Ada Halonen

Is there Alvar without Aino or vice versa?

Aino A is a play that spotlights on Aino Aalto, the modern and talented architect behind the well-known Alvar Aalto. The play is written by Kati Kaartinen and it's based on Jari Järvelä's novel 'Aino A'.

Aino A was selected for the main program of the Tampere Theatre Festival 2024.

Text: Jari Järvinen

Adaptation: Kati Kaartinen

Direction: Sini Pesonen

On stage: Miia Maaranen, Kalle Kurikkala, Marika Huomolin, Mirka Mylläri, Lise Holmberg, Anne Niilola, Osku Haavisto, Antti Leskinen and Kari Kukkonen

Musicians: Aleksandra Petrova and Georgii Petrov

Set design: Lucie Kuropatová

Dress design: Anne Hannula

Music design and conductor: Jouni Bäckström

Video design: Thomas Freundlich, Lucie Kuropatová

Light design: Ada Halonen

Hair and make-up design: Silja Huuhtanen

Production: Kotkan kaupunginteatteri, 2023

Photos: Niklas Malinen

Kettutyön paluu, 'The return of kettutyttö', is a story about human beings who love their cages and the terrifying possibility of freedom.

Hannu Peltokangas, a loyal soldier of the fur empire chained to his life's work, prepares for the last time to defend the legacy of his ancestors' unique relationship with animals. A mysterious epidemic has driven the competitors to its path and a great ancient culture is in hospice care.

However, as a result of an unexpected collision, a notch is torn in space-time, which seems to offer an opportunity to escape.

'The return of kettutyttö' is a story about the desire to live and the fear of change, and also about fathers and daughters who need dangerous spaces. The show examines the lone survivalist mentality and the strange security systems we build to avoid succumbing to the influence of our unpredictable fellow species.

The play takes place in the imaginary 'Pohjanmaa', the heartland of Finnish violence against animals, the collision point of parallel realities, moments before the outbreak of a major pandemic.

'The Return of Kettutyttö' is the third part of Aurinkoteatteri's nature documentary series, which examines the human species that have fallen off the rails of social development and their struggle for survival in a world where the old truth does not apply.

Text and direction: Sanna Hietala

On stage: Wilhelm Grotenfelt, Paul Holländer, Niklas Häggblom, Milla Kangas and Nora Raikamo.

Set design: Heini Maaranen

Costume design: Noora Salmi

Light design: Ada Halonen

Music and sound design: Matias Koskimies

Make-up design: Kaija Heijari

Production: Universum ry & Aurinkoteatteri 2023

Photos: Ada Halonen

Järjen hedelmät, The Grapes of Reason deals with the contradiction between rationality and corporality. What happens if the importance of the body is denied? Where the pleasure then resides or does it reside anywhere?

The Grapes of Reason is the third and the last part of the stage trilogy by Turunen. It continues the familiar theatrical language from her previous works, The Phantom of Normality and Medusa´s room.

Text and direction: Saara Turunen

On stage: Pirkko Hämäläinen, Katja Küttner, Anssi Niemi, Ylermi Rajamaa ja Kreeta Salminen

Set design: Milja Aho

Light design: Ada Halonen

Costume design: Roosa Marttiini

Sound design: Tuuli Kyttälä

Choreography: Janina Rajakangas

Make-up design: Kaisu Hölttä

Photos: Pate Pesonius

Production: Q-Theatre, 2022

ARMAGEDDON - Alternative cabaret

Armageddon sprawls a wild post-end times garden without inhabitations and plays with apocalyptic and popular, classical and avantgarde. The audience is beckoned into the embrace of imaginative and speculative feminist strength, the infernos of internal and external fires, and mayhem of prota-gonist-adjacent characters and asteroid showers. This artistic collaboration conjures an infernal show on stage, with diversity and difference ruling divine.

Armageddon is a collaborative work by actor-director Sara Melleri, choreographer-director Sonya Lindfors, and dance artist–music maker Elina Pirinen. Melleri and Lindfors are the creative leads of the production, while Pirinen creates a nested piece within the performance.

