Lehtovaara & Companions

24/11/2020

29/10/2015

Hi guys, this page is no longer updated! Follow us on our new page https://www.facebook.com/spacetimelove/

Micro-network of two artists and a producer. We create and produce artistic processes and pieces in t

30/06/2015

We have been quiet for a while, but it doesn't mean we haven't been working on things...this page wil be closed soon and move on to Spacetimelove - like the new page to keep up to date about the work of Veli Lehtovaara and Mikko Hyvönen!

13/05/2015

TAKE A LOOK AT THE NEW ARTICLE ON VELI LEHTOVAARA'SNEW PROJECT!!!!

"Dear reader,



The “Clandestine sites: Displaced” is Veli Lehtovaara’s new creation with coproduction from DNA partner ZODIAK and support in residence from VOORUIT. The premiere will be in October 2015 in the frame of Moving in November festival, Helsinki. In this project, Lehtovaara invites a group of artists (Chrysa Parkinson, Ville Ahonen, Eleanor Bauer, Mikko Hynninen and Timo Wright) to create a work where performance is considered as an amorous (love) relation, there is, a triangular relation between audience, performer and author from where the performance can emerge.

The primary text of this creation is Roland Barthes “A Lover's Discourse – Fragments” (1977), and additional references as “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf (1927) and “The Pleasure of The Text” (1973) also by Barthes. In the process of creation, the work with each invited artist is developed autonomously, and each collaboration is thus a facet of Barthes multilayered book. The performance will be a series of solos, which all drive from the same initial proposition.

From March 31 to April 18 Veli was in residency in Vooruit and during this period, he generated a dialogue with me through letters, where he wrote about his collaboration with the artists involved. It caught my interest the fact that the “letter” format also expresses the pair presence-absence that is revealed every time one addresses the beloved one. After all, when one writes a letter to another, the other is present and absent at the same time, which reveals the performativity of the “medium”

That is the reason I am now writing to you, my beloved reader. I want to experiment the territory that Veli has granted me with his new research on the amorous relationship."......

read more at:

http://departuresandarrivals.eu/en/texts/focus-artists-texts/clandestine-sites-on-veli-lehtovaara-211

12/10/2014

Barthes P.: A Lover's D. - Fragments in residency at Chateau de Monthelon, France. "Dance is movement from the hart and choreography is organizing love in time and space."

11/10/2014

Tonight and tomorrow: The theatre version of Mikko Hyvönen's Organic synthetic at Run Wild Stay Cool festival in Mousonturm, Frankfurt!

More information: http://www.mousonturm.de/web/en/veranstaltung/organic-synthetic

"I love watching trees and birds, at least the ones that are in the air. Sometimes I wish I were an animal instead of a human being, but at the same time I'm...

06/10/2014

Tonight and tomorrow: Elina Pirinen's Personal Symphonic Moment at Run Wild Stay Cool festival in Mousonturm, Frankfurt!

See more: http://www.mousonturm.de/web/en/veranstaltung/personal-symphonic-moment

Choreographer Elina Pirinen and team perform on-stage autopsies to Dimitri Šostakovitš' 7th symphony, known as the Leningrad-symphony. The performance is bor...

02/10/2014

"How does the notion of time, body, gender and sexuality comes to prominence when the media is not a book, read privately, silently and in different times, but a live performance, a group of people gathering in a theater? How need and desire is being constructed and conducted in this particular situation of being together? What are the choreographic figures of a lover's dance?"

Veli Lehtovaara’s research project on Roland Barthes’ texts continues with a residency in Chateau de Monthelon in Montréal, France. He will stay in the residency together with Masi Tiitta and Ville Ahonen from 6 to 19 October.

Read more about the project: http://lehtovaara.co/projects

Since the beginning of 2013, I’ve been reading Roland Barthes' book A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments (Fragments d’un discours amoureux, 1977). Back and forth, jumping and chronologically, in different languages. Then I read The Pleasure of the text and it confirmed my desire to negotiate with Barthes'…

22/09/2014

The Run Wild Stay Cool festival in Mousonturm is just around the corner! The venue dedicates ten days to the most recent and spectacular of what Finland's dance and performance scene has to offer.

The festival presents both of our Companions: Elina Pirinen with her performance Personal Symphonic Moment on 6 and 7 October and Organic synthetic by Mikko Hyvönen on 11 and 12 October.

Other performances include Juha Valkeapää’s Executed Stories, Eeva Muilu and Milja Sarkola’s In Human Disguise and Katariina Numminen & Co’s ZOO.

See more: http://lehtovaara.co/news

Image: Timo Wright - Media Artist

28/08/2014

Lehtovaara & Companions will be present at the internationale tanzmesse nrw in Düsseldorf on 28-30 August. You can find us in the Nordic Hall together at the booth of our supporter and collaborator Zodiak – Uuden tanssin keskus / Center for New Dance (R18).

