Netti Nüganen with Pire Sova & KISLING (Estonia) – ASH, HORIZON, RIDING A HOUSE
Duration: 75 min.
ATTENTION: The performance includes loud sounds and smoke.
The performance is part of the Baltic Dance Platform programme.
In “Ash, horizon, riding a house” Nüganen and her two collaborators reflect on identity and belonging as fluid constructs, shaped by weather and place. By facing the instability of our environment, the audience is invited to consider how we might belong to a landscape that cannot stay the same.
Responding to a world where land, language, and folklore have become commodities, Nüganen, Sova and Kisling surround themselves with ice. The audience is invited to tend to ice-objects, while dripping ice panels become the center of gravity. The performance unfolds as a series of chain reactions that Nüganen threads as a narrator. She proposes multiple perspectives on locality by morphing through characters like a real estate agent, an auctioneer and a tourist.
“Ash, horizon, riding a house” explores how identity, as something shaped by geography, can open up space for fluidity, movement, and transformation. In the backdrop of constant dripping, the expectation of permanence is fully abandoned. After ice there is water, and melting becomes an act of resistance: against control and the desire to conquer.
Concept, choreography: Netti Nüganen
Performance: Netti Nüganen, Pire Sova, Michaela Kisling
Sound design: Michaela Kisling
Scenography, costumes: Pire Sova
Text: Netti Nüganen
Light design: Klimentina Li
House-costume: Zody Burke
Ice-moulds: Madlen Hirtentreu
Production management: partner in crime and Kaie Küünal
A production by Netti Nüganen in co-production with Tanzquartier Wien and Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Tallinn.
Curator for Tanzquartier Wien: Lewon Heublein.
Supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sports, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival.
Photos by: Emilia Mileska, Ive Trojanović, Ronja-Elina Kappl.
The Baltic Dance Platform is a biennial event held in a different Baltic capital since 2019. It consistently and purposefully showcases contemporary dance from the Baltic region and its artists in both international and regional contexts. At the same time, the Baltic Dance Platform provides opportunities for collaboration among cultural professionals and the exchange of knowledge and experience. This year The Baltic Dance Platform will take place on April 22–25 in Vilnius.
Baltic Dance Platform organizers: Lithuanian Dance Information Centre, Latvian Dance Information Centre, Estonian Dance Performance and Development Center “Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava”.
Partners: Contemporary Dance Association (Lithuania), Association of Choreographers (Latvia), Estonian Union of Dance Art and Dance Education.
Supported by: Vilnius City Municipality, Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Estonia.
