UPS and DOWNS
Group exhibition Sedan reste jag mig, in Cable Factory, Helsinki, FIN, 2022.
The performative artwork UPS and DOWNS is a collaboration with Alpo Aaltokoski Company (Helsinki). A collaboration where visual arts and dance enter into a dialogue with each other with a focus on incorporating dance into the concept of an exhibition.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Confucius
How to rise up? I have interpreted it in the following way: to be able to get up - you must have been down. One requires the other. Therefore, both directions are important. By falling, you get the opportunity to get up again. In this artwork five dancers are telling their unique story of how to rise up.
I have played with the idea of living sculptures. Artifacts consisting of dancers in relation to their podiums. My focus was on the sculptural with a body in motion. A metamorphosis of slowly bodily movements that in a minimalistic way create different formations, like a living organism that changes form during its lifetime. By using the bodily movement of rising up and including dancers of different ages and genders, I wanted to highlight the individual movements and how they are interpreted through different stages in life.
The beauty of a body in motion. The beauty of being human at all stages of life. The beauty of rising up again and again and again.
Artistic Director & Concept: Carina Ahlskog
Choreographers: Carina Ahlskog & Alpo Aaltokoski
Dancers: Johanna Ikola, Tuovi Rantanen, Anna Palmio, Emilia Ahopelto, Minna Karttunen, Jere Jääskeläinen, Godwin Otieno Musuma, Elias Berglund, Maria Autio, Riina Huhtanen
Soundscape: William Ahlskog
Photo: Cata Portin