This year Zodiak is representing six choreographers / artistic collectives: Joona Halonen, Maija Hirvanen, Anna Maria Häkkinen & Jarkko Partanen, Lehtovaara & Companions, Eeva Muilu and Elina Pirinen.

You can also meet us during the meetings at Dance Info Finland's booth (daily at 13:00, R20). Bis bald!

The internationale tanzmesse, a bi-annual dance-fair in Dusseldorf, Germany, organized by GZT, Cologne

06/08/2014

Our Companion Mikko Hyvönen will perform a version of his piece Organic synthetic at indigo-Dance at PAF 2014 during the weekend of 22-24 August. More information on the dates and times soon.

indigo-Dance (i-D) Dance Festival, August 18th-24th, is a part of the extensive 4 week long Summer University at PAF this summer.

More info: http://lehtovaara.co/news

Image: Jani-Matti Salo

01/07/2014

Lehtovaara & Companions in July: Veli Lehtovaara continues his research: B. Project: A Lover’s D. – Fragments in collaboration with Chrysa Parkinson, Ville Ahonen, Masi Tiitta, Salka Ardal Rosengren, Mikko Hynninen and Timo Wright. Short stays coming up in Finland and Belgium.

"How does the notion of time, body, gender and sexuality comes to prominence when the media is not a book, read privately, silently and in different times, but a live performance, a group of people gathering in a theater? How need and desire is being constructed and conducted in this particular situation of being together? What are the choreographic figures of a lover's dance?"

More on http://lehtovaara.co/works

23/06/2014

In co-operation with Mousonturm, Zodiak – Uuden tanssin keskus / Center for New Dance and Tanssin Tiedotuskeskus-Dance Info Finland organise a Finnish Festival in Frankfurt on 4-12 October 2014.

The festival programme includes our Companions: Elina Pirinen’s Personal Symphonic Moment and Mikko Hyvönen's Organic synthetic.

The full programme of the event will be released later this summer / early autumn.

See more on http://lehtovaara.co/news

Image: Timo Wright - Media Artist

10/06/2014

Mikko Hyvönen's Organic synthetic and the male solo triple bill at Zodiak – Uuden tanssin keskus / Center for New Dance reviewed in the summer issue of TeatteriTanssi magazine.

"The soundscape by Pauli Riikonen is an exceptionally broad collage of nature, speech and machine [that] begins to sound like a beautiful multi-layered music that dispels the borders of nature and technology. Hyvönen proves with his body that our movements constantly alternate between organic and synthetic."

Hyvönen is currently working on the next version of the piece. Exact dates and location will be announced later.

See more: http://lehtovaara.co/works

22/05/2014

Get to know what all our residencies of this spring have been about. A new research project has been added on our home page - Veli Lehtovaara talks more about his "B. Project: A Lover’s D. – Fragments".

B. Project is a collaboration with Chrysa Parkinson, Ville Ahonen, Masi Tiitta, Salka Ardal Rosengren, Mikko Hynninen and Timo Wright.

Since the beginning of 2013, I’ve been reading Roland Barthes' book A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments (Fragments d’un discours amoreux, 1977). Back and forth, jumping and chronologically, in different languages. Then I read The Pleasure of the text and it confirmed my desire to negotiate with Barthes t…

12/05/2014

Veli Lehtovaara is participating in alkantara [lisboa] festival’s parallel project "Aware - Artists watch, reflect and exchange" in Lisbon from 29 May to 8 June.

An international group of eight artists gather to accompany the festival. The group will attend performances during the evening and meet during the day for working sessions, moderated by Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz. The idea is to create an atmosphere of collective reflection and exchange between fellow artists, through discussions around the performances they see and also their own practices, perspectives and concerns.

Read more about the project: http://www.alkantarafestival.pt/en/meeting-point/aware-artists-watch-reflect-and-exchange/
More about the festival http://www.alkantarafestival.pt/en/

28/04/2014

Thank you Okasroosikese Loss and STÜ for hosting Veli Lehtovaara, Masi Tiitta, Salka Rosengren and Ville Ahonen in Tallinn for two wonderful weeks. The Pass Over in Silence research project continues with new residencies, we will keep you posted!

Image: Okasroosikese Loss

24/04/2014

Our Companion Elina Pirinen has been awarded the annual honorary prize Critics' Spurs for the most outstanding artistic breakthrough in Finland. Elina was awarded for her artistic work and especially the creation Personal Symphonic Moment.

The Finnish Critics' Association founded Critics' Spurs in 1961. It is awarded to Finnish creative or performing artist or artists group who shows accomplished achievement in any field of arts. The prize is an acknowledgment of the best artistic breakthrough or comparable for a young artist during the year.

Congratulations Elina!

More about Elina: http://lehtovaara.co/companions
More about Personal Symphonic Moment: http://lehtovaara.co/works

Image: Timo Wright