Jebu-the-home, our trusted tour mobile drove us about a 1100km more north to Kajaani. There we were met by some active event-organizing spirit! The festival we took part in was following suite in having several different forms of art available for the people, and the performers were including both local youth and amateur groups as well as professional artists. Our photo exhibition shared a great space, it was set in a long and narrow room in an old grain storage silo, next to some mystical wooden puppet characters by another artist, and her new creation of flowers. She had been growing ruiskaunokki, a blue flower I don’t know the English name of, and harvested them to create an installation room full of flowers in different shapes and moments of decay. I could have spent hours there in the flower room.
Viivi rigging.
The forest we placed our path in was having very pure air! I went to sleep in the hammoc there overnight because I felt like the energy of the woods was just so nice there. Big blueberries were all around, the ground was covered with soft moss, the trees were very big and the whole thing was a big hill. We had some very nice weather as well, the sunlight shone through the treetops creating beautiful shapes on the ground.
Here our performance was proven to be a show for the whole family. Advertised as “forest circus”, the parents of course brought their kids along with them, and we had for the first time about half of the audience of people under 14 years old. It was great! Even though we were a bit nervous at first on whether the children would get bored or the parents find it “too much” or “too little”, it very soon became clear that it was a working concept. If the kids didn’t care too much for what we did, they would put their focus elsewhere in the forest. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and we had a lot of positive feedback from the families when they left. There were of course some great comments to be heard as well. About halfway in, a kid asked his parents “but when are we going to the circus?” one kid started to sing our rope-song in the next, very quiet contact improvisation part, the usual question of “what are they doing now?” was answered by a quick answer of “I get it, they are moose, they are pushing heads against each other like they do”, and at the end, when we are naked further away there was a kid who was laughing so hard, shouting “look at which place is visibleeeeeee!”. Priceless honesty.
Exhibition space.