Premieres at Espoo City Theatre’s Revontuli Hall on March 9, 2022.

Performance languages Finnish, English

CONTENT WARNINGS

Mentions of world destruction and self-immolation | Nudity | Flickering lights | Loud sounds | Strong scents | Pyrotechnics and theatrical smoke | Strong language | Age recommendation 16 +

Concept: Sonya Lindfors, Sara Melleri and Elina Pirinen

Direction and choreography: Sonya Lindfors and Sara Melleri

Direction and choreography in the nested performance: Elina Pirinen

On stage: Antonia Atarah, Sara Paasikoski, Leila Kourkia, Kreeta Salminen, Sonya Lindfors and Sara Melleri

Performance dramaturg: Louna-Tuuli Luukka

Set and costume design: Virpi Nieminen

Sound design: Johanna Puuperä

Light design: Ada Halonen

Assistant of light design: Alina Pajula

Make-up design: Saara Sarvas

Photos: Venla Helenius

Production: Espoo City Theatre, 2022.

Anna Liisa, written by Minna Canth in 1895, is a powerful drama of the greatest turning points in the life of young Anna Liisa Kortesuo.

Text: Minna Canth

Adaptation: Sirkku Peltola and Hilkka-Liisa Iivanainen

Direction: Hilkka-Liisa Iivanainen

On stage: Miia Maaranen, Marika Huomolin, Mikkomarkus Ahtiainen, Juho Markkanen, Eeva Hautala, Jarkko Sarjanen, Anne Niilola, Osku Haavisto and Kari Kukkonen

Set and costume design: Annukka Pykäläinen

Music design: Ari Ismälä

Sound design: Tommi Leinonen

Light design: Ada Halonen

Hair and make-up design: Maarit Parkko-Orimus

Production: Kotkan kaupunginteatteri, 2021

Photos: Niklas Malinen

Props maker Jarno Pirinen (played by Antti Leskinen) experiences a surprise when he comes on stage to put the props ready for the next morning. The audience sits in the theater hall, even though the show has been canceled. This is the true star moment of the props maker.

Text: Eberhard Streul

Translation and adaptation: Liisa Urpelainen

Direction: Anne Niilola

Light and set design: Ada Halonen

Sound design: Tommi Leinonen

Props: Pia Mäkelä

Actor: Antti Leskinen

Production: Kotkan kaupunginteatteri, 2021

Photos: Ada Halonen

Tätiratsastajat “Stable Women” is a nature documentary where the fearless teenologist Pamela Kåla (played by Paul Holländer) examines the lost realm of stable girls as well as ancient heavy metal cultures. The myth of cruel monsters breaks down and an unprecedented close-up of completely misunderstood creatures opens up to us: Stable Women.

Tätiratsastajat is a melancholic horror fantasy filled with black humor. It looks into the female hatred and misogynism. Tätiratsastajat is also an independent sequel to Aurinkoteatteri's play Saalistajat “Predators”, which premiered in March 2017. Saalistajat was selected for the main program of the Tampere Theatre Festival and was also one of the finalists for the Lea Prize in 2018.

Tätiratsastajat was selected for the main program of the Tampere Theatre Festival 2021.

Text and direction: Sanna Hietala

On stage: Wilhelm Grotenfelt, Paul Holländer, Niklas Häggblom, Milla Kangas and Nora Raikamo.

Set design: Heini Maaranen

Costume design: Noora Salmi

Light design: Ada Halonen

Music and sound design: Antti Ikonen

Make-up design: Kaija Heijari

Production: Universum ry & Aurinkoteatteri 2020

Photos: Ada Halonen

”Though into dust my body will disintegrate, my mind will command the thunder.” Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816)

What would it be like to live forever?

This fantasy has haunted humanity for centuries. It truly seems mankind is unable to let go of it.

One possible way of approaching the idea comes from an unexpected source: The Russian Cosmists.

