DANCE FILM SERIES – Vesa Loikas and Maria Nurmela, as part of Turku Film Day
Saturday, September 7, 2024, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Dance Film Series in a non-stop format
Taiteen talo, IKU studios, 5th floor, Nunnankatu 4, 20700 Turku

Dance Film Series: https://www.elokuvapaiva.fi/naytokset/tanssielokuvien-sarja-s/
Event website: https://www.elokuvapaiva.fi/

Movement and corporeality intertwine into a web-like whole through four short films.

Dance artist Maria Nurmela and photographer-filmmaker Vesa Loikas have been collaborating on experimental short films since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They have produced four short films so far, which have premiered at international festivals. The works have attracted attention with their unique visual and choreographic language, where strong imagery, movement, and corporeality merge into a web-like dramaturgy.

Short films: ECHOES (2020) 4’25
The film features a girl/woman, portrayed at two different ages by two dancers. Echoes from her own history create parallels and reflections of the character's past. In Greek mythology, Echo was a nymph who could only repeat the words of others and never started a conversation when others were silent.

LIMINAL (2020) 3’45
The term "liminal" comes from the Latin word limen, which means threshold.

CROSS-LATERAL (2020) 5’03
In the silent traffic of people, a woman contemplates the colors of life. Along the stream of historical deposits, she balances heavy forces.

ENTANGLEMENT (2023) 8’17
This short film, leaning on contemporary dance and photography/filmmaking, creates a visual-movement-based ecosystem where the nature of the imagery, human nature/moving human anatomy, and the drawn and layered realities on a meta-level interweave into a networked cinematic story. The film is part of a larger, multi-channel installation project planned for 2025.