Turning of the Tide

The sea retreats. For sixty minutes, it seems to stand still. Then it returns.

Turning of the Tide was inspired by an exceptionally powerful tidal phenomenon witnessed in Brittany in the summer of 2022. In that suspended moment - impossible to control and impossible to ignore - a question emerged: How do we choose our direction when life imposes its own limits? What shapes our decisions, and when does the moment itself choose on our behalf?

The libretto draws on original texts by Pia Freund alongside poetry by Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen and Eeva-Liisa Manner, heard in both Finnish and French through translations by Aleksi Barrière.

The musical landscape brings together the voices of three contemporary composers—Tiina Myllärinen, Paola Livorsi, and Lotta Wennäkoski—whose works flow together in a shared theatrical current.

Myllärinen challenges conventional listening through a sound world inspired by foley art, where sound originates from unexpected sources and creates shifting relationships between musicians and dancers.

In Livorsi's compositions, water itself becomes both instrument and performer. Through touch, movement, and electronics, encounters, separations, and discoveries unfold across the passage of time.

Wennäkoski's music is inspired by recurring images in Huotarinen's poetry: a beating heart, hands, wings, and an irresistible desire to fly. Energy gathers, rises, and seeks the air beneath it.

When the sea retreats, the seabed is revealed.

“I cannot change the place I came from. But the sea can.” — Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen

Turning of the Tide is a meditation on transformation, memory, migration, and the forces that shape us. Through music, movement, language, and water, the performance invites audiences to inhabit a moment of stillness before the tide turns once again.