Henry starts the work by painting walls with burgundy red at Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Hemmo Hytönen

I got the idea for a tour especially in Finland when I was in St. Petersburg with Tero Saarinen Company in 2006 for St. Petersburg 300th anniversary party. Our Minister of Cultural Affairs arrived to give a speech before our performance. The minister was a tall, charming young blonde (former Miss Finland - and constantly in the teeth of press). She arrived to the stage of Alexander Theatre followed by Russian interpreter who happened to be a very old and very tiny nun. What an unforgettable duetto.

After the performance the minister arrived to the back stage. She seemed to be very touched by the performance. She spoke Finnish with Tero but when I arrived she hesitated a moment and switched into English. I answered in Finnish, actually Ostrobothnian dialect - with a big smile. I had a good reason for that since previous day she has signed a five-years state artist grant to me and Tero. She was very sorry because she did not know if I speak Finnish or...well, I don´t look like a Finnish person, I know. Then I decided to have a proper tour in my dear home country (and get back my Finnish identity). That night we had a great party with he minister and later on she kindly opened the Tarot exhibition in Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki...
But let´s go back from Russian memoirs to Kuntsi opening in 2010!

After the opening even the staff has time to read the holy books.
Photo: Harry Wester

In March 2010 the tour is over. During one year I exhibited in five Finnish museums and now everybody seem to speak Finnish to me. The last stop was not least but the most sophisticated and charming: city of Vaasa and Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art. I have never exhibited or performed this close to Perho (Butterfly) the place I was born 50 years ago. Suddenly in the opening I saw lots of people who seem to have similar genes with me! That was touching and peculiar.

Tuomari Nurmio, Anne-Maj Salin and Marita in opening night at Kuntsi.
Photo: Hemmo Hytönen

The spirit of Kuntsi Museum is unusual in Finland. The 3-years old museum is impeccably stylish, everything is high quality from the art collection to the restaurant. There is also certain playfulness and joy of work and being together in the air. Behind the welcoming spirit we found the director herself: Anne-Maj Salin. She is truly the queen of the house. The opening night was packed and Tuomari Nurmio played for the house full of different kind of folks from mayor of the city to young arty students.

Tuomari gives Marita “One more lesson” (This masterpiece of Finnish rock lyric was written on the wall in the CMR exhibition)

The Kunsti exhibition combined Choosing My Religion downstairs and Tarot upstairs. The former customs house shared the human scale of my works. Installation was perfect. After the opening we decided to start collaboration in order to distribute the exhibition. First step will be in Norway and other Nordic countries in 2011.

A couple reading their personal card text in Tarot exhibition. “Are you really a Lover!!” Yaa, watch out dear: you seem to be the Devil herself!”

After a hectic week we started the weekend in Finnish way, from airport we went to sauna. Friday habit!
In Swedish sauna is BAD which was not very tempting as a sign but once we were inside Centralbadet next to Hötorget, we felt GOD (good in Swedish). The food was excellent, interior (1920´s) was charming and the last surprise, mysterious big pool with dim lighting was like a strange dream. David Lynch could film there…

The next day we met dancer-choreographer Virpi Pahkinen at the opening at Art Academy. The people and building itself were more interesting than the art. Outside we enjoyed the sun
and cold (-17) and chatted about our forthcoming work plans. In the evening we had a nice supper in celebrity packed Sturehovet.

Marita and Virpi, photo by Pia Pho, (other photos by Marita).

Every time I meet Virpi, she says something, which stays in my mind for days. In Sturehovet she dropped a sentence: “one has to have confidence in subconscious”, with glint in her eyes, followed with a grin. Those who are able to read Finnish, check her fresh book Käärmeensyöjä, The Snake Eater. Virpi is truly talented storyteller, contemporary for our common favorite, adventurer-author Isabelle Eberhardt. Virpi´s site: www.pahkinen.com

Next day we got happily stuck in Dansmuseet because the exhibition was really well made and there were lots of original dance pieces on video - next to the original costumes. Fabulous Nijinsky choreography for Stravinsky´s The Rite of Spring…I saw the costumes first time. Male dancers seemed to be around my size in 1920´s, which is 160 cm! From the small but full packed bookshop I found some rare ballet videos I have been looking for. The stylish café offers one of the best views to Stockholm.What a treat for all senses!

Last time I visited Venice 2007 I saw an exceptional installation in Palazzo Fortuny, former home of a versatile artist and designer Marino Fortuny. The exhibition was titled ARTEMPO – Where Time Becomes Art. The old rustic palace offered an extraordinary back round to a superb collection of art and objects from ancient to contemporary time. The collector behind the project is Axel Vervoordt from Belgium.

