Reality Research Center (Helsinki, Finland) and Ferske Scener (Tromsø, Norway) in collaboration with Western Norway Research Institute present:
Talking in the Rain – An Entertaining Show about the Weather

Can one learn to feel the weather somewhere where one is not present.
Can one learn to feel the weather of the future.
Can one feel the way others feel the weather.
What is actually talked about when we talk about the weather.

Talking in the Rain – An Entertaining Show about the Weather is a distant performance where the weather will get under your skin. We will find ways of being physical and creating common spaces, even though we will never meet physically in the same space. The performance will take place on your phone, in your surroundings, in a postal package sent to you and in a common virtual space, where the feel-good format of a talk show is disturbed by wet feet, black coal and strong wind.

The performance wants to make the audience sense what humans face when they talk about weather and climate change. The idea behind the performance is simple: people relate to Weather on a personal and embodied level, while the relationship to Climate often becomes an intellectual and abstract exercise. Talking about the weather is absolutely harmless socially. Talking about the climate – not to mention the climate crisis – is a step into a warzone of predetermined political positions. The performance wants to talk about it all; the harmlessness as well as the warzone, and create a space where there is room for excitement, misinterpretation and laughter, while the wind makes it difficult for us to hear each other.

Talking in the Rain – An Entertaining Show about the Weather is an ongoing series of context specific performances, encounters with audiences and different weather conditions. So far, we have done the performance in the Norwegian towns Hammerfest and Sogndal before this third edition in Helsinki, Finland.

Reality Research Center (RRC)

Reality Research Center, founded in 2001, is a collective of artists engaged in performative adventures, with a shared aspiration to observe, question, and renew reality by creating performances. Most of their performances take places outside of traditional art spaces. Exceptional circumstances require exceptional care for the spectator – over the years they have become specialists in audience development, having the spectators and their experiences in the focal point. Reality Research Center is based in Helsinki, Finland. www.todellisuus.fi

Ferske Scener (FS)

Ferske Scener creates context-specific performances that thrill, challenge, ask questions and entertain the audience with provocation and laughter. Their artistic methods adapt to each project, and each performance is developed by a collective that combines experience and fresh ideas. The Arctic region´s conflicts and encounters connected to culture, ethnicity, nature and society, form the framework for our performances, in which Sami, Finnish, Norwegian and English languages are combined. Ferske Scener is based in Tromsø, Norway. www.ferskescener.no

Western Norway Research Institute (WNRI)

Western Norway Research Institute is an international research institute with regional entrenchment. From WNRI, researcher Ragnhild Freng Dale joins the team of Talking in the Rain. She has a special research interest in energy and climate change, with a focus on how local communities are affected by changes both in climate and social structures. Western Norway Research Institute is based in Sogndal, Norway. www.vestforsk.no/en

ARTISTS

Maria Oiva, she/her/hers (Reality Research Center, Co-Artistic Leader of the project) is a performance artist, working widely in the field of performing arts both in national and international level. She has a strong background working with new forms of performative concepts that re-thinks spectatorship, for example in performances focusing on the embodied experiences of the spectator and immersive performances. Since 2015, she has worked with concept of digital stage, and she was awarded the TINFO award for this work in 2019. As an ethical precept of her work she works towards the union of technology and art, harnessing digitality into performative arts via new concepts of performance and generating potential change for the future and life itself.

Kristina Junttila (Ferske Scener, Co-Artistic Leader of the project) is a performance artist and director working within the field of live art. She is especially interested in exploring new performance formats and different modes of audience participation. www.kristinajunttila.com

Kristin Eriksen Bjørn (Ferske Scener) is a dramaturge, writer and a stage director, with a long career of writing text for performing arts. She also writes short stories, articles and essays.

Bernt Bjørn (Ferske Scener) has a 35-year career in acting for theatre and film. He has worked as a manager and producer for independent theater groups and festivals such as Vårscenefest and Scenetekstivalen.

Jussi Salminen (Reality Research Center) is an actor (FIA) and performing artist who works in the border area between ritualistic and performance practice.

Topi Kohonen (guest artist) is an actor (FIA), Master of Theater Arts (Näty 2014) and a performer. He is working widely in the field of performing arts. Kohonen has acted in movies, on television and in theatres around Finland.

Ragnhild Freng Dale (Western Norwegian Research Institute) is a PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University. Dale also works in the context of performing arts with a special interest in themes relating to environmental, climatic and societal themes and she also writes reviews on performing arts.

Salla Salin (guest artist) is a Finnish artist working within the fields of visual art, performance and performing arts. Manifested in multidisciplinary forms but often with a specific focus on space, her works investigate the various layers of reality. Salin’s work has been widely exhibited and performed in solo and group exhibitions and in several venues both in Finland and internationally.