Intention — how I was looking to grasp the world and found myself in it

Intention is a solo dance on a topic both simple and complex: attending to the world, the human body perceiving itself in the world. It is a revealing performance, depicting a sensitive human body in a boundless space, attempting to touch every moment of the now. Sometimes carefully, sometimes with force.

  
Photo Eeva Hannula & Ville Kumpulainen

Choreography and dance Akseli Aittomäki, sound design and music Borys Słowikowski
PR Inari Pesonen, production Inari Pesonen and Akseli Aittomäki, massavuoto - massescape
Funded by Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Premiere was in Helsinki on 12.1.2024. Performances in Helsinki 12.1.-14.1. at Liisa Pentti +Co studio.

The dance takes place in a simply lit room, which delimits the space for the body to inhabit and to move in. To move is to focus attention; it is active physical participation. The movement appears as subtle investigation; attentive, meditative, at times playful and rhythmic. The focus of attention travels in the space around the body; it turns to sensations felt, to sounds heard, it visits the body’s own pulse, it moves to the space that continues without limit beyond the room.

The movement has a direction, an aim, a meaning that is not necessarily expressed with words. It has a history and it has a form as the dancer has danced before, perhaps in this very room – but the shape of the movement is not the most important characteristic. How movement flows between the sensing and intending body and the space around the body is what matters. How movement flows between the performer and the spectator.

In the end it is not possible to divide existing as a human body, living, into distinct separable segments. To intend is to experience, to focus attention is to perceive, to act is to sense.

  
Photo Eeva Hannula & Ville Kumpulainen