Olotila (State of Being) by Public Artistic Affairs (Finland)

Olotila is a dramatically touching piece of dance theatre with almost sketch-like scenes. It integrates the disabled and non-disabled dance into a whole that lives from consciously placed contrasts and self critique. It crosses boundaries and ignores conventions. The Performance works like a miiror into our inner worlds, presenting feelings of incompleteness and worthlessness, the limits of physicality, as well as joy and pride.



Date: 9 - 10 October 2009 (Friday - Saturday)
Time: 8pm
Venue: Auditorium, Kwai Tsing Theatre
Tickets: $200, $160

The programme lasts for about 105 minutes with 20 minutes intermission.

Tickets available from 28 August onwards at all URBTIX outlets.

Ticketing Enquiries and Reservations: 2734 9009

Credit Card Telephone Booking: 2111 5999

Internet Booking: http://www.urbtix.hk/

Programme Enquiries: 2855 9548 (Ms HO Sze Wai)


"Naturally these override the classically trained helpers in beauty, strength and elegance." 
                                                                                Arnd Wesemann, Tanz Aktuell, Berlin  

The wheelchair is like the pointe shoes: both require exact technique. Even though the shoes are voluntary, both are an obstacle before they've grown accustomed to the body and become part of the physical identity.
                                                                                                                                                    Choreographer / Director Tomi Paasonen


"No one leaves the theatre untouched. The piece is powerful, enriching, liberating and self-ironic.
                                                                                                 Ann Johansson, Maimo Magasinet


Olotila first premiered in September 2000 at the Zodiak Theatre in Helsinki. Olotila has since been performed in Germany (2004), Norway (2006), France (2008) and several times in Finland.

Original Concept
The physical theatre piece Olotila / State of Being explores the body and its fragility, its limits and the cult of its perfection. Here disability is included as part of humanity and not merely a bothersome burden. The piece is constructed of almost sketch-like scenes that proceed one another seemlessly, and in which dancers who are wheelchair users, with visual impairment, with cerebral palsy and professional dancers perform together. Olotila stirs us, and as if holding up a mirror into our inner world we encounter parts of life we all recognize: incompleteness, feelings of worthlessness, the limits of physicality, but also joy and pride.

The piece finds, through the body-language of everyday life and the individual movement of each performer, a touching yet self-ironic expression. It integrates the dancers with and without disability into a whole that gains life from consciously placed contrasts and self critique. The piece achieves to ignore conventions and transgress borders so that, in the end it doesn't even matter who is disabled and who is not.


The Introduction of Performing Group:

Public Artistic Affairs (PAA)
Launched by Choreographer / Director Tomi Paasonen, PAA creates performances and installations using dance, body art, and elements of theatre and new multi-media. In this way, each topic is expressed as a multilayered argument. PAA brings together and collaborates with professional artists of different genres , scientists and layman actors, connecting surreality with reality, theatre with life, and art with documentary.

Tomi Paasonen
Choreographer, director and multi-media artist, born in Helsinki, Finland and based in Berlin. He shares his time making pieces for Kunst-Stoff, a multi-media dance and art production company in San Francisco and directing stage art, creating choreographic structures, making video installations, interactive works, photography and teaching dance in Europe under Public Artistic Affairs.

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