|
KIMMO POHJONEN / VILLE WALO - IRON LUNG
Kimmo Pohjonen & Ville Walo:
Rautakeuhko / Iron Lung
The new project of visual performance artist Ville Walo and Kimmo Pohjonen entitled Rautakeuhko "Iron Lung" made its premiere at Verkatehdas, Vanajasali in Hämeenlinna, Finland on December 1st and 2nd, 2009. The hour long music theatre performance features Walo and Pohjonen and over one hundred accordion bellows with all new music composed by Pohjonen.
Idea and creation: Kimmo Pohjonen, Ville Walo
Performers: Kimmo Pohjonen, Ville Walo
Music composition: Kimmo Pohjonen
Set and costumes: Anne Jämsä
Light Design: Antti Rehtijärvi
Sound Design: Heikki Iso-Ahola
Photos: Vertti Teräsvuori
Graphic Design: Milla Ahola
Thanks:
Matti Luukinen and the heirs
Bellow maker Pirjo Aho
Katri Hirttiö
Tapio Nysten- Ikaalinen College of Crafts and Design, School of
Instrument Construction
Kalle Hakkarainen, Lasse Jämsä, Mikko Linnavuori, Tuomas Norvio,
Marianne Walo, Teuvo Walo, Valto Walo
Phillip Page, Tiina Vihtkari
Kaapeli, Teak / Jyri Pulkkinen, Verkatehdas
Production: WHS in co-operation with Verkatehdas and Cirko – Centre
for New Circus
Duration approx. 65 minutes.
Rautakeuhko premiered on 1st of December 2009 in Vanaja hall, in
Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna, Finland.
A concert performance of contemporary circus & music
Rautakeuhko / Iron Lung
An intensive duet between two artists, in which the creative energies
of accordionist / composer Kimmo Pohjonen and innovative juggler
Ville Walo encounter on stage.
The roles of a musician and a juggler support each other and even
blend together in the performance project that has the juggler
manipulating old accordion bellows by throwing and stretching them
so that they simultaneously form fascinating visual patterns and
changing musical rhythms with their diverse blows and thuds. The
bellows are brought on stage as breathing and living rhythmic
instruments. This is a very interesting kind of an encounter in a live
situation that allows also improvisation and collaboration that crosses
the boundaries of the individual art forms.
The performance is complimented by the visualisation, designed for
the project by set and costume designer Anne Jämsä, drawing
influences from the rich design of the traditional instruments, by the
lights designed by Antti Rehtijärvi and the sound design of Heikki Iso-
Ahola.
Bellows
A collection of old broken accordion bellows, found and saved by
Pohjonen, is used in the set of the performance and as the juggling
props. The collection of bellows covers the whole history of Finnish
accordion music form the 1920’s to our days. The treasure, valuable in
terms of folk culture tradition, was found in the property left behind
by a retired accordion repairer, piled up in the rear corner of a shed in
Salla, in Northern Finland, where part of the bellows collection had
already been used to replace firewood. Old accordions and wooden
accordion parts worn out by years of playing were received as a
donation from Ikaalinen School of Instrument Construction.
Bellows are the instrument's “lungs”— blowing air through the sound
producing reeds. As a replacement for human lungs the bellows have
a close kinship to medical artificial respirators. The earliest
resuscitation machines were simply bellows pumping air in and out of
the patient’s lungs. The next development step was to place the
patient’s body inside the bellow to create positive and negative
pressure that made the patient’s lungs deflate and inflate. When the
manually operated bellows were replaces by electric air circulation, the
life saving medical device known as the “iron lung” was born.
“The accordion should never be called a squeezebox, a wrinkle, a poor
man’s organ or a devil’s lung. Constant bellows pressure should
always be maintained. Every note should sound exactly the same on
the push and pull of the bellows. There should not be any clunks or
tapping sounds when you play the keys – no wheezing, stuck keys,
pinched sounds or funny noises of any kind.
All bellows action should be as smooth as possible. It may feel
awkward at first, but the motion will become more natural as you get
used to it.
Remember to start in the closed position and pull the bellows out. Use
only as much bellows as you need to play the note (do not pull it out all
the way). When you change the bellows direction try to think of it as
being one fluid motion – no jerking.
Be sure to make each direction change sound as soft as possible.
Hold each note for its full duration.
Only use as much air as you need at the moment.
Wounds of the chest, occasionally give admission to the air through its
walls.
Each portion of air expired has undergone only minor corruption.
Take a deep breath two or three times before commencing the process
of inflation, so as to have air in the purest possible state.
Force air into the lungs by a pair of bellows or the mouth. “
Kimmo Pohjonen
Finnish accordion adventurist Kimmo Pohjonen’s singular mission is to
expand the capabilities, sound, scope, performance and experience of
the accordion to levels never before attempted, seen or heard.
Accordion, voice, effects, surround sound and light show combine to
make a unique and captivating performance event.
A visionary of boundless energy, Pohjonen’s roots go back thirty years
in all forms of accordion music including folk, dance, classical, rock,
experimental, theatre music and more. His studies in the progressive
and innovative Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department were a critical
factor in Pohjonen’s transition to the boldly creative and versatile
musician / performer he is today.