The Russian Cosmists were an intellectual movement of philosophers, scientists and mystics at the turn of the 20th century. Cosmism’s founding father, Nikolai Fedorov (1829-1903) thought that humans were not destined to die. All previous philosophies, according to Fedorov, had tried to achieve happiness and fulfilment for humans, but at the same time they had accepted the inevitability of death. He thought this was a mistake. For Fedorov, all human miseries were rooted in the fact of mortality. In order to achieve the true human potential, death had to be abolished, once and for all.

But what if this goal would be attained? What would eternal living be like?

Many (non-cosmist) philosophers claim that mortality is the source of meaning in human life. Life makes sense because it is temporal and finite. All living things must eventually pass away. Would life without this horizon of finitude be even be living at all?

“Viiden tähden teatteriesitys pohtii kuolemattomuutta ja hajottaa totuttuja mielikuviamme.” Maria Säkö, Helsingin sanomat, 30.11.2019.

Ada Halonen was awarded with the Säde Prize in 2019 for lighting design in the INFINITO performance. The Säde-prise is an annual honorary award of the Finnish Association of light, sound and video designers (SVÄL).

Working group:

Andriana Seecker

Wilhelm Grotenfelt

Paul Holländer

Ilja Lehtinen

Ada Halonen

Andreas Catjar

Production: Sirius teatern, 2019

Photos: 1, 4-6 Ada Halonen, 2-3 Tani Simberg

Medusa was, according to Greek mythology, a beautiful young girl who was raped by Poseidon. Medusa was transformed into a horrible monster with a snakes on her hair.

Medusan huone (Medusa Room) is a fragmentary theatre performance inspired by the Medusa myth. It is a subtle and dreamy description of gender-related power and silencing practices. The work looks at its topics with the help of music and visual narration.

Text and direction: Saara Turunen

Set design: Milja Aho

Light design: Ada Halonen

Costume design: Suvi Matinaro

Sound design: Tuuli Kyttälä

Coreography: Janina Rajakangas

Actors: Elina Knihtilä, Tommi Korpela, Katja Küttner,  Aksinja Lommi and Ylermi Rajamaa

Production: Q-Teatteri, 2019

Photos: 1-3, 5 Aino Nieminen, 4, 7 Ada Halonen, 5 Milja Aho

Will you still love me tomorrow 1-3 is a comical trilogy that combines elements of theatre and performance art. Main theme of the series is climate change. Part one focuses on the reasons of climate change, it takes place in a airplane setting. In part two, audience is seated at the bottom of grave next to the end of the world. In the final part, we focus on the future of not only humankind, but of the whole world. The shows were a production of Sirius Teatern and were played at the Universum Theatre 2018.

Working group: Ada Halonen, Anttoni Halonen and Wilhelm Grotenfelt.

With support of Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Photos: 2-5 Ada Halonen, 1 and 6-7 Saara Karppinen.

A dance piece about the sixth extinction and the art of happiness.

Themes: climate change, the 6th extinction, technology, mortality, pleasure, touch, good life.

Script & Direction: Teemu Mäki.
(Citations: Stephen Hawking, V.A. Koskenniemi, Pentti Saarikoski.)
Choreography: Hanna Ahti & Maija Mustonen & all of us.
Performers: Hanna Ahti, Krista-Julia Arppo, Maija Karhunen, Maija Mustonen, Laura Rämä, Olavi Uusivirta and Mirka Viitala.
Additional performers, through video & audio recordings: Teemu Mäki, Yvette Odjo.

Live music, interpreted by pianist Mirka Viitala.
Compositions by Mamoru Fujieda, Toivo Kuula, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Domenico Scarlatti, Galina Ustvolskaya and Iannis Xenakis.

