rampa landscape is a disability political performance, created by us, a working group called rampa productions. In this piece of approximately two hours long, we share some findings of our working process.
The performance is something else than traditional. When designing the audience experience, we have paid attention to extensive accessibility and care. We encourage the audience to witness the work in ways that suit them: how to experience a performance without leaving your bodymind to the cloakroom?
This is a work in progress,
performance of a landscape, landscape of a performance,
a small ecosystem[1] that – defying all odds – developed into a corner of the abled reality[2],
living in crip time[3].
A landscape of sharing, several hearts beating, a gentle and spongy hummock.
A train is about to split the landscape, how to pull the brakes? The scenery itself endlessly in motion. It has its metabolism, simultaneous streams and cycles. On this terrain, no linear progress; time is measured by beeping of the reminders; time bends the tracks; time circles back; time awaits; and does it circle back again?
We are a local crip artistic group. Working with our body/minds, we have created a routine that is
lazy, late and absent.
May we practice with you?
Your bodymind is your plus one.
You can help us out if that suits you. This piece is unfinished[4].
Bodymind, are you hanging off the cliff of your independence or resting in the shared hammock of interdependence? What would a weave of symbiotic solidarity feel like?
Take the best possible position.
Would you like a pillow, or some music to stim[5] to? Are thoughts different in horizontal? On the horizon? Beyond the skyline?
Anybody lost in the thicket or wandering landscapeless, is invited to unwind with us.
Welcome.
Footnotes
1)
Landscape owned by no one: already here. Landing and easing into it: almost-impossible.
Leaving the landscape: perhaps there was receiving, sharing.
2)
In the abled/pinkoja reality, the TABs[6] keep racing by the rhythm of capitalism,
carrying the demand to make it alone in their backpack,
its uncomfortable straps hindering against the shoulders.
3)
Disabled, sick, ill, in pain, deviant, crazy, not-abled-anymore, exhausted, traumatized, useless.
Rampa rethinks and redoes disability. What if in the arts, community, vulnerability, politics, were centred?
4)
This consists of living bodyminds entangled with each other, and caught up in questions.
We are crazy, absent and late.
We are distracted, lazy and running late.
We are hyper-fixated, waitwhatwastheword, and absent.
5)
I rock back and forth
pacing, racing, running
tick tocking like a clock
bouncing jumping twirling
I rock back and forth
counting tapping jiggling whistling
tick tocking like a clock
drumming cracking biting blinking
I rock back and forth, back and forth.
6)
TAB = Temporarily Able-Bodied
Working group description
rampa productions consists of artist-facilitator Isa Hukka, and artists Aku Meriläinen, Una Auri, Juti Saari, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, and Sophia Mitiku
and project producer Nóri Varga from Baltic Circle.
To read more about their works, please see bios here.
With us creating the rampa landscape:
Sound technician: f rizzo
Expert in Visual Interpretation: Anu Aaltonen
Chef: Ziggy Allen
Ziggy Allen works intuitively with different art media, such as video, poetry, textile, installation and performance. The themes that Ziggy is researching at the moment are building sustainable communities, Afrofuturistic philosophies, dream and care work.
In their latest production, Ziggy channels the theme of nurturing the spirit, body and togetherness trough food. “Food can be a vehicle for social change. It brings people together in a way that very few other activities can.” – Anim Steel
rampa productions is a Helsinki-based crip artistic working group convened by Isa Hukka in the Spring of 2023. The working process is three months long in total.
The main goals of the process are: (1) to crip structures of performing arts in the context at hand, (2) to work in dialogue with Baltic Circle, and (3) to present an outcome at the Baltic Circle festival in which some findings of the work are shared with the audience.
In the facilitation of the working group, trauma-informed methods are emphasized. Ways of working are horizontal and highlight direct communication. Multiplicity is an important principle guiding the work. The process of making a performance is rethought and redone, starting from the basics. What are the rampa practices that work well for us: how to cooperate in a way that is more accessible, fair and sustainable?
rampa productions is a part of Baltic Circle’s multi-year project Coming Stage, funded by Kone Foundation. There are multiple working groups in the project. Last year Isa Hukka convened the rampa associations -working group that performed at Baltic Circle Festival in November 2022. Theatre Centre Finland granted Hukka and the working group the Theatre Act of the Year -award for their piece “inviting precarious perspectives“.