“Pulverising avalanche of dark, primeval, sonic theatre” (Sydney
Morning Herald, Sydney Festival 2008 review)
Ville Walo
Ville Walo has grown known for the juggling style that balances on the
boundary surfaces between juggling, puppet theatre and dance. He is
a pioneer, innovator and reformer of contemporary juggling, who in
his work explores new juggling techniques and physical and spatial
movement in juggling. Walo has expanded the expression range of
juggling towards visual theatre and object theatre.
Walo is artistic director of Festival of New Juggling as well as Cirko
Festival of New Circus in Helsinki. Besides this group and solo work,
he has been working together with Jérôme Thomas Company. The Arts
Council of Finland gave Walo a 5-year artist grant starting from 2006.
“the intelligently composed scenes obtain a strong corporeality
through Walo’s stunts. Astonishing how well the states of mind of a
figure can be translated into juggling.” (Maerkische Allgemeine, 2007
review)
Association WHS
WHS is a new circus / visual theatre group. The productions of the group have been
a crucial factor behind the rise of Finnish new circus that has rapidly occurred in the
past decade. In the performances of the group Finnish new circus has become a very
modern, independent and continually changing form of expression, that other arts
compliment. In the press the performances have been called avant-garde also in the
larger contexts of theatre and art in general. The performances have been on the
sharp edge of the latest developments of theatre as well as circus.
Review:
2.12.2009
Pirkko Kotirinta / HELSINGIN SANOMAT
Iron Lung is contemporary art of recycling
"The visual core for Rautakeuhko (Iron Lung) by Kimmo Pohjonen and Ville Walo is
formed by the parts of a hundred past away accordions.
In the beginning a bellow grows from the body of the player as if it
was some strange additional part to his lung. In the end it lingers
stretching out on Kimmo Pohjonen’s behind like a tail; a squeezebox
out of his squeezebox, one could say. Or long tail, however you like to
put it.
In between there’s room for a massive amount of visual triggers and
loads of sound effects, as Pohjonen and juggler Ville Walo are
creating the art work called Rautakeuhko (Iron Lung) that gains its
force from music and new circus.
Its quintessential ingredients are recycled accordion parts, which have
been saved for example from the property left behind by the late
accordion repairer Matti Luukinen from Salla.
The name Iron Lung refers to the early resuscitation machine, and
during the performance quite a lot of things connect to the lethal pace
of modern (work) life. The accordion’s sound is seldom the traditional
one, instead it’s manipulated and sampled in many layers.
Should Walo and Pohjonen so wish, this art work will certainly rise on
its wings as one more highly original Finnish project – and it even is so
very contemporary as recycling art. "
Review:
Culture - 03. December 2009 Hämeen Sanomat
Music for all senses
Rautakeuhko is a humorous and devoted homage to the accordion
"MUSIC Concert performance Rautakeuhko. Music Kimmo Pohjonen, dance and
juggling Ville Walo, set and costumes Anne Jämsä, light design Antti Rehtijärvi,
sound design Heikki Iso-Ahola. Premiere in Hämeenlinna at Verkatehdas 1.12.
The performance by Kimmo Pohjonen (left) and Ville Walo offered a lot see
and marvel. The set made use of deassembled accordion parts. Photo: JS =
Juhani Salo
It would be a terrible over-simplification to call Rautakeuhko by
Kimmo Pohjonen and Ville Walo a concert. Even the term “concert
performance” mentioned in the program information doesn’t fully do
justice to the imaginative and visually full-bodied performance.
Maybe contemporary circus and object theatre get even a bit closer to
describing the magical entity that Pohjonen ja Walo had built around
accordion bellows and accordion music.
Lights, scenery, dancing and the surprising events reminiscent of
magic tricks were the delicious spices of this charming performance.
The music adapted to the events on stage – or the events to the music
– but the spectator’s attention was glued to the visual elements.
As the set and as the juggling props of the performance, they used a
collection of old broken accordion bellows that Pohjonen had saved to
his possession from the inheritance left by an accordion repairer.
Out of the bellows they had constructed huge, carriage wheel like
wheels, which Walo rolled on stage, and from the insides of which he
hatched out in the beginnig of the performance. The bellows were
tugged and battered, they were pulled like the heavy burden of the
Volga ferrymen – but above all the bellows were allowed to breathe
and sigh, whisper and cough.
Dusting out accordion
The internationally successful accordion artist and composer Kimmo
Pohjonen has wanted to break the stereotypic associations related to
accordions, and that he has done in Rautakeuhko as well.
The compositions of Pohjonen have never been anything like the most
traditional and popular “forest flowers”-waltzes, instead they are highly
original hybrids cooked up with ingredients from ethno music, rock
and art music.
In Rautakeuhko Pohjonen showed us once again how, in addition to
the juicy melodies, one can get the strangest imaginable sounds out
of an accordion by clanging, knocking and wheezing the bellows. A
part of the sounds was re-shaped trough electronic effect processors.
There was a lot of humour and hilarious rampaging in the
performance. Still at the bottom of it all one felt that this was an
accordion artist’s devoted homage to the instrument’s soul, the
bellows. "
Pirjo-Liisa Niinimäki
|
