Hanna Tuulikki: Deer Dancer

Part of Take Me Somewhere festival (21 May - 5 June) 
Supported by Tramway

Live Streamed Durational Performance
Premiere

*Tickets: Access to all Take Me Somewhere festival works and events are via their Festival Pass. Visit their website for info/booking > *

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“★★★★ There’s something undeniably amusing about a tiny woman posturing in various fake beards and codpieces... it highlights the absurd weight we give to ideas of maleness.”

— The Times

Step into the world of Deer Dancer, into the wilderness. Observe five deer-men encounter one another during the rut – the Monarch, Warrior, Young Buck, Fool and Old Sage. Listen to their haunting display calls. Discover how they jump, trot, pronk and stot within their pre-hunt ritual. Watch high-ranking males battle for supremacy, while others defend themselves as best they can.

Step into the world of Deer Dancer. See the theatre; hear the drum beat. Observe a quintet of female-identifying performers take it in turns to play five hybrid characters. In the space between wild-deer-ness and performed male-ness, see them gesture, lip-sync, dance and sing, undressing and redressing into costumes for another round of tragicomedy.

Hanna Tuulikki's Deer Dancer is a complex cross-artform study into our multifaceted relationship with deer. Beginning with mimesis, specifically representations within dance, the work examines how the imitation of deer behaviour constructs ideas of ‘wilderness’ as the site for the cultivation of heroic hetero-masculinities and how hunting mythologies shape and impact real, often vulnerable ecologies. 

Exploring the interconnections between the crisis of ecology and the crisis of masculinity, Deer Dancer is an explicit contemporary life-crisis ritual for a damaged planet. 

For Take Me Somewhere 2021, Tuulikki will re-work her solo performance for moving-image from 2019 into a live ensemble performance.

ACCESS: This is a highly visual work with accompanying abstract sound & music. Audio description & Captioning will be provided at key moments throughout the piece.
This is a durational performance. Stay for the whole thing, or drop in/drop out

CREDITS
Lead Artist: Hanna Tuulikki
Performer-Devisers: Nic Green, Jo Hellier, Simone Kenyon, Fabiola Santana & Hanna Tuulikki.
Character Development & Choreography by Will Dickie, Peter McMaster & Hanna Tuulikki
Dramaturg: Peter McMaster
Movement Director: Will Dickie
Composer: Hanna Tuulikki
Sound Designer & Sound Operator: Kim Moore
Sound Engineer: Kenny MacLeod
Costume Fabricator & Wardrobe Manager: Lydia Honeybone
Producer: Siân Baxter
Production Manager: Nick Millar
Director of Photography: Andrew Begg

“★★★★ playful and meticulously crafted... the characters’ gestures and movements are beautifully matched by a score for voice which is haunting and ethereal.”

— The List

Deer Dancer (2021) is supported by Creative Scotland National Lottery fund, Magnetic North, Take Me Somewhere and Tramway.