Sonya Lindfors: ONE DROP
ONE DROP is a speculative summoning, a decolonial dream, an autopsy of the Western stage and an operetta. Slipping in meanings, leaking through different categories the work dives into the poetics and politics of relations, creating a stage that awakens the ghosts, connections erased or forgotten.
The title of the work refers to two separate frameworks, the one drop rhythm which is a reggae style drum beat as well as to the one drop rule of the Race Separation Act, created in the United States in the early 1900s, according to which a single drop of “Black blood” made a person “Black” despite their appearance. Through its multiple starting points the work interrogates the ghosts of the Western stage and its entanglements and relationalities to capitalism, coloniality and modernity.
ONE DROP continues Lindfors’ series of works dealing with power, representation and Black body politics.
Credits
Koreografia & ohjaus | Choreographer & Director: Sonya Lindfors
Esiintyjät | Performers: Antonia Atarah, Hamis Ahmed, Nori Kin, Alma Bø Getachew, Mariama Slåttøy, Geoffrey Erista, Isabella Shaw
Äänisuunnittelu | Sound design: Jussi Matikainen
Valosuunnittelu | Light design: Erno Aaltonen
Pukusuunnittelu | Costume design: Sanna Levo
Lavastus | Set design: Aino Koski
Koreografin assistentti | Choreographer’s assistant: Janina Salmela
Pukusuunnittelijan assistentti | Costume assistant: Angel Emmanuel
Harjoittaja & koreografinen tuki | Rehearsal assistant & choreographic support: Johanna Karlberg
Äänisuunnittelijan assistentti | Sound designer's assistant: Timo Tikka
Ompelija | Seamstress: Elina Tuomisto
Prosessiin osallistuneet | Contributors to process: Ornilia Ubisse, Judith Arupa, Alen Nsambu,
Dramaturginen tuki | Dramaturgical support: Jaakko Pallasvuo
Libretto | Libretto: Sonya Lindfors
Muut tekstit | Other texts: Sonya Lindfors & työryhmä | working group
Tuotanto | Production: UTT ry & Sonya Lindfors
Osatuotanto | Co-production: Big Pulse Dance Alliance (Zodiak – Uuden tanssin keskus / FI, Dance Umbrella / UK, Julidans/NL), Goethe-Institut (International Coproduction Fund), Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Apap – FEMINIST FUTURES (a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), Beursschouwbourg
Residenssit | Residencies: Tanzfabrik berlin, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Buda Kortrijk, Beursschouwbourg
Tukijat | Supported by: Koneen säätiö, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, Alfred Kordelinin säätiö, Pohjoismainen kulttuuripiste | Kone Foundation, The Finnish Cultural Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Nordic Culture Point
Kuvat | Photos: Tuukka Ervasti
Music used in the work
Steel Pulse: Handsworth Revolution
Joaquin Depres: Mille Regretz
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Concerto In D Minor, Op. 3, No. 1: III. Rondeau
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Could You Be Loved
Gloria Jones: Tainted Love
Elton John: Sacrifice
Camille Saint-Saëns: Samson and Delilah: Mon Coeur S'ouvre a Ta Voix
Giuseppe Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera: Re dell'abisso affrettati
Paul Verlaine: En sourdine
Peter Tosh: Vampire
Director’s word
”The term “Black” was the product of a social and technological machine tightly linked to the emergence and globalization of capitalism. It was invented to signify exclusion, brutalization, and degradation, to point to a limit constantly conjured and abhorred. The Black person, despised and profoundly dishonored, is the only human in the modern order whose skin has been transformed into the form and spirit of merchandise—the living crypt of capital. But there is also a manifest dualism to Blackness. In a spectacular reversal, it becomes the symbol of a conscious desire for life, a force springing forth, buoyant and plastic, fully engaged in the act of creation and capable of living in the midst of several times and several histories at once. Its capacity for sorcery, and its ability to incite hallucination, multiplies tenfold. Some saw in the Black person the salt of the earth, the vein of life through which the dream of a humanity reconciled with nature, and even with the totality of existence, would find its new face, voice, and movement.”
