NEW PERFORMANCE TURKU BIENNALE: TUOMAS LAITINEN – AUDIENCE BODY

Audience Body is a theatrical event of shared reading. No performer will step on stage. Instead a subtle being appears — the audience body.

The performance addresses the collective corporeal intelligence of an audience and directs its gaze towards itself. It is composed of reading objects, proposing different arrangements and experiences: rolls of paper unwinding, love letters ripped, words eaten and multiple hands immersed in water. It deals with audience as a phenomenon: the collectivity, the density, the liveness and the related tensions that appear when we gather in order to receive.

Audience Body premiered at Moving in November festival in Helsinki in 2022, in collaboration with Zodiak the Center for New Dance.

It is the second artistic part of Tuomas Laitinen’s artistic doctorate at the Performing Arts Research Center Tutke in the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki.

The performance is bilingual: all parts are available both in Finnish and in English.

Tuomas Laitinen works as a director, performer, writer, curator and teacher between the fields of live and performance art, contemporary theatre and contemporary dance. Laitinen’s artistic practice is particularly focused on questioning the role of the audience, experimenting with it, and consequently developing new forms of performance. Currently, he works with a doctoral research project at Performing Arts Research Center Tutke, Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, and is a part of the curatorial group of the Stage for Contemporary Performance at Helsinki City Theatre.

Duration: 100 min.

Pre-booking: https://www.eventbrite.fi/e/tuomas-laitinen-yleisoruumis-tickets-689269191707
Tickets are also available from the door, 15 minutes before the performance.

The visit is done in collaboration with the Reality Research Centre.
The work is supported by Brother.