Aikoinaan sanottua, muinoin kuultua, aina haukattua
Once said, heard long ago, always bitten
PREMIERE
Ars Weikkola 2th of August 2025
The piece, Once said, heard long ago, always bitten, offers a pause to dwell in the realms of indulgence, the transmission of customs, and artisanal craft. The characters search for a shared language through physicality, familiar gestures, and movements of their own making. From a pleasurable moment of dining emerges a ritual, a heritage around which one gathers in silence, in encounter, and in celebration through dance. Ornamental patterns, lacy surfaces, and festive forms come alive in the costumes. The complexity and detail of movement strive toward mutual understanding and shared existence.
The working group of the piece consists of Meri Lonkila and Emilia Ahopelto.
OMIA RUHJE
PREMIERE
Cultural Centre Caisa 18th of January 2024
The piece, Omia ruhje, by Omiaruhje-collective includes dance, circus and stage poetry. The collective’s artists create an atmospheric set of moments of joy and anxiety of being a human drawing inspiration from the expectations and adversities of it.
In the piece, the bruises and outbursts of emotions mould into a forward pushing force. By cherishing darkness, the artists question their inherited and internalised roles and ways of being through softness, courage and play.
Who invented the rules and how does one change them?
PREMIERE
Redfest-Festival 3rd of August 2023
Tar and other matters is a 20-minute piece by Omiaruhje collective’s dance artists Emilia Ahopelto and Meri Lonkila. It is a celebration of strength stemming from mundane and life changing moments of struggle and delight.
The piece contemplates the influence of the world's structures and expectations passed down by generations on the way of existing, creating and shaping one's own life. It lightheartedly gathers themes and ideas, such as, growing towards light, fighting, playing, and beauty standards and -rituals.
Through mediums of dance, object manipulation, literary art, and sound, the artists present an entity of ecstatic escapism with distinct ways of moving that take the performers through tar and other matters.
Melt
PREMIERE
Private Barn in Porvoo 5th March 2021
Melt is a site-specific piece by Omiaruhje collective’s circus artist Milla Kurronen and dance artist Meri Lonkila. It is a dance and circus performance for the whole family exploring functioning in extreme conditions. It draws inspiration from Herbert Ponting’s polar expedition film The Great White Silence (1924).
The piece takes the audience on an expedition to crumbling ice walls and windy glaciers, embodying the dynamics of ice, moving, opening, and compressing.
Set against the vastness and isolation of the North, Melt invites the audience into the world of a polar explorer. Moments of stillness, struggle, and surrender unfold in an environment where beauty and danger coexist. The performance asks how far we can push, stretch, and leap.
The work radiates uniqueness and a strong-willed spirit, and such a field expedition demands absolute trust.
Melt was performed to sold-out audiences across 14 shows.
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