A Photo Remains – A photographic overview of Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo’s choreographies

This photography exhibition features photographs of Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo’s choreographies, taken over five different decades.

The themes of Heikinheimo’s dance works explore communication between people through movement, dance, spatiality, light, costumes and set design. The specific themes include gender, sexuality, the aesthetics of the body, the relationship between dance and architecture, and the way that the dancer interacts with light.

Together with his collaborators, Heikinheimo has created several large-scale dance productions for the theatre hall of Cultural Centre Stoa, including the works Tule pian sillä näen tähtiä (1992), ToF (1998), Afrodisias (2000) and Paina Nappia! (2002), three of which premiered at the Helsinki Festival. The photos of the works were all taken by photographer Sakari Viika.

Sakari Viika is one of the best-known Finnish photographers to have captured dance on film. The long-running collaboration between Viika and Heikinheimo began back in 1991 when he filmed the work Jokamiehen niksikirja, which was created for Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth. This collaboration has resulted in the documentation of almost 40 choreographies through photography. The photographs help to shed light on the history of Finnish dance.

Examples of other photographers featured in the exhibition include Minna Hatinen, Matti Häyrynen and Risto Salmijärvi.

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Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo is a veteran dance artist who has created over 60 choreographies, including three commissioned works for the Helsinki Festival and choreographies for international dance companies and festivals, and has toured the world, performing in 15 different countries from Namibia to Iceland.

Ismo-Pekka has performed in works by renowned international choreographers, including Carolyn Carlson, Andrew Degroat, Sylvie Guillermin, Kilina Kremona, Didier Deschamps, Lea Anderson, Jessica Iwanson, Nanna Nilsson, Christine Meldahl and Ólöf Ingófsdóttir.

He has danced in companies such as Zodiak – Centre for New Dance, the Helsinki City Theatre, Aurinkobaletti, Dance Theatre Hurjaruuth and Dance Theatre Raatikko, as well as in numerous international productions.

Ismo-Pekka graduated as a dancer-choreographer from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1989 and obtained a master of arts degree from the master’s programme in visual culture of Aalto University in 2014.

Between 1996 and 2001, Ismo-Pekka worked as a lecturer in dance at the Department of Dance of the Theatre Academy. From 2005 to 2010, he worked as the regional artist for dance in Central Finland and as the artistic director of the Jyväskylä Dance Festival, which he founded. He has been the choreographer and artistic director of Ismo Dance Company since 2003.

Ismo-Pekka was awarded the Alfred Kordelin Foundation’s grand art prize in 2019.

“I want to create fleeting, previously unhappened encounters between people and ideas. In my choreographic work, I seek to establish a connection between meaning and being, movement and space, and between people. For me, art is about the experiences, the sense of discovery, the exchange of ideas and self-expression that arise through encounters with other people. Art does indeed provide an opportunity for diverse present-day realities to come to the fore. Art is interactive, because people are always in relation to something.”
– Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo