IPAF FESTIVAL - ENTER EXUDE | TEO ALA-RUONA

ENTER EXUDE, teo Ala-ruona, 15.3&16.3.2024, WAREHOUSE9, copenhagen

IPAF Festival presents: Teo Ala-Ruona: ENTER EXUDE
March 15, 17.00 & March 16, 21.30 - Warehouse9

Enter Exude is a cinematic auto-fantasy for three performers and a Chevrolet Camaro.  Born from the anal canal of an automobile, the three techno-brothers derive pleasure from inhaling the spirit of the car – both a symbol of familial and trans narratives. Enter Exude takes the audience on an ominously erotic ride, unfolding on various time scales, blurring the boundaries between life and slow death. Enter Exude delves into contemporary notions of gender, technology, and ecology while crafting simultaneously a hypnotic and haunting experience of unfulfilled desires. The performance is simultaneously exaggerative and intimate, breaking the boundaries of the stage and creating a continuous interplay between reality and the imagined.

Enter Exude continues Ala-Ruona’s series of performances exploring the intertwining of environmental toxicities and trans-corporeality, with bodily transformations and complex sexuality forming an intense, mutually accelerating cycle.

Notes for audience: Enter Exude includes talk about sex and death. The performance also includes close proximity audience contact, from which audience members can opt out if they wish. The performance includes loud sounds and blinking lights.

Teo Ala-Ruona is a Helsinki-based performance artist, whose works delve into somatospeculative fiction, exploring themes such as techno-trans-masculinity, sexuality, ecology, and toxicity. He employs a blend of theoretical discourse, autobiographical text, and psychophysical performance scores to redefine language and narratives that address pleasure and intimacy in the context of a toxic Earth. He approaches trans corporeality as an arena, where various normative processes of naturalization become infeasible, and address queer ecological topics from explicitly sexual perspective to revoke the heteronormative biases that influence the research done on biology and ecology, gender and sexuality. Through the use of the performing body as a canvas for speculative storytelling, he experiments how fiction can transform the ways bodies are understood. Ala-Ruona is committed to the transgressive potential of performance art to push the boundaries of our perception of normality and conventionality.

Ala-Ruona’s work has recently been shown in Performa Biennial (New York), The Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art (Vilnius), The Finnish National Gallery Kiasma (Helsinki), The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (London), Sequences festival (Reykjavik) and Centrale Fies (Dro) among others.

Working group & credits

Summoning, concept and directing: Teo Ala-Ruona
Choreography: Raoni Muzho Saleh, Charlie Laban Trier and Teo Ala-Ruona
Performers: Raoni Muzho Saleh, Charlie Laban Trier and Teo Ala-Ruona
Dramaturg: Even Minn
Set and costume design: Teo Paaer
Sound dramaturg: Kaino Wennerstrand
Sound design: Miša Skalskis
Lighting design: Heikki Paasonen
Producer: Sanna Ritvanen
Pre-production: Jonni Korhonen
Artistic dialogue: Remi Vesala

Production: Kiasma-teatteri, Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Viernulvier, Warehouse9
Supported by: Niilo Helander Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre, Wihuri Foundation, Oskar Öflund Foundation, Suomen Kulttuurirahasto, The Finnish Cultural Institute in Denmark
Residencies: FABRIKKEN, Zodiak-laboratory, BUDA

Warehouse9 is a multidisciplinary arts organisation that supports the development and presentation of work and ideas by LGBTQIA+ artists and cultural practitioners. By supporting radical and innovative arts practices and ideas, Warehouse9 nurtures new thinking, unique experiences and community building.  Warehouse9 is an organisation that strives towards sustainable processes and accessibility in the arts, and creates space for queer art year round.

IPAF Festival is a biannual international performance festival. The festival is an extension of Warehouse9’s focus to support LGBTQIA+ artists and cultural practitioners practice. The festival supports development opportunities, live performance encounters, and creates spaces for dialogue and gatherings. IPAF is back with its 2024 edition taking place 14th – 17th March 2024.