Swell is a performance about the desire to jump into the waves, the desire to dive and touch the bottom.
Swell is an independent sequel to Asphodel Meadows, which premiered at Hangö Teaterträff in 2022, on the same beach. Asphodel Meadows was born out of a need to create an emotional relationship with the Baltic Sea, the need to look at the sea and into it in an artistic process. Swell is born out of a need to deepen this relationship, to look at the sea and into it even more closely.
Sinna Virtanen is a playwright, dramaturge, director and multidisciplinary artist based in Helsinki. Virtanen completed her Master’s Degree in the Finnish Theatre Academy in 2015, from the playwright and dramaturgy department. Since then, she has worked in a wide variety of theatre and contemporary art projects both in Finland and internationally. Various materialities, mediums, collaborations and spectatorships coalesce and actualise in her works. Her works always play with notions of time and space, sitting on the boundaries, in liminal spaces, reaching into the past and the future, into imagination and afterlives. The works are always conceived in the interconnecting surfaces of different art forms, where they test, darken and redraw the line between the work and the spectator.
Concept, text, directing, dramaturgy: Sinna Virtanen
Performers: Seidi Haarla, Iida Kuningas
Sound designer: Tatu Nenonen
Assistant to sound design: Miša Skalskis
Dramaturg: Birnir Jón Sigurðsson
Producer: Mirkka Maikola
Sculpture & masks: Corinna Helenelund
Seamstress: Elina Riikonen
Translations: Paul Olin, Roy Boswell
Production: Sinna Virtanen, Teater Viirus
In collaboration with: Hangö Teaterträff
Supported by: Finnish Cultural Foundation, Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Otto A. Malms Donation Foundation, Konstsamfundet
Residency: Eskus – Performance Arts Centre, Kordon Residency