The Hämärään / Hämärästä (~into / out of twilight) performances

The Hämärään / Hämärästä (~into / out of twilight) performances are multidisciplinary, site-specific outdoor works that celebrate the dark season. The performances explore the relationship between people, place, darkness, and change. These themes are approached through sound art, music, dance, and spoken expression. The works are multisensory and offer the audience various ways of taking part. The performances follow a short route walked together as twilight deepens into darkness, guided by a series of artistic scenes. The aim is to create experiences that leave a lasting imprint on the audience’s relationship with their environment.

The performances take place near the September / March equinoxes at a carefully chosen moment of twilight, by a body of water. Experienced multisensorially on a dark shoreline, the performances accompany participants into the approaching half-year of darkness / brightness. The spring edition, Hämärästä, bids farewell to the sounds and beings of darkness, and to the sensations evoked by the dark half of the year. It marks the transition into the long, bright, sunlit nights. The autumn edition, Hämärään, welcomes the approaching months of darkness. Does the darkness close in like a suffocating sack, or like a warm, calming blanket? The script is based on the working group’s own experiences and on stories heard from others about northern twilight and darkness.

The concept is created by Riikka Vuorenmaa together with the working group. The music is composed and performed, and the soundscape created, by Pekka Kumpulainen. The physical expression of dance artist Marjo Selin and circus artist Leea Finne is shaped by the landscape, its forms, and the other beings inhabiting it. A collection of greetings recorded in earlier events—messages from one darkness to another—also plays a part in the performances.

Because the route follows natural terrain and weather conditions, audience size is limited.