THE SEVENTH SALT

Premiered in Swedish National Television, November 2016

In the pink shimmering desert, dancer Fredrik Quiñones struggles in strong winds and is cast into his rite of passage, in a dramatic environment in Argentina’s Patagonia.

The salt flat vibrates with other forms of life. The number seven represents personal sacrifice and the search for deeper meaning. The salt purifies, preserves, and shines with a new beginning.

SAHARA
 

Premiere at the Swedish Television April, 2013

A dung beetle emerges in a desert landscape and embarks on a transformation.

The shadow operates with surgical precision, pulling the darkness towards the blinding light. The hand buried in the sand, an egg of sun and shadow – the news of death calls for rebirth. The wall of sand cracks, sweeping the animal skull and the dancer with it. The flow of movement turns into a battle. The blue wind blows past.

ARBOR

Premiere at the Swedish Television April, 2013

Under the gigantic thuja tree there is a micro-cosmos. The dancer passes through several stages in the secretive protection of the branches. With the tips of her fingers she feels the thinnest branches, reading the oldest bark with her feet. The rings of the tree of life spin through her body. A high note on the flute opens up a white gate between the tops of the trees.

"Dance is image. Virpi Pahkinen, in clothing which sometimes follows, sometimes reshapes, is part of a moving image. She illustrates nothing. Instead she takes on the form of insects, organisms or a holy dwelling place. The hands that form a diamond standing on its point: a temple? antennae? a snake’s head? Over the years there have been many films and here she incorporates her dance into open, dramatic, secretive landscapes. In the two new works: “Arbor” and “Sahara”, broadcast on television tonight, trees and sand respectively are animated through her movements and presence.

They are only six and eight minutes long; beautiful occasions to stop, experience how a woman writes herself into the trees. Is in them. IS them. Or the sand; it runs like water around legs and hands, it has no beginning and no end."
Margareta Sörenson, Expressen

ATOM BY ATOM

THE GREAT SURRENDER

RETURN OF THE GODDESS

Part 1

Part 2