancing and writing, Vilma investigates the body in relation to cultural practices that regulate it by directing her attention towards leaky waters of carefully constructed selves, habits, expectations and senses of control.