Light design: Ada Halonen.
Cinematography: Jonatan Sundström.
Photography: Jonatan Sundström & Teemu Mäki.
Sound design, direction of videos: Teemu Mäki.
Scenography: Teemu Mäki, Tuomas Niemelä, Titta Vilhunen.
Producer: Ulrika Vilke / Rospuutto, 2017

The nationwide significance of the Piispankatu street, located in the area between Turku Cathedral and Tuomaanpuisto park, is related to science and university, the Turku Academy, the service staff, factory work and churchly life. Since the 17th century, many of the inhabitants and travellers of the area have been creating key institutions, movements and phenomena that are now inextricably linked to the Finnish-like identity.

Jäljet - Poimintoja Piispankadulta performance took place in a fully lived urban space and public buildings, ending in a private residence. The performance started in front of the Cathedral and ran along Piispankatu, one of Finland's oldest streets. The characters of the play are based on the people who lived in Piispankatu during the ages. Jäljet - Poimintoja Piispankadulta combines theatre, modern dance and collective memory related to local and general history.

Text: Anna Viitala

Direction: Fiikka Forsman

Choreography: Soile Voima

Original idea, set design: Ada Halonen

Sound design: Niklas Nybom

Music: Topi Laitinen

Performers: Seidi Haarla, Eila Halonen, Jussi Järvinen, Hannu Kivioja and Soile Voima

Experts of historical material: Mari Agge and Panu Savolainen

Producer: Maria Junno

Production assistant, guidance of audience: Katarina Pada

Production co-operation with Turku City Theatre, 2016

Photos: 1-3 and 5-6 Noora Isoeskeli, 4 Ada Halonen

During the 90’s, Lars Norén left his bourgeois family to write a series of plays depicting people on the bottom of society. Besides the engagement for the outkasts, these plays are characterized by a mininmalistic poetry where the human attributes; words, postures, gestures seem cut off from their purpose. As if the human still resembles himself, but has through his repetitions been scratched open and hollowed out, lost himself in the overflow of attributes whirling around, they form some kind of hieroglyphs of absence; attributes of life that existed a long time ago and now appear as poetry.

Text: Lars Norén

Direction and choreography: Anders Carlsson and Andriana Seecker

Actors: Paul Olin, Paul Holländer and Wilhelm Grotenfelt

Light design: Ada Halonen

Production: Universum/ Sirius Teatern, 2014

Photos: 1-4 Tani Simberg, 5 Ada Halonen

I only want you to love me of Fascism will triumpf! -performance is thematically based on love and is inspired by the life and works of German film-director and dramaturg Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The aim is to examine the limits between the private and the political, the imaginary and the real, the stage and the audience, and the self and the other.

Direction and choreography: Anders Carlsson and Andriana Seecker

Dramaturgy: Christoph Wirth

Music and sound design: Andreas Catjar

Set design: Andriana Seeker

Costume design: Jeannine Simon

Light design: Ada Halonen

On stage: Peter Ahlqvist , Andrea Björkholm, Kajsa Ek, Nils Granberg, Wilhelm Grotenfelt, Petter Kevin, Julia Korander, Iida Kuningas, Kira Pohtokari, Matti Raita, Tinja Sabel and Christoffer Strandberg.

Production: Theatre Academy Helsinki and Institutet (SWE), 2012

Photos: Tani Simberg

Text: Juha Itkonen

Direction: Jussi Nikkilä

On stage: Lotta Kaihua, Hannu Kivioja, Pirjo Lonka, Sanna-Kaisa Palo, Eero Ritala and Elena Leeve/ Saara Kotkaniemi

Sound design and music: Kasperi Laine

Set design: Camilla Nenonen

Costume design: Riitta Röpelinen

Light design: Ada Halonen

Make-up design: Riikka Virtanen

Production: Q-Teatteri, 2013.

Photos: Pate Pesonius

Light installation Blue square was a tribute to Mariella Bettinesch’s public artwork Carro Celeste (published 1994). Blue Square -light installation showed Carro Celeste in a new way and in new light. Installation took place in the turn of the year 2015–2016 in Turku, Finland.

Light design: Ada Halonen

The installation was made with the support of the City of Turku and the Arts Promotion Center and in co-operation with the Turku Museum Center and Turku Energy.