Side Step 2020 | Matilda Aaltonen – Joel Teixeira Neves: Voyeur

The space is divided by a large window. The performers and the audience are sat on different sides of it.

“I am looking at you looking at me looking at you looking at…”

In this wordless performance the performers negotiate a permission to watch, seducing the viewer into another world. But who is looking at whom?

Voyeur explores the dynamics of the gaze through bodily communication. It makes the power of the gaze visible, revealing its potential for love.

Voyeur is a space where the audience can safely explore emotions and experiences of looking and being seen. What does it feel like to be seen? Where can you feel it? How do our eyes meet? When do I turn my eyes away? What is communication without words?

“Where does your gaze end and my gaze begin? The gaze is not owned by either of the individuals involved; instead, it is a relationship in which both participate.”

The working group is led by director-choreographers Matilda Aaltonen and Joel Teixeira Neves. Lighting design is by Mia Jalerva, sound design by Mitja Nylund and costume design by Justus Kantakoski. The performers are a group of 15 professional dancers.

Matilda Aaltonen works as a choreographer and a performer with dance and performance workgroups that commit to a collective method of working. In her works, the sensual, the aesthetic, the ethical and the political dimension are inseparable. She is fascinated by the power of dance to discover and redefine the human body. Aaltonen will graduate as a Master of Arts in dance from the Theatre Academy of the University of Arts Helsinki in spring 2020.

Aaltonen’s latest works include creature / being / beast / animal / life form (autumn 2019, Theatre Academy), Voyeur (autumn 2019, Reality Research Center and Riveria Vocational Institute) and Their Limbs Their Lungs Their Legs (winter 2019, TADaC Theatre Academy Dance Company, chor. Lea Moro).

Joel Teixeira Neves is a Helsinki-based director/performer with activities in various fields in performing arts. In his artworks, the audience is invited to experiment and imagine potential new worlds. The aim of his works is to offer a platform, space and time to explore different modes of social interaction and different ways of being in the world.

Teixeira Neves graduated as a director from the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki in spring 2018. His works have been staged in Kiasma Theatre, in KOM-teatteri and in Amsterdam as part of the ITS Festival. In his latest works, Teixeira Neves explores the dynamics of looking, analyses listening as a comprehensive bodily activity and reflects on the mental anguish produced by the current ecological catastrophe.

Aaltonen’s and Neves’ artistic research related to Voyeur started already in 2017 in the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. In 2019, Voyeur was staged in collaboration with the Riveria Vocational Institute in Outokumpu, Finland.

In 2020, Voyeur will be one of the headline productions of Reality Research Center’s seasonal program that focuses on the body and the notion of embodiment.