The motto of the exhibition was from Albert Einstein:
”The most beautiful experience we can have is the Mysterious.
It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and science. ”

In 2009 I went back to the mysterious Palazzo and spent several meditative hours in the IN-FINITY exhibition. This year more floors were opened but the magic of time was still there.

In Giardini I found the national pavilions of Netherlands and Poland excellent and somehow related to Fortuny´s human time perspective. Fiona Tan´s stunning video installation Disoriented is based on stories of Marco Polo. The voice of the story teller reaches us from year 1295 but the rough and dreamy videos are from the silk roads of today. How little human life has changed during 700 years!

After days of walking and seeing more art than one can digest I decided to take a boat and spend one slow day with Italian friend in the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Just to calibrate the senses. In a huge Benedictine abbey Peter Greenaway brings Paolo Veronese´s painting ”The Wedding of Cana” back to life. With a little help of digital technology the painting turned theater.

How strange was to step out from the chapel and see San Marco on front. Doge´s palace is under renovation and now half covered with Sisley´s enormous advertisement. Three modern beauties approach the skies of Venice through golden frames. The merchants of Venice are working hard.

Very young but electrifying Baris dancer in Peliatan village, Bali.

Legong dancers in Ubud

Serius little dancer in Betty Boop t-shirt on front of a temple.

Photographer enjoying her work in tropical heat.

Our super star arrived modestly with a motorbike, half naked in a short sarong with his son in the back. He had long black hair, robust, passionate face and kind eyes. I introduced myself and tried not to pay attention to his masculine and muscular body. He looked at me from tip to toe and asked: "are you a dancer" twice during the conversation. I was a bit flattered, have to confess. I got the permission and we made an appointment after the performance to talk more.

Somebody climbed up to the tower of the temple and lit fires. At a sudden there were 50 men and boys on front of the temple and the familiar cak cak started in chorus. An elderly priest in white clothes gave blessings to the men. After some time the ritual turned pretty wild when burning coconuts were thrown towards the crowd. Rina started to play football with the burning coconuts and the audience jumped up to see what´s going on and how this will end.

Soon the fire was everywhere and half naked and barefoot men were too many to escape it. All the men were singing, shouting and whispering. Rina himself was dancing around like the monkey army general Hanuman himself. He kept the control and nobody was hurt. Performance ended up to a healing ceremony where he was carried away. At the end the priest closed the ritual by spraying water on men.

After the audience was gone Rina arrived to look for me. His hair was a mess and running sweat, coal and dirt made him look like a devil himself. But his eyes were calm and kind. I recognized a familiar after performance emptyness in his eyes, which is a very fine moment. He surely needed a beer and a shower. The Dutch lady was still behind me. I could hear her sigh, oh Rina himself, he comes to talk to you. You can talk with Rina...ooh.

Next day we came back to have a closer look to the Agung Rai Art Museum (ARMA). I was photographing gilded gamelan instruments in the garden when a smiling man in sarong approached me. He turned out to be Agung Rai himself, the founder and owner of the Arma. He took us to the gardens and temples of this extraordinary museum which is a good example how a contemporary museum should function with living artists and local people.

Agung Rai playing hide and seek with Marita in Arma

After Choosing My Religion premiere in Kiasma we happily booked ourselves into a flight to Singapore and continued right on to Bali. Idea of one way ticket has always been the most attractive to me. Am I still such a foolish travel romantic after all these years, 53 countries and countless kilometers? Yes is the answer, I tell myself in a plane full of sleeping people. I like nights in planes and hospitals. I feel I´m in safe hands.

What brings me back to Bali here and then? I never counted how many times I have been on this tiny tropical island but it must be more than ten. I´m curious to see how the balinese keep their rich and original combination of culture and religion alive from generation to another. TV seem to attract them less than other nations and the reason seem to be in the social structure. Sharing and togetherness are the main keys to the culture.

Road to Uluwatu in twilight

After holidays on the beach we hired a car, had a lunch in Sanur and started to drive slowly towards Candi Dasa. First kilometers were sheer horror because we were not accustomed to left side traffic and motorbikes who appear from all sides and directions. Not to mention the dogs who wander in the traffic just like cows in India. The last kilometers were another horror – I was struck by infamous Bali belly. The soto ayam (chicken soup) I had for lunch was obviously a wrong choice.

With my last strength I picked up a hotel from Routard, my favorite French travel guide. We ended up to Aquarium, a magnificent piece of architecture on front of the sea. Routard was again really up to date since the hotel has been open only 18 months. I spend the first night in this zen luxury mansion admiring hand made tiles of the toilet floor...

