Returns

Returns is an episodic performance piece, consisting of music, storytelling, and video segments. Weaving together a wide variety of elements, the work explores complexity as a strategy for expression. Stories from the artist’s family - successive generations of Finns immigrating temporarily to Canada, from the 1920s to the present day - form the through-line for the piece, in the form of monologues, home movies, and a lecture. The notion of time as a layered place is explored, by using material from a span of decades, and by discussing theories concerning the permanence of sounds. The stories that are told have decades-wide gaps between them, and in these gaps runs a parallel musical journey, tracing ‘Finnishness’ through folk music, tango, and contemporary influences. Compositional strategies from through-composed to free improvisation are employed.