– Achille Mmbebe in Critique of Black Reason
The notion of purity plays a central role in racial politics. Throughout history, different societies have used the idea of purity to draw lines between groups of people based on their perceived racial, ethnic, or cultural differences. In many cases, these lines have been used to justify discrimination, segregation, and violence against those who transgress boundaries and are thus deemed to be 'impure’, 'unclean' or ’tainted’ .
What is then the place and state of Blackness on our contemporary stages? What ghosts are we dancing with?
The Western art tradition is completely intertwined with the histories of capitalism and colonialism. While there has been much talk in recent years about artistic freedom, neither art nor the artist is ever free from the ghosts of history. Colonial histories affect our perceptions of what is beautiful, good and interesting art, of what is recognized as art and who is recognized as an artist. Or even human.
To investigate and interrogate the politics of relationalities feels vital right now as the rampant individualism, the fantasy of being unattached, has led to violence, segregation, dehumanization and ecocatastrophy.
Change is possible. Decolonial work is a lot about summoning, recreating and making visible connections and relations that have been lost or erased. What did you have for breakfast? Maybe coffee or tea? Where did it come from? What are the different flows of influences, resources and labour?
I am eternally grateful for our amazing amazing working group of talented, courageous, intelligent, sensitive artists that have given this work everything it is. It has not been always easy, striving to create decolonial work in structures that are nothing but is hard, almost impossible. But together we made it. I am so proud of everybody.
The dream is a stage that is polycentric, porous, playfull. Soft and strong. And deeply connected.
– Sonya
Theoretical references
Achille Mmbebe: Critique of Black Reason
bell hooks: Race and Representation
Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic
Stuart Hall: The Spectacle of the Other
Walter MIgnolo: The Darker Side of Western Modernity
The working group
Sonya Lindfors (she/her) is a Cameroonian – Finnish choreographer and artistic director that also works with facilitating, community organising and education. She is the founding member and Artistic Director of UrbanApa, an inter-disciplinary and counter hegemonic arts community that offers a platform for new discourses and feminist art practices.
In all her positions she pursues creating and facilitating decolonial and feminist platforms, where a performance, a festival, a publication or a workshop can operate as the site of empowerment, decolonial speculative practices and radical collective dreaming. Lindfors has been awarded with several prizes, the latest of which being the state prize for public information in 2022 and the international Live art Anti Prize 2018.
Antonia Atarah (she/her) Antonia Atarah is a Ghanian-Finnish actor and performer who is currently finishing her Master's degree at the Uniarts Theatre Academy acting program, along with music theatre studies. In her work she has curiously varied between different performing art forms,media,practices and groups in Finland, Germany and Ghana.Atarah believes in collective work and aims to broaden the perception and task of "the actor" by finding diversity within that role.
Hamis Ahmed creatively know as “Hamis Zzy” is a movement artist, Street dancer & photographer based in Helsinki. His work primarily rotates around movement & sound mirroring different forms Of expression from body and surroundings. Hamis focuses on exploring different emotions through dance (different movement techniques) in comparison to sound. He actively performs and travels documenting cultural & everyday life through photography and tells stories using different forms of expression he can grasp.
Nori Kin (they/them) is a Helsinki-based Finnish-Nigerian multi-disciplinary artist and experimentalist that works under the alias of Exploited Body. Over the course of their over a decade-spanning career they’ve performed and presented installations in clubs, festivals and museums across Europe, becoming a well-recognized name in the contemporary experimental scene. They also run the Helsinki-based experimental label Changeless.
Alma Bø Getachew (she/her) is a contemporary dancer, choreographer and pedagog from Oslo, Norway. She has worked in various projects with interdisciplinary relations in different fields of visual art and performances.
Mariama Fatou Kalley Slåttøy (she/her) is a freelance dance artist and performer based in Oslo, Norway. She graduated from Oslo National Academy of the Arts/Faculty of Dance in 2014 and works with movement within a wide range of expressions, from dance performances of different natures to physical and interdisciplinary theatre and various film projects.
