Conversation between Alina Sakko and Kerstin Schroth about Exercise on empathy [a score for performing a human]

Could you tell us about the background and starting point of your performance?

“In autumn 2024, Reality Research Center (RRC) explored the relationship between performance, documentation, reality and memory in the frame of Moving in November. RRC members, artists Alina Sakko and Emma Fält, were invited to recall two works from the Moving in November festival in 2022 without having witnessed them: Matilda Aaltonen and Veli Lehtovaara’s Performing Animalities – A Praxis and Tuomas Laitinen’s Audience Body. Is it possible to remember a performance without having experienced it?”

I had the honour of spending time with the archive materials of Performing Animalities – A Praxis and wondering what began to take shape in my own artistic work through the artistic work of Aaltonen and Lehtovaara. What I did concretely, was to research their archive materials, mostly texts, and then observe how that started resonating in my body and in my artistic thinking. It was really interesting to be in a process of trying to remember someone else’s work and realising the only way I can do the work is with my own aesthetic. Wanting to respect the original work meanwhile having the feeling that I’m making something entirely different. The process was huge for me, as it made me work thematically with something I probably would not have approached without this invitation. My own interest quite quickly started angling towards the animality of a human, thus, what it essentially is to be a human as the animal we are. Which I then realised is actually what I always work with, now the entry point to that was just really different than my usual one. So I feel really grateful for this process and chance to encounter Aaltonen’s and Lehtovaara’s work this way, as it really has widened and enriched my artistic thinking.

Last year my research ended in a performance gesture that took place at Sörnäinen metro station 16.11.2024. This year, I will return to the memories of my thoughts and dances from last autumn. I will ask myself, what do I want to relive and share from the moments at Sörnäinen metro station, what do I want to give more time to, what can remain as memories at the metro station, and what kind of desires and questions does the new space bring up.

How do you situate your artistic work within the Finish performing arts landscape?

Well I think at the moment I’m actually in the process of situating myself and my work in that landscape. I started my career as a ballet dancer and then did my university studies in contemporary dance in London. Moving back to Finland in 2022 I found myself in the weird situation of having been doing dance professionally for almost 10 years, yet entering almost a completely new scene where it felt like I knew no one and no one knew me. I do feel like there is space for my art in Finland, it makes sense for me to dance and make work here. I have been very lucky to make work around the area of Oulu, where I come from. Going straight from my studies in London to make work in Ii and Kajaani gave some sort of freedom to start sketching my own artistic identity outside of the Helsinki art bubble.

My work stems from my solo dance practice and my faith in dance as a medium of doing great things for this world is very strong. However, I feel like my work has started gravitating towards live art, and the big question for me is when is the moment for dance. When does it serve best as a medium and how can it reach its full potential within a performance? I tend to have the need to use text in my work in varying forms; lyrics of a song, spoken or written text. I like the concreteness the words bring next to sometimes so beautifully ambiguous dance. A big influence in my work has been collaborating with my sibling, visual artist Elisa Sakko, as well as being a member of Reality Research Centre. I feel like my years with ballet have stayed in my art as a love for drama and spectacle. My budgets have been small, but luckily, I feel like the essence of spectacle can be reached with the body and right compositional choices. Most of my works have been site specific, first out of necessity and circumstances, but these days because I feel that if I want to talk about being a human it really makes sense for the work to happen in the spaces where life is happening. However, I do dream of a black box solo spectacle.