In October I went back to New York in order to complete the texts for the CMR book. I know exactly when a multimedia piece, a painting or a photograph is completed but writing...I seem to need a strict dead line. I want to correct and rewrite my texts endlessly. This time consuming process seem to be easier far from my daily routines – if I have any routines.

I settled down to an old flat next to cozy Union Square area, took a walk around the quarter and opened my laptop. After eight hours I had to stretch and get something to eat. Only then I noticed the atmosphere around me. It could be called obamania. Wherever I went and with whoever I talked, every subject turned into Mr. Obama.

I guess the last time there was such an aura around an American politician was at the time of Kennedy clan. I can still remember a hot and dusty summer day in June 1968. I cried in the back of our van when I heard radio news about the murder of Robert Kennedy. That was my first political murder. I could not remember JFK`s murder since I was only 5 in 1963.

On November 4, 2008 I cried of joy and some kind of relief when Obama won the election. Leaving New York I took last glimpse to the Big Apple through JFK airport glass walls. I saw a blood red graffiti ”nobama” in a bus stop. I gulped and send immediately a message to angels or anyone who could keep murderers away from Barack Obama and all other great professionals who try to make this world a bit more open, fair and tolerant.

That´s my greatest wish for the New Year 2009 as well.

My first visit to fabulous Istanbul was rainy and chilly. Never mind, I fell in love with the fabulous city right away and Blue Mosque turned pink...

Year 2008 started in Bangkok and soon after the night train took me through mysterious Laos.
My aim to photograph in Wat Saket in Vientiane succeeded well. I also visited a sauna in Vientiane, just in the middle of jungle!

The year 2007 started with great moods and new challenging projects.
I am spending January and February as an artist-in residence in Brooklyn.
New York is ideal for making back ground research for my new
multi-platform artwork about major religions of the world.
They are all here!

The very first large photographs from the series titled ”Choosing My
Religion” will be on display at the Stockholm Art Fair in February. The
first exhibition about this theme will take place in October in
Helsinki. I guess it will take me several years to complete the entire
idea, but why not. My themes tend to be larger than life, but
nevertheless I work them out.

During my ”hermitage” in Brooklyn I am writing a book about my work and
ideas. It will be published also in October during the Helsinki Book
Fair, exactly on my 50th birthday. Quite a present!

In the first days in Brooklyn I went to the Botanical Garden, and shot
cherry blossoms (in January!) for my Shinto series. This is the third
time I photograph the very same tree. After hours of working outside I
went to warm up next doors – to the Annie Leibovitz exhibition titled
"Photographer´s Life" at the massive Brooklyn Museum of Art. It surely
warmed me up and gave food for thought for many days… such as
reflecting on how thin a line there is between life and death. As long
I´m on this side of the invisible line, I should appreciate every
moment. After all, I have.

Tired but happy TSC again at the JFK airport. We definetely did it! The press called us "the Finnish dream team" but it was really like that, also behind the stage! We are nine very different characters from various backrounds touring abroad one month together - without a single argument. Thank you Tero, Iiris, Nina, Sini, Henrikki, Heikki, Calle, Ville and Eero. Such a pleasure to work with you.

When we left the Joyce Theatre after seven performances, the good mooded staff of the theatre just waved and yelled "you guys will be soon back"! This was the main message from the press too: the Finnish dream team should be soon back in US and Canada. Below are some reviews of Hunt. Read complete articles at www.terosaarinen.com/blog

Tero Saarinen Company From Finland Dances in New York

The Tero Saarinen Company from Finland made its New York debut in 1998. It was welcomed warmly, but for whatever reason, it took eight years to return. Its opening at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday night was an occasion for some terrific dancing, building happily from strength to strength over the three pieces on the program.....

...None of this would have mattered much without Mr. Saarinen's choreography, which looked constantly alive and original. It was at its very best in the final piece, "Hunt," a 2002 solo for himself. Audaciously set to Stravinsky's "Sacre du Printemps" (in Esa-Pekka Salonen's fleet, intense recording), its overt intentions — something about confronting the depredations of age — mattered less than the eerie atmosphere Mr. Saarinen created. His figure, initially dressed in a white sarong, looked more hunted than hunting. He often moved in spasmodic increments, like a strobe effect without the strobe lighting. That came later, in the equally powerful lighting and projections of Marita Liulia. The second half of the dance found Mr. Saarinen in an alien world of Ms. Liulia's design, with ghostly clouds and faint gray projections on the back wall. The cloud became a skirt or a tutu — Mr. Saarinen as male swan? — onto which were projected vivid, bizarre, swirling, flashing, broken fragments of bodies, above all a recurrent eye. At the very end, he leapt and leapt, each leap caught in midair with a flash of white light.

