Juha Valkeapää: Animal beings

Animal beings is a non-verbal and verbal performance by artist Juha Valkeapää. It invites the audience to reflect on, imagine, and experiment with what it means to exist in the world from the perspective of nonhuman animals. In the performance, Valkeapää’s voice, body, and movement, along with poems, performance instructions, and soundscapes turn the entire theatre building / museum space into a stage.

With a light and playful touch, Animal Beings shifts our gaze toward other animals and explores how all living and non-living beings are interconnected and interdependent. The core of the work is formed by vocalizations — both wordless and with words — and performance instructions that are carried out together with the audience. Most of the poems featured are from Eeva Kilpi’s Animalia, alongside texts by Anni Kytömäki, Sirpa Kyyrönen, Henriikka Tavi, and excerpts from Eva Meijer’s Animal Languages. Performed in Finnish and/or English, the piece is suitable for all ages.

Script, direction, performance Juha Valkeapää
Lighting and spatial design Jenni Pystynen
Dramaturgical assistance and English translation of poems Heidi Soidinsalo
Costume Tero Nauha and JV
Fictional texts Eeva Kilpi, Matsuo Bashõ, William Blake, Anni Kytömäki, Sirpa Kyyrönen, W. S. Merwin, Maila Pylkkönen, Henriikka Tavi, Suomen kansan vanhat runot (The Ancient Runo-songs of the Finnish People)
Other texts Eva Meijer, JV
Production Juha Valkeapää’s Voice
Support Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation