Lempi (eng. Love/Fondness) is a performance that combines contemporary dance and choral singing, bringing to centre stage young performing artists from Eastern Finland.
Finnish love songs across decades tell stories of love, offering different interpretations of what love is and what it means to be loved and in love. In this piece we question and explore: what is love in 2025?
Lempi is a performance, where we encounter love through queer perspectives – celebrating differences, in togetherness. At the core of the project are the perspectives, authorship and agency of the youth. Love songs are used as access points and material for reflecting on the diversity of love. Lempi wants to challenge normative expectations of love, and find out how to queer the Finnish love song! Drawing from love songs, we go through a timeline thattells stories of our relations to love as a society, and how it has changed and is changing in the socio-political and cultural context of different eras.
The youth from the chamber choir of Lumit, Kuopio Senior High School of Arts, take part in the artistic creation process long-term, as the themes and perspectives of the project are discussed and worked with them in various stages of the process.
Lempi is a performance that combines contemporary dance and choral singing, bringing to centre stage young performing artists from Eastern Finland. Dance artists Eevi Kinnunen and Marikki Nyfors, the chamber choir of Lumit, Kuopio Senior High School of Arts conducted by choir leader Touko Raatikainen, and sound designer Eliel Tammiharju collaborate to create a performance full of singing, dance, and big emotions – and new and exciting versions of well-known and well-loved legendary Finnish love songs!
Direction, choreography, production, performance: Eevi Kinnunen & Marikki Nyfors
Performance, participation in creation process: Lumit Chamber Choir
Sound design: Eliel Tammiharju
Choir conduction: Touko Raatikainen
Participatory queer workshops: Emma Fält
Mentoring: Sari Palmgren / Routa Company
Production: Lisa Kalkowski
Co-productions: ITAK - Regional Dance Centre of Eastern Finland & Lumit, Kuopio Senior High School of Arts
The performance is a production of Riiviöt Ry.
Image: Sampo Jaakkola
Funding: Kuopio250 Anniversary Year, Finnish Cultural Foundation / North Savo Regional Fund, Arts Promotion Centre Finland / Arts Council of South Savo & Arts
Council of North Savo
Residencies: Routa Company, Liisa Pentti +Co, Haihatus, Kulttuuriareena 44
Collaborators: Routa Company, Kauppakeskus Minna, Painotalo Tuovinen
This project has received Kuopio250 Anniversary Year production support and is part of the Kuopio250 Anniversary Year program.
Eevi Kinnunen is a dance artist from Savonlinna. Eevi has graduated as a Dancer from Riveria in Outokumpu and as a Bachelor of Dance from London Contemporary Dance School (The Place). Eevi’s artistic work focuses on queer themes and queer practices, exercising them with the body, voice, video and materia. As a continuous practice within their work Eevi develops various tools for safer and more sustainable working in the field of dance. Eevi works as a dancer and a choreographer, and leads the collectives Riiviöt and Project.tgthr. Latest works: ‘Queering Children's Dance Zine’ (Riiviöt, 2024), ‘A Long Story About Our Baby’ (Project.tgthr, 2023) and ‘Super We, Super Me’ (2022, Riiviöt).
Marikki Nyfors is a Kuopio-born artist working with performance, dance, music, storytelling, writing and dance film. She graduated from the STUDIOS MA program in P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels, Belgium) in 2024. In her work Marikki is inspired by songs, objects, the personal, playfulness, the audience, and sharing experiences and emotions. Her artistic research settles itself around collage and objecthood. Latest works: ‘And My Band Of Lonely Objects’ (2024/Pianofabriek/Brussels), ‘ODDKIN’ (2024/STUK/Leuven & 2025/Horst Club/Vilvoorde) and short film ‘A SLIDE SHOW’ (2024).
Eliel Tammiharju is a sound designer and a performance artist, who works in the fields of music and performance also under the moniker Keliel. The central method of Tammiharju’s sound design is the composition of lack. Latest compository worksinclude ‘SONGBIRD’ at Malmö Intonal Festival (2025) and ‘Afterglow’ presented at New York Performa Biennial (2023) and in Kiasma, Helsinki (2025).
The work is a production of Riiviöt Ry. Riiviöt Ry is a collective led by Eevi Kinnunen and Tasha Hess-Neustadt. The collective creates contemporary dance works for young and adult audiences, the facilitation of different audiences and communities through queer perspectives being at the core of its operations. The collective’s artistic mission is linked to its name: ‘Riiviö’, a rascal, is a figure who can stir up trouble in an existing system or structure, questioning norms of agency and autonomy in youth, and instigating change through playful action.