Pick Cells Dance PerformanceDance Mission Theater
3316 24th St; San Francisco
Tickets ($10-15) available in advance at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/eventStrong to the Finnish
PunkkiCo founder Raisa Punkki will debut her two-years in the making evening length dance collaboration Pick Cells in November; metaphor & minimalism, costumes that create chaos, movement that represents strength and resilience in the face of fate at its most callous plus a score that uses electronica along with the cello of Joan Jeanrenaud.
Native Finn and San Francisco resident since 2003 Raisa Punkki and her company punkkiCo present their two-year in the making evening length dance collaboration Pick Cells at Dance Mission, this November. Her conspirators/collaborators on the piece are set and costume designer Claire Pasquier, composer Albert Mathias and light designer Christian Mejia.
The title Pick Cells is both a play on pixels, where when you zoom in you see the perfection of a single dot, but when combined with others makes up a larger and much different image, along with the idea of picking up ideas as you move or create.
The narrative of the work is structured on two worlds: an ancient one awaiting an enigmatic birth event, and our modern world replete with its own challenges, dramas and superficiality.
An important thread in the piece is, strength. Specifically how that forms the backbone for the virtues of resilience and flexibility if one is going to enter into a standoff with nature when she acts in a seemingly capricious and cruel manner.
“I work using metaphor and minimalism,” says Punkki. “And I wanted to apply those in order to grapple with a world that can be wonderfully full of surprises one minute, and then diabolically full of threat the next.”
Inspiration for one of the solos in the piece, numbERs is partly rooted in Punkki’s observations of mothers who give birth to children who are in every way normal—rambunctious, curious and able-boded—except they suffer from the seemingly invisible, singular, and dangerous condition of Type 1 diabetes. “This condition cannot be cured, but it can be managed,” says Punkki. “But only through great discipline and establishing guidelines and patterns in order to monitor and care. In a way it’s like living with a simple math problem that can become a very dangerous equation if you don’t pay attention.”
The costumes were designed and created by Claire Pasquier to create both movement and chaos. At one point in the evening audiences will be asked to don 3-D glasses in order to deepen the impact of the costumes, as if experiencing 3-D to the second power.
The score by Albert Mathias ranges from suspenseful and propulsive to dreamy and sensual. Pick Cells will be performed along with Waiting, part of punkkiCo’s current repertory. The score for Waiting features solo cello composition by Joan Jeanrenaud.
Dancers include:
Jennifer Meek, Sarah Keeney and Raisa Punkki with ten chaos creating creatures.
About Raisa Punkki
Raisa Punkki is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and the founder of punkkiCo. When it comes to her work, she leans toward an aesthetic that welcomes the energetic, sensual and strange. Raised in Finland, she counts her years working in theater doing plays, musicals and dance as a chief influence. As well as an abiding interest in photography and the natural world. “I have filmed many sunrises in San Francisco.”
When it comes to inspiration, Punkki primarily looks to situations in everyday life between people, but like many artists other artists also inspire her. A short list of these would include Georgia O’Keefe, Dan Perjovchi and Abisag Tullman plus choreographers Kenneth Kvarnström and Wayne McGregor along with actors Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley McClaine and vintage Michael Gambon. “At one point I read everything published by Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, Oliver Sacks, David Mamet and Peter Hoeg.”
Punkki’s work is known for its combination of abstraction, theatrical costuming and lighting along with a penchant for brooding and haunting electronica as a soundscape.
Grants and nominations include two Finnish State Grants, Zellerbach Family and Finlandia Foundation grants, along with a nomination as Finland’s Best Dancer of the Year. Since founding PunkkiCo in 2005, her choreography and dances have appeared at the Women On the Way Festival, Collaboration Music and Dance, ODC’s Pilot and House Special and CounterPulse.
PunkkiCo’s work includes Polar Night, end trance, nunataks and all blue among other titles. In 2011 she will debut an evening length piece entitled Pick Cells with artist Claire Pasquier, composer Albert Mathias and lighting designer Christian Mejia. Pick Cells premieres the weekend of November 11-13 at Dance Mission Theater. More information punkkico.com
About PunkkiCo
PunkkiCo seeks to create artistically satisfying high quality performance through collaboration with artists from different disciplines in order to transform emotion into motion. Music composition, sound and costume design are all pivotal in the development of the “movement material,” which is based on Finnish and European contemporary dance. Founded in 2005 by Raisa Punkki—who says about her work, “It all comes from life”—collaborators have included composer Albert Mathias, artist Nicole Bauguss, set and costume designer Claire Pasquier, and lighting designer Christian Mejia. Over the years punkkiCo has moved from a reliance on clean, pure lines and speed of movement into looking for and incorporating those little moments that can be held together by gestures, breathing or stillness.
For more information, visit Raisa's website: http://punkkico.com/default.aspx
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