''Antibody" by Tomi Pasonen

This piece is the result of a collateral damage. Having lost my August 2020 job due to the pandemic, when I was asked to part take in the Hybrid Festival I spontaneously decided to dive into a two week process in the studio, to dance, to build, to make a world. To vent and to shed. After a 6 month period of globally, collectively and individually isolating and negotiating every human interaction, we are all experiencing the epic paradigm shifting wave of the earth shedding itself from our habits and ways of life.

This solo deals with the neurosis of the body in a confined space, unleashes our paradoxical disconnection from the natural world. Escapes into the malleable projections of fake news as a replacement of our desire to connect. The homesickness for the ways of life we have lost is confused by attention to detail, in order to distract ourselves from the invisible threats forcing us question our priorities.

Tomi Paasonen, born in Finland, was a ballet dancer in Hamburg, San Francisco and Chicago until an accident ended his dancing career in 1997. Since 1991 he has choreographed over 70 pieces, mainly dance pieces but also directing opera, theater, photo and film projects as well as interactive installations and site specific projects. In 2013-2018 he was Artistic Director and festival curator of a national dance center in Finland. In 2019, he returned to Berlin, where he began archiving his life's work as a preparation for his comeback to the stage. 2020-2021 he created his very first solo trilogy for himself with the main themes: past, present and future. The preoccupation with his own body as a performer and dancer again led him to, after decades, reinvestigate his relationship with ballet, resulting in the premieres of “Attitude” and “Pas de Q” in 2022.

@tomi.paa