The whole thing was quite extraordinary, a powerful match for the music. It made one anticipate Mr. Saarinen's date at Jacob's Pillow this summer and fervently hope he makes it back to New York sooner than another eight years.

Lisa Rinehart Dance View Times

A Reluctant Star, Sort Of. . .

Tero Saarinen has kivekset (that's Finnish for hutzpah—in a manner of speaking.) Fortunately, he also has talent and the smarts to choose gifted collaborators. Already recognized internationally as a powerful performer (although I'm afraid he's allowed himself to be described in the program as "one of the most brilliant dancers of his generation"), Saarinen brings to New York a tasting platter of his own choreography....
The star of the evening, however, (and this is where the hutzpah comes in) is unquestionably Saarinen himself in his solo "Hunt," a multimedia tour de force set to nothing less than Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." Dance history is littered with attempts to realize this magnificent score, but Saarinen is startlingly successful by teaming up with multimedia artist, Marita Liula, as well as costume designer, Erika Turunen, and again, Kunttu. The dance unfolds with the fitful reluctance of early spring and is infused with references to the Diaghilev era. There are bits of Anna Pavovla in "The Dying Swan," as well as archaic positions reminiscent of Nijinsky in his "Afternoon of a Faun." Saarinen has the delicate rawness of a butterfly fresh out of the chrysalis. About midway into the dance, a structure resembling an exploded sheaf of papers fashioned into a tutu descends from the rafters and Saarinen wriggles into it. Mirroring the wild dynamics of Stravinsky's score, Liula's projections begin to flash across skin and dress alike. The images range from hypnotic circular tracings to pulsating collages of barely discernible, but somehow disturbing, objects. Rapid fire editing catches the breath and pulls us into Stravinsky's primal cacophany. If you happen to be a film buff, the net effect is similar to that of the 1929 surrealistic film "Un Chien Andalou," by Salvadore Dali and Luis Bunuel. It's heady stuff and Saarinen summons his considerable strength and feline grace to the task of compressing the miracle of birth, transformation and death into this 40 minute spectacle. The dance culminates with strobe lights repeatedly freezing Saarinen in space (in perfect unity with the score) and ends with the inevitable final collapse. What could be a mess of theatrics is instead an original and stirring visual realization of Stravinsky's emotional intent. Bravo!

Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, April 4th, 2006

Siege of Light
Finnish troupe returns after an eight-year absence

Tero Saarinen, the remarkable Finnish choreographer-dancer, isn't the first to choreograph Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a solo. But he may be the first to internalize the composer's driving rhythms rather than stepping them out, as did Molissa Fenley in her 1988 State of Darkness and Nijinsky's hordes in his 1913 sacrificial ritual. In Hunt, Saarinen's torso and arms map aspirations and assaults. He's not the hunter but the hunted—by the specter of age and death or by the onslaught of contemporary civilization or both. He doesn't attempt to ride Stravinsky's tempest; he endures its pummeling.

His vision owes much to lighting designer Mikki Kunttu; Marita Liulia, who created slides and other multimedia effects; Jacke Kastelli, programmer; and costume designer Erika Turunen. When we first glimpse Saarinen, he is backlit, his outline glowing as he advances unsteadily, dragging around first one foot, then the other. He's bare chested and wears a white skirt. His only onstage audience is a semicircle of lamps set on the floor.

Watching Saarinen in Hunt, you might not guess he was once a soloist in the Finnish National Ballet (although that company's repertory is eclectic and contemporary). You might, however, deduce that he studied butoh in Japan with Kazuo Ohno. He performs the first part of Hunt as if listening for a call, his body arching, his arms outspread. There are echoes of Fokine's Dying Swan in his attempts to rise from the floor, but his "wings" are often distorted and pulled painfully far behind him.

I think we did it right from the beginning. After Westward ho! the audience thought this is something strange and unusual. During the sensual Wavelenghts they decided they liked it, and at the end of Hunt they just caught their breath and went silent. After Tero´s last leap toward the skies (or death) it was so quiet I could hear my own heart beat. Then the emotional storm of the audience broke the death silence. The reviews of the next days repeated the Canadian pattern, often with the invitation, please come back soon! We certainly will.

New York Times about Hunt:
The whole thing was quite extraordinary, a powerful match for the music. After two days, they also ranked the performance among the three MUST´s of NY at the moment.

Read the reviews from www.terosaarinen.com/blog