Geoffrey Erista (he/him) has performed in theatre, dance, film, installation and performance art productions. His artistic passions are in site-specific art, documentary and politics of art. Erista is interested in exploring socially relevant topics and finding ways to bring up more diverse art. He is an actor, dancer and live art maker of Sudanese-Ugandan descent, who in 2020 received an MA in Acting from University of Arts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy.
Isabella Shaw (she/her) is a mezzosoprano, harp player, and freelance performer based in Helsinki. Originally from Colorado, United States, she studied literature and languages in Cambridge, UK before working in the early music scene in Prague, CZ, and subsequently studying opera singing at Sibelius Academy, FI (2021). In addition to music, she is a poet and fiction author.
Jussi Matikainen (he/him) is a Finnish sound designer and musician working in the contexts of performance, music and visual arts. His work often deals with temporalities and complex entanglements of times and spaces. Matikainen is a member of multidisciplinary arts collective WAUHAUS, based in Helsinki. In 2019 he was awarded with the Säde Honorary Prize for the Sound Design of Cosmic Latte.
Erno Aaltonen (he/him) is a lighting designer, scenographer and co-creator working in performing arts. His work happens between the materiality of the performance and the audience experience, whether it means artistic dialogue, visual design or technical production.
Sanna Levo (she/her) is a Finnish costume designer and scenographer who has worked with multiple freelance companies, as well as at the Finnish National Theater and the TTT-Theatre in Tampere. Sanna Levo is a member of 00100ENSEMBLE, a collective focusing on immersive performances. Levo has worked with Sonya Lindfors since 2013.
Aino Koski (she/her) is a Finnish scenographer and visual artist, who works diversely with dance, site specific performances, theater and visual arts. Her most long-standing collaborators within dance are choreographers Sonya Lindfors and Valtteri Raekallio. Koski’s set designs have been seen in the city theaters of Oulu, Pori and Seinäjoki, among others. Aino Koski received her MA in Arts from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2012.
Janina Salmela (she/her) is a Finnish-Chinese dancer and dance teacher who likes to explore different grounds within the field of culture and performing arts. She has been working as a producer also and now works as Sonya Lindfors’ assistant for the second time. In her work Salmela aims to utilize kinesthetic intelligence, pedagogigal view, playfullness and curiosity towards humanity and the surroundings.
Angel Emmanuel (she/they) is a Transfeminine designer and performance artist with Ugandan Roots. They are interested in creating work that inspires and intrigues the spectator, they only use pre-loved / existing materials.
Timo Tikka (he/him) is a sound designer, musician and marine biologist from Helsinki. He likes to work with field recordings and found-sound, and is currently interested in wandering as a physical and mental artistic practice.
Thank you
Thank you to all our supporters, collaborators and co-producing partners. Thank you Zodiak for the long lasting collaboration, special thanks to Markus, Harri and Eero.
Thank you Joost, Brecht, Ole from Buda, Martin from Tanzfabrique, Immanuel Pax, Tapio Säkkinen, Kiasma / Heikki Paasonen, Svenska teatern / Jeppe Karlsson, Kaba Assefa, Sini Kaartinen / UrbanApa, Nakki Homanen, Hurjaruuth, Sun Effects, Jarmo ja Marja Koski, 00100ENSEMBLE, Kansallisteatterin puvusto, Meron Laine.
Thank you to all of the family members, friends, partners and close ones for the love, support, help and conversations. This work could not happen without you. <3
Performances
Ensi-ilta | Premiere:
Sat 6.5.2023 at 20:00, Pannuhalli, Tanssin talo, Helsinki
Muut esitykset | Other performances:
Tue 9.5. at 20:00
Wed 10.5. at 14:00
Wed 10.5. at 20:00
Fri 12.5. at 20:00
Sat 13.5. at 17:00*
Sun 14.5. at 17.00
Tue 16.5. at 14:00
Tue 16.5. at 20:00
*Taiteilijatapaaminen | Post-performance discussion
Kesto | Duration: 110 min
Esityskieli | Performance language: englanti | English
